I don’t think my time here has ever flown quite this fast!
Between visitors, rescue work, whales, and beautiful weather, the past month has gone by in the blink of an eye. It has been incredible and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to be able to work out here.
I know I’ll be back, but until then – here are a few of my favourite moments from October.
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
*WARNING* Today’s blog post contains photos of a severely entangled sea lion with deep wounds.
Well, if my warning wasn’t an indicator – today has not been the most fun day of animal spotting.
I came across a California sea lion this morning with by far the worst entanglement I’ve ever seen. What appears to be monofilament fishing net has wrapped itself so tight that its caused deep wounds on the back of his neck, as well as the rest of the way around. On top of that, the netting is so tightly wrapped around his muzzle that he doesn’t appear to be able to open his mouth.
Given that my full time job is in marine mammal rescue, seeing entangled animals is not new to me, I see them so often that I sometimes feel immune to how awful it is.
Today I am not immune, I am horrified.
All of the right organizations and people have been contacted and I know that every single one of those people will do everything they can to help him. I just hope he stays put until then.
There is a second entangled sea lion here as well, a Steller with a packing strap around its neck which is bad but thankfully not as severe as the Cali.
Moving on to today’s census….with the weather being so bad this weekend, I’m not surprised the numbers are down from last week!
Mammals:
Steller sea lions: 392
California sea lions: 652
Harbour seals: 41
Tons of humpbacks this week and a few transient orca stopped by the jetty yesterday in the midst of the storm!
Birds:
Gulls: 215
Cormorants: 170
Turnstones: 25
Canadian geese: 23
Oyster catchers: 2
Golden-crowned kinglet: 3
If you’ve made it this far, here is a picture of a cute little bird: See the taxonomy page at https://racerocks.ca/regulus-satrapa-golden-crowned-kinglet/
Golden-crowned kinglet. Regulus satrapa
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
When I first saw the Steller pup a couple of days ago I was SO excited. As previously mentioned, Race Rocks is not a rookery so pups are not born here. The nearest rookery would be near Ucluelet and the other well established rookeries are much further north.
I reached out to a few people and I’m told that this pup could have been from the rookery near Ucluelet – which is still very far, or perhaps the mom didn’t give birth at a rookery and rather a different haulout site, which isn’t totally out of the question.
Fast forward to today and I’m photographing the pup when I hear what sounds like a baby goat screaming behind me. I turned around to find yet another Steller pup and its mom! And yes – baby Stellers sound like goats/sheep and often yell out a loud “BAAAAAH”.
Pup 1
Pup 2
I spent about an hour watching these two babies interact with their moms and other sea lions around them, taking so many photos that I’m surprised my camera didn’t catch fire. I finally headed back to the house and stopped dead in my tracks as I noticed a third pup and its mom on the rocks next to the jetty!
Pup 3!!!!
I ran back to the south side of the island to make sure no one took a swim and the other pups were still there. So we now have three whole Steller sea lion pups!
I mentioned in my blog post a couple days ago that we’ve seen nursing moms and pups before but those were much older pups so this is new. These are 2024 pups which means they were born sometime around June-July and are only a few months old!
I can’t wait to watch them over the next 3 weeks and see who else shows up!
I think his mom might be ready to find a babysitter!
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
Over the week I’ve been here I’ve seen the same entangled Steller every day, usually on the same side of the island. Since he had been sighted so regularly we made a plan with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society (VAMMR) to make the trip from the mainland to disentangle him.
The head veterinarian at VAMMR is the only person here in BC that is trained and capable of darting a sea lion with a sedative in order to remove whatever it is entangled in.
There are so many factors that go into planning and executing these response efforts.
Basically, all of these factors need to line up on the same day in order for a response to be planned. That day was today! Both teams available, no wind, good tides, animal seen all week…well until Sunday.
I did not see the sea lion Sunday or Monday despite my best efforts and requests for vessels in the area to keep an eye out. The animal being in the area is of course the most important aspect and without him there is no disentanglement to be done. The response was called off last night, teams standing down until he was re-sighted – a very reasonable decision.
HOWEVER…Guess who was perched on the rock next to the jetty this morning when I did my morning walk around? Yep, you guessed it, our big ol’ Steller with a packing strap tightly wrapped around his neck, and I’m not at all surprised. This is a frequent and very frustrating occurrence in the marine mammal field and had the team come out today I’m sure we wouldn’t have been able to find him. That’s just how it works sometimes.
What now?
From here, we continue monitoring and planning. We all know we want to help him, so as the Ecoguardian I will continue to let both teams know each day that I see him. We will all work together to find another day where we can tick all the factor boxes and get out here to successfully remove the entanglement. It’ll happen!
For now – here is a video of a recent disentanglement done by VAMMR and DFO so you have a bit of an idea what goes into it.
Other things from today:
Facility Work:
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
As frustrating as it can be, I think I actually enjoy repairing the fence every morning. It’s become my morning routine – wake up, start a pot of coffee, take a lap outside and repair the damage, return inside to drink the aforementioned coffee.
The sea lions are entertaining. The Calis are alert at first but immediately lie back down even if I’m two feet away from them fixing the fence. However, the much larger Stellers bolt into the water the second they see me even if they are 100m and 300 Calis away from me. You’d think the larger, more intimidating species wouldn’t frighten so easily.
My lazy site supervisor
Speaking of Stellers – I came across a pup and its mom this afternoon next to the jetty. I witnessed nursing mother/pups when I was here in the spring but those pups were much larger. This pup appears to be from this year meaning he would have been born around June/July. Race Rocks is not a rookery so I’m interested to know where he was born! I’ve reached out to some contacts and will report back. Until then…enjoy his cute little face!
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail!
It’s census day!
This is my first time doing the census since June when we only had about 20 sea lions so this count required some focus.
Mammals:
California sea lions: 731
Steller sea lions: 422
Harbour seals: 72
Elephant seals: 2
Cetaceans: more humpback whales than I could keep track of! At least 30+
Birds:
Gulls: 579
Cormorants: 195
Canadian geese: 16
Turnstones: 12
Whimbrel: 1
Savannah sparrow: 1
Today was beautiful out, a perfect sunny Sunday!
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
Well, it’s been a few months…but I’m back!
I arrived early this afternoon, ready to tuck into another month of living it up on the rocks. The autumn shift from 25ish sea lions to over 1000 is overwhelming, as is the smell. That being said, I love it and I honestly wish there was 1000 more (ask me if I feel the same way at the end of the month).
Sea lions galore!
Another animal that has increased in number since I left is the humpbacks. I cannot look out to the horizon and not at least 10 of them, it is breathtaking.
As I reacclimatized and walked around the island I watched as large California sea lion barrelled his way through the electric fence, stripping the wood right off the post. He then became stuck on the inside of the fence looking very confused about his situation before he tumbled back over. Thus began my first task of this trip and what I anticipate to be a task I re do multiple times a day – repairing the fence.
In other animals news, I came across 2 entangled sea lions. They are both already known to DFO and the Marine Mammal Rescue teams. I believe the Cali is actually scarring from an old entanglement whereas the Steller is still very much active. I’ll be updating the teams to let them know he is still hanging around the area.
Steller sea lion with an active entanglement
California sea lion with entanglement scarring
I also came across a gull looking a little worse for wear with a fishing lure stuck in his beak. It was still very active so not an easy one to try and help. Poor guy!
Ouch!
Well, thats about it for me today, plenty more tomorrow I’m sure!
The Race Rocks 14′ Boston Whaler boat has not been used in a while. After the elephant seals cleared the ramp for their post swim afternoon nap, I lowered the boat to the water with the electric winch. Once I made sure the motor was running properly, I took the boat out for a quick 20 minute ride, including idling to take photos and look in the binoculars. I had back up by VHF radio and cellphone in case anything went awry. Pearson’s boat Second Nature was in the area, taking alumni on tours around the Ecological Reserve. The station boat is running well. I look forward to more around the rocks tours over the coming weeks. I do need to troubleshoot the GPS/SONAR unit before I go out next. Oddly, it was working fine in the boathouse. Race Rocks would be boring if everything worked all the time.
The sea lion population continues to climb with 60 on Middle Rock and 13 on Great Race by the jetty. That is a big difference to yesterday afternoon when there were no barks or belches coming from the main island, just the occasional elephant seal bellow or sleep apnea snort.
Facility work:
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos are taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
I will contact NOAA and DFO to report the resighting of the California sea lion with the tag 13-2. The orange tags mean the sea lion was rehabilitated. The tag on the left flipper means the sea lion is a male. I will update the log when I hear back about his history. The rest of the California and Steller sea lions are currently hauled out on Middle Rocks. Perhaps this guy needs a break from the frat party.
Facility work:
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos are taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **
Census Results:
Mammals:
Birds:
Facility work:
Vessels:
Weather:
** All wildlife photos are taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **