Females with tags circled in purple.

After doing three days of re-sights, I was able to tag along (no pun intended) :) for the tagging of adult females at a site called Zap Reef. As one of the many research studies being done while we are out here on St. Paul, female fur seals on various rookeries are equipped with GPS tags which give scientists a lot of important information regarding where and for how long northern fur seals leave the rookeries to search for food in the ocean. Only females that have given birth to a pup this year will be selected to wear these tags. This ensures that they will be leaving and returning to the island frequently over the next few months as they feed their pups to get them big enough to leave the island on their own. These new moms will provide excellent information about how far out to sea they feed, how far down they dive to find food, and how many days they need to stay at sea to find enough food to return back to the rookery. The picture below shows what one of the GPS tags looks like.