Two years ago, I had the opportunity to join in a research trip to St. Paul, Alaska with a group of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In case you missed my words of wisdom from that trip, here is the start of the eight blogs about that experience.

This year, I was thrilled when the researchers and my bosses gave me the green light to go again! (Clearly I am just a little bit excited.) This biennial research trip involves a study of Northern fur seals to determine the population of the largest breeding colony in the United States. What makes the trip even more dynamic is the fact that we have a brand new addition to our Marine Mammal Department… a baby Northern fur seal! Ursula gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on Tuesday, July 10, 2012. [Learn more about this special event here, and see video of little guy here.]

All images and video taken during this research study were authorized by the Marine Mammal Protection Act Permit # 14327.

~Patty

My last post about my trip to St. Paul to aid in northern fur seal research was back in October. However, there is still so much more that I want to show everyone! If you would like to learn more about my trip, stay tuned for the remainder of the St. Paul Logs. But, if you can't wait that long, you are in luck! Next Wednesday at 7 p.m. I will be giving a presentation about my experiences in Alaska as part of the Aquarium Lecture Series. The lecture is free and you are welcome to sign up in advance.

New England Aquarium Senior Marine Mammal Trainer Patty is participating in the 2010 Northern Fur Seal Pup Count in St. Paul, Alaska. You can scroll through all of her posts from the field here.

A northern fur seal pup snoozing on the rookery.

Remember the challenge at the end of St. Paul: Log #7? Well, how many tags did you find? If you look closely, (and I realize it is a tiny picture on a computer screen) there are three. Here is the picture again with all of the tags circled. Now you can understand why we used binoculars and a scope! The animals are moving quite frequently and a tag can be visible one moment and gone the next so you really need to pay attention.

















The researchers return to the rookeries at the end of breeding season, when the mothers and pups are getting ready to leave the island and migrate. They will remove the tags from the females and use all of the information gathered to help determine the relationship between a marine mammal who spends months on an island but must also travel miles at sea to find food all while raising a pup. Not an easy lifestyle I am sure.

There is still plenty more experiences that I can't wait to share with you so stay tuned!

~Patty

Well, I have seen the last of my shearing days. Today the shearing team I am on is going to finish up at the last of our shearing sights and instead, I am going to learn how to do re-sights. Although the work has been exhausting, I am a little disappointed to miss out on the last day of our team's efforts. I think by day five I was actually able to hold my own and almost keep pace with the more experienced crew members (almost).

The one thing that I never mastered was picking up the pups in a way that prevented them from latching onto my gauntlets. Remember the picture of me in my lovely shearing outfit? Well the leather wrap that went from my wrist to my shoulder is called a gauntlet and it is meant to protect my arm should the pups bite. And they do. A LOT! This is what my arms looked like at the end of five days of shearing...painful! Crew members with more experience usually come away bruise free but that was definitely not the case for me. I'll have to work on that.



And now I head off with Lou and Greg to learn about re-sighting. This is a very important study that has been going on for many years where female pups and adults have tags put on their flippers so that we can track their site fidelity (or likelihood to come back to their place of birth), mothering skills / successful birth rate and age survival.



It's amazing how much information you can get by knowing simply who the individual is based on when and where the tag was first attached. All of this research is done on St. Paul at a location called Polovina Cliffs. The cliffs allow us to observe the animals with minimal disturbance since we are so high above them. There are also blinds built on the cliffs to offer us protection in tough weather. It also gives us a great view of the activity below.

This project has been going on all summer, rain or shine. I had the opportunity to participate for three days and the weather can be daunting but you get caught up in the task at hand and start to forget that your fingers are no longer as mobile as they should be. For 6 to 8 hours the goal is to sight as many flipper tags as you can, note whether or not the female has a pup with her and what the female is or is not doing with that pup. It's kind of like playing a really intense version of Where's Waldo?.

Here, you give it a try. The picture below is a bull male with his harem. In it there is at least one female with a flipper tag. See if you can find any more. For re-sights we have binoculars and a scope but sometimes just using your eyes is the best way to catch a tag. Try it out and see how you do. I'll show you what I found in the next blog. Happy searching!


~Patty

Do you remember when you were little and your parents would tell you to never run with a sharp object in your hand? Well, that rule definitely does not apply during pup shearing on St. Paul! Out here you have a pair of sharp sheep shears strapped to your hip and when a group of pups are gathered together and the signal (it usually looks like that hand gesture from Neo in the Matrix... got the visual?) is given you move as fast as you can over wet, slippery rocks to get to them. The picture below gives you an idea of the topography that we deal with out on the rookeries.

The goal each day is to shear the selected number of pups as quickly and accurately as possible so that we can remove ourselves from the rookery and allow the bull males and their harems to come back up to their territory. So in this situation, running with scissors is recommended (safely, of course). Let me tell you, never before have I felt so uncoordinated! As I try to keep up with everyone else heading to the group of pups there is a constant thought on repeat in my head... stand up, don't fall, stand up, don't fall. I was so grateful to have knee pads on! :)



~Patty

Once suited up for pup shearing (see Andrew in his awesome attire below) we go out on the rookery and Rolf (our other fearless leader) shows us how to properly hold the pup during the shearing process.
~Patty

At the start of the day, we are all given a briefing about our jobs and individual responsibilities as we begin the 2010 Northern fur seal pup survey. The most important thing that we all need to remember is to be "switched on" (a term used often throughout our trip by Rod, one of our leaders) at all times while on the rookeries.

Unlike the New England Aquarium fur seals, the fur seals on St. Paul are NOT trained and that needs to be kept foremost in our minds (especially by a certain marine mammal trainer) as we move onto their breeding ground. This is not a situation where you can walk up to Baranov and give him a morning scratch or open up the hallway door and have Ursula keep you company in the food room. These are males holding onto breeding territory for months and females who are very possessive of the pups that they have just given birth to within the past month. With that being said... I am so excited!


We load into the trucks and make our way to the first of the rookeries where we will begin the shearing. Today's destination is Morjovi. It is one of the two rookeries on the northeast point of the island. The map below denotes all of the rookeries on St. Paul and I will be referring to it often as we begin our survey around the island. We have to go to every rookery to count the pups.... no small task.


Rookery sites on St. Paul Island. Photo courtesy of NOAA.


As the trucks make there way up the road I can feel my excitement rising. To see a Northern fur seal in the wild is something I never imagined having the chance to witness. Our caravan of trucks (fifteen people in total) makes its way through all sorts of different topography until we head through a bunch of sand dunes...



Sand dunes on St. Paul



and then as the road levels out... there they are. Northern fur seals everywhere! I couldn't get my camera out fast enough!


Sub-adult males

Knowing very little about wild fur seal behavior, I was told that the area in the picture is where the sub-adult males (or SAMs) as well as the older males who were not able to hold territory spend the breeding season. This is not considered part of the rookery since no pups are born in this section so it is usually referred to as haul out. There were so many animals there... I could not believe that I was seeing this many fur seals all in once place. Having a small group of fur seals at NEAq seemed like a lot but nothing compares to this!



Male Northern fur seal with harem and pups

My paparazzi moment over, it is time to gear up for the first day of shearing. Check out the picture below to see my fancy garb. Pretty nice huh? :) The weather here can be very unpredictable so we wear multiple layers as well as thick rain gear for an outer layer. Along with that we have a very stylish waist belt that holds a holster and shears that we will use to mark 10% of the pups born this year. We wear gauntlets on our arms to protect us when picking up the pups for shearing. They may only have baby teeth but they are still sharp! And then we wear thick gloves with liners underneath.



Fashionable shearing attire


Here we go!


~Patty

The plane was still pretty heavy though so we made two stops along the way to refuel: one at King Salmon and the other at Cold Bay. Check out this Google map to see where we traveled along the way.



View Trip to St. Paul in a larger map




On the right in the Staff Quarters pic there is a white building which contains the lab, offices and all of our gear. I will become very familiar with this building in the coming days. The main building (the one to the left in the picture above) is the living quarters. We pull up to the door and head inside. There are small apartments and individual bedrooms with enough room to hold over twenty people. Here is a picture of my room complete with a map of St. Paul (hopefully this will prevent me from getting lost :)

Once unpacked, we received a brief intro and then had a potluck dinner complete with chocolate cake with chocolate icing for dessert. Yum! Now it's time to hit the sack. Tomorrow we have to be up and ready to go at 9 a.m. for our first day of work with the seals! (Which is the stuff you really want to see anyway, right?) Stay tuned!

~Patty

50 lbs of apparel: Check
30 lbs of dry goods: Check
20 lbs of produce: Check
20 lbs of electronics: Check
Getting it all to St. Paul: ?

Packing for a three week trip is no easy task (especially when you over pack even your daily lunch). But it is really important to be sure that I have all of the essentials. St. Paul is a 40 sq. mile island with a population of less than 400 people. That, combined with difficult weather conditions, makes it difficult to rely on the store for fresh food stuffs. So it is often times better to send dry goods ahead of time and bring your produce, or "freshies" as they call it, with you on the plane. Also, if I forget something in Boston, it could take more than a week for it to arrive in St. Paul so I need to think carefully about the items I want to bring. I definitely have to pack cameras to record all of the amazing things I hope to see, enough gear to keep me warm and dry while we are out doing the field research, and... and... this is going to be a problem.


Lots of luggage

Well, I am finally packed and ready to go. I have sent my dry goods off ahead of time and now have to drag 90 lbs of luggage with me to the airport. First stop Anchorage, AK. I am on a US Air flight that is packed but have a pleasant person to talk with next to me, which really helps when the flight is 7 ½ hours long!


Heading to Anchorage, AK

The view is beautiful along the way. Blue sky above and, towards the end of the flight, snow-capped mountain tops below.


Blue skies and...


Snow-capped mountains

Two movies, two meals and one nap later I have finally made it across the country to Anchorage. There is a four hour time difference and we land at 8 p.m. when in Boston it is actually midnight.

It is an amazing drive to the hotel with mountains replacing the Boston skyline.


Anchorage skyline

By the time I check in it and get to my hotel room it is almost 9:30 but there is no sign of the sun going down. During this time of year, Alaska has almost 24 hours of sunlight. Better try to get some shut eye though because tomorrow is the big day... I'm off to St. Paul!

~Patty

The New England Aquarium has given me an amazing opportunity. Over the course of the next three weeks, I will be able to observe Northern fur seals first hand in the wild! I will be joining a group of researchers from NOAA to take part in their biennial Northern fur seal pup survey on St. Paul Island, AK. The picture below will give you a better idea of exactly where I will be.

- Patty