Some Firsts...

So I had a few firsts for this trip/ my life this last weekend. Not all of
them are "good" per se, but they were bound to happen I suppose.

The first first was I ran for the first time in Antarctica. Unfortunately,
this wasnt a pleasant joyful jog around the neighborhood. In fact, it
wasn't even for the exercise and cardio to keep my body from getting overly
mushy. No, I ran because I was being chased.

Generally when you walk around here, you keep your eye on the bull fur
seals. They are the biggest, they're deceptively quick, and they don't
really take kindly to foreigners encroaching on their ladies. However, the
bulls get it. Other than a few slightly over agressive ones, they are
concerned about their ladies and keeping as many as possible, so if you
walk away, they dont follow. Therefore, the real ones you have to watch out
for are the ladies themselves. I found this out the hardway (although I did
know it from whats now 2 months of life here).

To stop stalling and get to the story, there is one female fur seal in
particular that is something of legend. I have heard multiple stories of
other people encountering her and only escaping by swinging their hightech
self-defense weaponry, aka a ski pole, wildly back and forth and hoping to
land a glancing blow that wont so much hurt her but at least confuse her
just long enough to get away. Think of it like throwing a dud smoke bomb at
your feet, but you still yell "SMOKE BOMB!" and then giggle as you run
away. The problem with these stories I kept hearing is nobody ever bothered
to tell me WHERE they were. Well I can tell you now, she hangs out at Playa
de La Caverna.

This weekend was our cape-wide pup census. It's exactly how it sounds. 3 of
us walk all the beaches on the cape and count every puppy we see. I ended
up counting about 2,113 puppies in total. On La Caverna, I was the second
person to count that beach for the day. The beach only has one entry/exit
point, but is this cool little rocky outcropping with a small, but
surprisingly deep cave behind it. I walked through, counted pups, checked
out the cave, no problem. On my way out, literally at the very edge of the
animals, I stopped to take one last look around for any straggler pups I
might have missed. As I turned, I saw a female coming at me. This isnt
totally uncommon, females will defend pups and often give you something of
a bluff charge, especially once you give them a good poke wiht your
skipole. The problem was, this female did not stop. She ran right over the
pole, biting her way up it. This made me jump to say the least. After
jumping a few feet away, I looked back to see her continuing to come
straight at me. You can tell when a fur seal is pissed because their eyes
get huge and all crazy looking. She had the crazy eyes. It kind of makes
you flashback to highschool when you could only dream of girls just
throwing themselves at you. They tell you about the crazy ones, but you
never believe them... until its too late...

Quickly calculating that my flimsy ski pole was unlikely to provide much
protection in this situation, I did what I only assume is a routine
occurance for the likes of Justin Timberlake, One Direction, and other
similar celebrities- I ran from some crazy chick. Unfortunately, as I
mentioned, the beach only has one way in or out, otherwise its water or
sheer cliff, and that one way out, while close to where I was, was not
exactly smooth sailing. It was more like steep, potentially slippery rocks.
I ran anyway. Fur seals, as awkward looking as they are, are surprisingly
quick on land and I couldnt get any distance between her and me as I tried
to scramble up a rock. So at one point, I turned to do what I could to fend
her off. Reluctant to turn and just start hitting her or kicking her, I
tried to use my skipole to get it between me and her and essentially push
her away/ slightly down the hill from me. The skipole broke in half. Woops.
At that point, if I fell, she would be on top of me bitey end first.

This brings me to my other first, and this one is actually a semi
surprising lifetime first.

Saturday Dec 27 2014 I got bit by a pinniped for the first time. Now
luckily I had a few things going for me. First, I was just about at the
edge of the beach when the skipole broke and was just starting to make some
headway up a snowy embankment. This meant I was likely at the edge of where
she might follow. Second, I was wearing large ski gloves. When push came to
shove at that pivotal breaking point (literally), I went for the push or
shove. I basically used what was left of my pole and my other hand to try
ot push her down. It kind of worked. She got hold of my left hand with her
mouth. To just go ahead and ruin the drama, she only bit the tip of my
middle finger and because of the gloves, didnt even break the skin. She
pulled the glove clean off, which probably gave her a sense of
accomplishment and helped end the chase. It still hurt pretty badly though
and now the end of my finger, including under the fingernail is all black
and blue. It could have been much worse though.

Female fur seals aren't huge. They are about 40-60kg (maybe 90-130lbs).
Really they are more like a medium sized dog though. That being said, even
little dogs can bite pretty hard. I'm glad that my first true bite (not
counting the puppies here that try to chew on my hands on a daily basis)
wasn't a terrible one. Seal finger is a very real bacterial infection you
can get and, while our medical supplies are very well stocked, help is
never closeby. At the same time, I am a little embarassed to say I was run
down and viciously mauled on the tip of the finger by a girl seal.

So morals of the story- always look out for the crazy girl in the crowd and
dont bring a skipole to a bite fight.

White summer christmas

So just a quick update, since I have to go eat dinner in a few minutes...

We had almost a solid week of nice weather. It was the first week with an
average temp above freezing. A lot of the snow has finally started to melt,
though there is still plenty on the ground. To help it out, it has been
snowing all day so we have a nice layer of fresh powder.

This morning the weather was actually kind of nice. It was snowing, but
there was no wind and it was actually almost 40F outside. The snow was that
nice, dry, light fluffy stuff that just makes you want to start a battle by
pelting someone in the back of the head with a well crafted snowball (I've
been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes at breakfast...).

We also finished our perinatal captures officially the other day, so things
have finally slowed a little. However, we are just starting up our diets
analysis work, which will continue through the rest of the season.
Basically we collect 10 scat (that science for poop) samples each week,
sift through them, figure out what they've been eating, and measure and
analyze it for whatever we need. Often it involves mostly pulling out
carapices (again, science for shell) of krill, which are small shrimp like
creatures that feed pretty much everything in the ocean. They are very
small though, and have already passed through an animals digestive tract.
The common metaphor here is its like trying to find a 1/2 inch piece of
saranwrap that has been rolled up and throw into a pile of crap. You then
have to unroll it to measure it while taking great care not to rip it or
damage it, otherwise you get to start all over. Now do that 20 times per
scat. Basically it ends up taking about and hour to an hour and a half per
scat. Luckily we have 3 people working on them this year, usually its only
2. If you find fish bones, its a whole other level of figuring out the
species and how degraded the bone is (specifically we look for otolith
bones, which are unique to a species and can tell the age of the fish as
well). Its all very cool science once you (literally) sift out the
information.

Our Christmas plans will be similar to Thanksgiving. Smoking some turkeys,
eating lots of food, minimal working, but still working some. We are also
doing a small gift exchange. Unfortunately none of the returning people
remembered to tell us new people this happens so none of us came prepared
with gifts, so we had to get creative. The most common is to give "gift
certificates" for common camp chores, like dishes, slop bucket, etc. My
plan is to have a goody bag with a series of chores and people pick
randomly to see what they get. That way, I dont have to pick favorites and
I dont have to do the same chores over and over. I tried to be creative and
make something, but you (legally) cant take anything from Antarctica so
even if I was awesome and carved a bone I found (original idea), nobody
could take their present home with them. So I'm just being creatively
boring.

Finally, our latest SitRep should be coming out soon if its not out
already (https://swfsc.noaa.gov/contentblock.aspx?
id=13620&ParentMenuId=42). It should feature a photo of yours truely having
just shovelled out a trench halfway through Antarctica to expose our long-
buried path to the shop and generator. We might get to send a photo out for
Christmas, so I will try to post something here, otherwise it will go to my
parents and they can distribute it accordingly (if we even get that
bandwidth increase for a day).

A Break in the Action

Has not happened yet... We are keeping busy, but we are almost done with
our perinatal (basically when females are having pups) captures period. We
have so far caught 41 seals in the last 2 or 3 weeks. By the time this is
posted we will hopefully have caught 2 more to reach our required sample
size for one of our CCAMLAR projects.

First off, CCAMLAR is basically the governing body for Antarctic research
and they require you to submit certain project data to continue working
down here. Or something like that. The main data we submit is trip
durations of females with pups, so 32 of the captured females get VHF (very
high frequency) tags that we can monitor essentially 24 hours a day through
two automated data recorders to see when they are on shore and when they
leave. Basically we have exactly what I WISH I had had for most of my
masters project. This is more how its supposed to be done, rather than me
spending hours in my car driving up and down the coast looking for seals.

Once these captures finish up, things will hopefully calm down a little for
a couple weeks. We still do daily tag resights and other work, but we wont
be catching seals everyday. The resights are getting a little tougher
because pups are getting more adventurous so they have started wandering
all over the place. The moms too, so you have to search a little more to
make sure you get everyone.

That being said, the number of females on the beaches has dropped like
crazy. Females usually stay with their pups for about a week after its
born, then they begin going to sea for often several days at a time to
forage. When they come back, they find their pups on the beach by calling
to each other, then the pup usually nurses until its belly looks like its
about to pop. This is especially true for pups of females that make longer
trips because they are nearly starving before mom comes back, then they
gorge themselves silly. This is usually followed by something of a milk
coma, where you can actually walk right up to them sleeping on their backs
and at most they might give you a half-ass growl. You can even rub their
belly a lot of the time without them having the energy to do anything about
it because they are so full. Its like Thanksgiving day for them ever 2-5
days.

So anyway, many of the moms are now off foraging, leaving just packs of
puppies roaming the beaches. While they still sleep a good amount of the
time, many are also starting to form little gangs that romp around
together. I saw one chasing a skua, which made me very proud.

It is a little weird how attached you get to some of the animals just
because you see them everyday. I only recognize a handful (it helps that
the pups of those ladies with VHF tags get names and symbols bleached on
their butts), but you still get to know them and where they hang out. One
of the tiniest pups I have seen here also happens to be one of the fiercest
and I love it. He doesnt take it from anyone. My marked pups also happen to
be named Arya (we have a game of thrones theme going), Kitty, Bubbles, Pi,
Carmen Sandiego, Rage, Wienerschnitzle, Funkmaster Fred and Aunt Jemima, so
you find yourself saying hi and checking in with them each day. Making sure
that the other pups arent being mean or calling them bleach butt. Actually
Funkmaster Fred is one of the biggest pups out there. I also almost got a
video of Arya chasing Kitty, which as anyone who has recently watched Game
of Thrones might remember, her dancing master tells Arya to catch cats as
practice for swordsmanship...

Speaking of GOT, I'm mad at that show. They finally killed my favorite
character. I know, I know, they kill EVERYONE (spoiler alert...), but
still. I wont say who it is or what season we just finished or whatever,
but fell free to guess. Now I'm a little turned off of watching future
episodes.

In other non-animal news, we also recently watched the Lego movie. I went
into it thinking ok this could be fun, but its a kids movie so who knows,
maybe they will pull something off... I have to say that movie is one of
the best and funniest I have seen this year. I highly recommend it to
anyone, kids or adults (many of the jokes I think are targeted for adults).
Even if you didnt play with Legos and therefore didnt have a childhood, you
will enjoy the movie.

I have also been reading a Bill Bryson book, which I am a big fan of. This
one is I'm a Stranger Here Myself, which is a collection of short newspaper
articles he wrote for a british paper about moving back to America after
20 years in England. I also highly recommend In a Sunburned Country, which
he wrote about travelling through Australia. A lot of the humor I try to
incorporate into these posts comes from his style of writing... I probably
shouldnt be giving those secrets away...

Thats it for now. I am continuing to lure puppies and elephant seal weaners
alike to be my friend and hang out. Maybe once we have a slightly more
flexible schedule I will get to spend some quality time with them, at least
before they become leopard seal poop...

Working Hard and Keeping Busy

So this will actually be short, because I am too exhausted to get overly
sidetracked. When your brain is spent, your train of thought if more like
the little engine who could. Except he doesnt always make it over the
hill...

We are in the heart of our perinatal season. This basically means "the time
when moms have pups." Median pupping occured somewhere around today,
meaning the maximum number of pups being born happened maybe today or
yesterday. One of my beaches has around 150 pups on it alone. The sad thing
is that 10 years ago, there were something like 3 times as many pups on
these beaches. There used to be puppies roaming around the deck of our
cabin all the time, now we will be lucky if any wander by (although this
isnt all bad, I'm told that trying to sleep while a batch of pups have
wrestling matches and races around the building can be a bit difficult).

So the moral of the story is, we have been working hard to retrieve tags
that overwintered here (remember, its summer here now), put out new tags to
monitor behavior over the summer, and just generally keep track of who is
who on the beaches. Its been mostly 8-12 hour days, and those 8 hour ones
were primarily because the weather sucked and was snowing/raining on us.

It has also been slightly warmer recently, which seems awesome at first but
causes 3 main problems: 1) The snow on the ground turns soft and slushy,
meaning each step you take is like russian roulette of am I going to find
firm ground or sink to my knees. In this case though, there are 5 bullets
and one blank, so even when you win, you think you're going to lose and it
ends up being just as hard to walk. 2) Instead of just snowing all the
time, now it sometimes decides to rain, or sleet, or some weird combo of
all 3. Snow is generally relatively dry. Rain is not. Rain is wet, about as
wet as it comes. I'm told that rainy and overcast is more "typical Cape
Shirreff weather." Joy. And 3) I have finally aclimated/ figured out what
clothing to wear to keep myself warm here. Long underwear, work pants,
bibs, fleece sweater, outer shell jacket, hat. And a facemask of some sort.
Now, however, I get overheated. Its amazing what just a couple degrees
difference makes. Actually, I think this really circles back to problem one
more than the actual temperature difference in that walking is so much
slower and more difficult, you work up a sweat.

Today on my walk back from my beaches, normally about a 10 minute hike,
while struggling to pull each foot out of the snow with each step, I
realized that, more than being tired and wanting to get back to the cabin
to sit down, I was just getting bored... I was moving so slow that I would
look around thinking I must be almost there and realize I had barely gone
anywhere. Its amazing how hard you can work to get almost nowhere (like
Grad School... am I right?).

We also saw an adult leopard seal today hanging out on one of my beaches.
They are pretty ridiculous looking when you get up close. Their heads are
almost comically large while their lips get all wrinkly, making them look
like a really old lizard that wants to gum up a piece of lettuce. Except
instead of gum it up, they use their set of large, very sharp teeth. And
instead of lettuce, its a penguin, or baby seal, or adult seal for that
matter... or your face if its in the mood.

Last note before I go to bed. It will be about leopard seals because thats
the last thing we talked about here- Its very interesting (to me at least)
the dynamic of leopard seals in water vs out of the water. In water, they
are a fearsome killer. Just to clarify, I still think they are cool and
they are not mindless killers or anything, but they do kill to eat and they
eat a lot. They are also one of the only marine mammals that I know of that
has been known to intentionally kill a human in the wild. Killer whales
never have (documented at least), so keep that in mind. They have big
powerful jaws and teeth that allow them to take down even adult female or
juvenile fur seals that are not huge, but not tiny either. But when
leopards are on land, there is almost no fear of them by the tasty morsels
walking all around the Cape. Penguins walk right by without hesitation.
Fur seals allow them to share beach space with them. That being said, there
have been increasing numbers of reports here of leopard seals actually
taking pups while on land, but generally its rare. Usually the leopard
waits in the shallows for a naive pup to venture a little too far into the
deep end. So the whole relationship is different. Kevin, the other pinniped
tech here, said he has actually seen a penguin standing on top of a leopard
seal on shore! If a juice cheeseburger found its way onto my belly, I would
probably eat it, or at least take a good stab at it.

My guess is that leopards ("sea leopards" as they are often called in old
timey books, aka early 20th century even) are built for killing in the
water, so even though they could kill many things on land, they dont. Its
much easier to injure and drown your prey than to outright kill it on land
where there are rocks and pointy objects that could scratch your valuables
(like eyes...). So why chase down food that runs away when you can just
camp out and have room service deliver it to you? Thats my guess. Its still
funny to see though.

I know I said this would be short but I just thought of another comical
fact I learned yesterday about penguins (it relates to leopard seals
kinda). They are afraid of water. Makes sense to be weary about the ocean,
they get eaten there, so lining up and waiting for one brave sole to take
the plunge (or get pushed in), and then having everyone dash in at once
makes sense. However, apparently these ultra geniuses of the animal kingdom
will do the same thing with a stream that is maybe 3 feet wide and not more
than 6 inches deep. I haven't observed it first hand yet, but I am told
they will line up at the end of the stream and just wait until a large
group has amassed. Then when someone yells fire, they all run, dive, roll,
try to fly, and use any other means necessary to ford the raging river of
death where a 14' leopard seal obviously must be hiding...

Yet they will jump on top of an ACTUAL leopard seal if its on land.
Freakin' penguins...