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...
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