Some other updates

We had our first female fur seals show up yesterday! Basically the males
get here a couple weeks early to beat each other up and establish
territories, then the females start to show up and give birth. It typically
starts as a trickle, then suddenly there are moms and pups EVERYWHERE. The
overall noise levels on the cape jump dramatically (unless you are in the
penguin colonies, which are like downtown NYC all the time except with
squalks and trills and slaps instead of buses, helicopters, and street
performers.

Also, it sounds like our SitReps have started to be posted. SitReps (or
Situation Reports for the full fancy name) are our weekly updates of
essentially what is going on on the Cape. It has info about seabirds,
pinnipeds (seals), weather, and camp life. Most likely you wont find the
numbers overly meaningful, but they can still be a fun way to keep up with
what we are doing, especially as I trail off of actually writing anything
here. It also should include a picture or two!

The link is to the right (I think), or else its
https://swfsc.noaa.gov/aerd-field/

I am also working on possibly posting a picture every once in a while. It
will be small resolution to work with our email, but it still might be fun
and I think it will still work on here through just email (in case anyone
is wondering, all this is updated through email since we still have no real
internet down here).

Thats about it for now. Again, sorry this was not that fun or exciting. Its
been a lot more of prepping gear and just making sure everything is ready
for the onslaught that is coming in the next couple weeks.

Oh we did have one fun story. I already wrote about elephant seal weaners
and just the overall ridiculousness that is them. We went out to tag some
more the other day and caught one girl who was the biggest weaner I have
ever seen. She was rounder than most of the previous ones were long. It
looked like she had eaten another weaner. There were jelly rolls folding
over flippers, which barely touched the ground without extreme rolling. The
best part, though was that she knew she was big but she also was not going
to take any sh*t from us lightly. Often when animals get big like that they
kind of adopt a "I'm too big to be messed with" attitude and actually prove
to be much easier to work with overall. Not this girl. No Clertha/ Big
Bertha decided she would make it as difficult as possible for us to do
anything. I was the main wrangler, so my primary job was to control her
head and body. Anyone who has met me knows I'm not huge but I'm not exactly
a small person either. I have about 200 lbs to throw around when needed.
Well she knew that and just didnt care. She was the first weaner (really
the first animal I've ever worked with/ restrained) that just straight
picked me up and took me for a ride. She had both my knees off the ground
and carried me down the beach while trying to toss me off every which way.
Eventually I calmed her down, but then when Doug and Whitney (2 other seal
biologists here) went to touch her flippers, she flipped out again. They
each tried to restrain her hind end while I worked on the front and they
both got tossed like, well, a cowboy on a bucking bronco. In the end all 3
of us had to pile on her to slow her down again. Of course when you only
have 3 people, that makes then working on her difficult because everyone is
in a dogpile. So the pile did break up eventually, we got the work done we
needed to do, and we let her go as good as new. The stare she gave us at
the end though really said it all. There was no fear in her eyes, it didnt
even look like she was angry at her surprise awakening. To me it was more
like, ya you want to go again? Bring it on... humans. I like her.

We've seen her a few times since and she continues to show no fear. While
the other weaners around her will often start to run (bounce) away as we
walk up, which is normal whether you've captured them already or not, she
will stand her ground and just continue to scratch her belly by slowly
wriggling back and forth in place because I'm pretty sure her flippers
couldnt reach.