Final Updates

Its been a while. I apologize for that. Also, this will be the last
post I make for this season.

Currently I am bobbing off the coast of Argentina waiting to enter the
Straights of Magellan and transit over to Punta Arenas, Chile. My camp
got picked up by the Laurence M. Gould on the 19th and we have been
making our way north since. We are actually way ahead of schedule,
having made very good time across Drake's passage. Unfortunately, its
more costly and logistically difficult for the ship to arrive 2 days
early than it is for them to just drive super freaking slow for a day or
two. We will still get in a day early, but we have been going about 5-7
knots for the last 24 hours. That's a light jog.

The only thing worse than being trapped on a ship with nothing to do
for 4+ days is to be trapped on a ship that is known for being extremely
rocky. The Gould is a great ship for its basic functions- like staying
afloat and providing a bed for travelers. Beyond that it largely
resembles a bright orange bath toy with little water wings on either
side of the bow. I've heard conflicting reasons for the water wings-
they may be to help stabilize the boat when its main crane is in
operation, or its to help the ship break through ice. The ship is
considered ice class, meaning its not exactly an ice breaker, but it can
deal with ice a couple inches thick. The way ships like this generally
do that isn't so much by plowing into the ice, but actually they
essentially drive the bow onto the ice and crush it. Therefore, the
water wings help give the front some extra buoyancy to get on top of the
ice. Also to help this, the hull is generally very rounded so it can
slide up on top of the ice. Again, anyone who knows a little about boats
will recognize that round hulls just slosh around in the waves.

Pretty much this all comes together to say I felt pretty sick the first
day or two. As much as it pains me to admit it, I do get seasick. I wish
I didn't, but I can't exactly help it. Exacerbating the problem is the
fact that until Saturday I hadn't been on a single moving object, except
a few brief runs on an ATV going about 7mph on solid ground. Try to
imagine that. Imagine you haven't sat in a car, bus, train, airplane,
even a bicycle since October! Then jump on fallen tree trunk and try to
ride it down some class 4 rapids. It's a bit of a shock to the system.

On the upside, I have adjusted (and we reached calmer waters), so now I
just get to be bored instead of bored and feeling like crap.

Before the ship picked us up, we were able to fully close camp and get
some special projects in too. As far as I know, we officially had the
longest continuous stay at Cape Shirreff of any Americans. We were
dropped off a few days earlier than usual and picked up a couple weeks
later than usual (all due to boat schedule, not our call). I somewhat
selfishly made sure I was the first one to get off the zodiac back in
October and I slyly positioned myself to be the last one on the zodiac a
few days ago so I can say I officially hold that record by a few
seconds. Stupid? Yes. Maybe a little petty? Probably. Am I happy about
it anyway? Absolutely.

This season has to have been one of the better experiences I've had in
a long time. I was extremely impressed by my crewmates and had more fun
with all of them than I would have thought possible. Its always a tricky
situation when your world shrinks like that. Suddenly you have only a
handful of people who, depending on the day, are now your best friends,
your coworkers, your confidants, your enemies, your everything just
about. This is of course not to undermine the love and support I have
gotten from people back home, which I am immensely appreciative of. But
it also makes you realize how one bad egg could change everything in
place where you cannot escape that person.

Because of how well this season went, there is a good chance I will end
up back down here as early as this coming October. I have to see how
some things play out, but it is a distinct possibility. Plus I ALREADY
miss the puppies! The whole crew went on a walk the day before we got
picked up to an area dubbed the puppy ponds. Basically its just a small
runoff pond that formed this year where up to 50 pups can be found just
frolicking. It very well might be one of the happiest places on Earth.
When the pups are wrestling each other or scratching themselves to aid
in grooming/molting, they are usually practicing their acrobatic moves.
When we were there these moves mostly were launching yourself out of the
water onto the icy shore surrounding the pond and practicing porpoising
(jumping out of the water as you swim, like a dolphin).

Often both these activities result in adorable failures. Porpoising
becomes shooting straight up in the air then belly flopping back down
into the water. Launching onto the shore is often undermined by poor
judgements of distance resulting in crashing into the bank or another
pup. Even when they do make it up on shore (which to be fair was most of
the time), they had to contend with the fact that it was so icy and
smoothed out by EVERYONE doing this, that they often couldn't get much
of a grip. This would result in them pulling a Shamu at SeaWorld type
move of jumping onto the ledge and then slowly sliding sideways back
into the water. Even funnier is when one of the bigger pups decides to
be tough and waits on the edge for another pup to launch out of the
water. The big pup then runs over and pushes the jumper back in the
water with a solid chest bump. And don't worry, sometimes it works in
reverse. Sometimes the big pups try to keep other pups on shore,
practicing their herding instincts and trying to form tiny puppy harems.
This often ends in everyone slip sliding into the water and then trying
to race to see who can get back on shore fastest. Or when in doubt, just
go for the big rock in the middle of the pond to proclaim yourself King
of the Rock.

So just multiple all that by 30-50 seals and you have yourself a pretty
good time. The pups there also tend to be a little friendlier and more
naïve to our presence. Every 2 weeks in January and February we would
weigh 100 pups to get an idea of how healthy the population is.
Unfortunately, this activity often means breaking the trust of some of
the pups because they don't exactly enjoy being caught. However, the
pups at the ponds were generally from an area we never went to for these
weights, so they are still curious about us.

When you first show up at the ponds, its completely normal to have 15
pups come rocketing out of the water and lining up on the shore to stare
at you. Much like dogs, they will often do the adorable head tilt thing
when looking at you as if trying to get a better view. Sometimes they
even turn around and look at you upside down as if that will somehow
make you make more sense. If you sit down for a little bit, they will
often come right up to you and feel you out by chewing on every dangly
thing of yours they can find. This often includes zippers, straps, ski
poles, and fingers. After a while, they get bored and return to playing
with each other, but if you really commit to staying there (or take a
nap there as Whitney has on more than one occasion), you will often end
up with on crawling over you or tickling your nose with their whiskers
to investigate you more. It's a hard place to leave sometimes.

Ok enough rambling about puppy ponds. As some of you may know, I am
planning on traveling for about a month before heading back to the US. I
will be going through Patagonia and the Chilean Lake District, as well
as spending some time in and around Santiago and Buenos Aires. So I will
continue to have limited email access. That being said, limited email is
better than no email, so feel free to email me or leave comments here if
you need to reach me.

::Photo Notes::
My favorite pup who managed to make it the entire season!
Some pups in one of the many ponds, though this one isnt at the big one
I talk about above.
Closing crew minus Jesse our NOAA Corps officer

Delayed updates

I originally wrote this Feb 17, but forgot to send it. Oops...


Things have generally started to slow down around here, though we do still
have occasional busy days. We had a wave of bad weather this week with the
worst being Tuesday where winds hit 66 mph at the main camp and 98 mph at
the bird blind! 98 miles per hour. That's a lot of miles. In many places
they would call that a hurricane. Here its just a weather day. It did mean
we mostly stayed inside all day and caught up on data entry/ watched some
movies. We managed to go out later that afternoon and do basic resights,
but everyone avoided the hills and particularly gusty areas. I did get to
run down one hillside like I had a tether attached so I could lean way
forward and despite feeling like I was running fast not actually going all
that far.

We've also started getting fledge weights on the chinstrap penguin chicks.
This involves getting up before sunrise (so about 4:45am these days),
trudging out to the penguin blind (which is really more of a small shack
than a blind), changing clothes, going down to the intertidal, and looking
for the small, very confused looking birds nervously contemplating what
will happen when they make that eventual leap into the great unknown.
Usually the first thing they will come across is another rock- it takes
them a while to learn how to steer in the water.

Anyway, when we find these birds that are just about to fledge, we snatch
them up and weigh them before sending them on their way. Weight at fledging
can say a lot about a chicks chances at survival to the next year so it is
really important data. Unfortunately today was the first day we went out
and the chicks all got together and made a pact to wait a few days longer.
So Tony and I searched in vain, go zero weights off zero fledglings, and
came trudging home to try to go back to sleep for another hour or so. (Feb
23 update- Matt went out and got 53 fledge weights this morning, so they
are definitely getting things together)

I say trudging a lot because with all the wind the last couple days, it has
also snowed and been cold (a couple degrees below freezing- and yes I
realize the east coast is currently going through some freezagedon again).
So our paths are now all snow/ice covered and make walking difficult again.
Hurray… Last year it didn't snow until late February or March and that
barely stuck. I think this last coating will melt, but it still makes
things difficult for the time being.

We also have a new camp leader flying in tomorrow (got delayed, should be
here Feb 23 or 24), which will be interesting. I have met him before and
really like him, it just means changing the dynamic of the camp again.

The new guy is the head of the penguin program too, which will be great to
get some questions about penguins answered, but also means I will be back
to being in charge of all things seal related. Its great to have the extra
responsibility, but it can also be a little terrifying to have the extra
responsibility! It will be fine though and realistically we only have a
couple more weeks of work here before we begin closing camp, inventorying
everything, and prepping for the ship to arrive and take us away and back
into the real world where I hear everything is happy and peaceful and
nothing dumb is happening with politics ever… We get the New York Times
digest here, I know that may not be exactly how the world is at the moment.
Oh and no, I did not see Star Wars yet! I'm working on it!

In other news (added 23 Feb), we rescued an entangled juvenile fur seal
today. It had some nylon twine around its neck that was starting to cut
into the skin. We were able to grab him really quickly, remove the twine,
and send him on his way. It was my first experience disentangling an animal
(that I hadnt intentionally ensnared...). Its nice to do some good and
have an actual, tangible positive impact every now and then, even if its
just on one animal.

Celebrating on the other end of the world

I have many things I could update here, but unfortunately its late and I'm
tired, so I wont go into too much detail (famous last words).

First things first, tomorrow (Jan 31st) is my birthday! Hurray for me. I
actually really don't like making a big deal about my birthday, but when
you are in a small group of people looking for any excuse to celebrate, you
inevitably get a party. We are smoking some turkeys, making lots of food,
cake, ice cream, drink… the usual stuff. Even in this far away land you can
put together a pretty good birthday party. Of course we also still have to
work, so that's a bit of a bummer, but I think we will keep the work to a
minimum (or I hope at least). I'm also hoping to shower, which will be my
first shower since Thursday… of last week…

In other news, we continue to catch fur seals to put out fancy instruments
or recover old ones. These tags tell us things like where the seal goes,
how its diving (depth, temperature), and we have some new tags that
actually tell us the three dimensional movements of the seal every 1/8th of
a second, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. Every turn, spin,
lunge, etc. is recorded. When you get it all together you can actually
reconstruct a seal's dive down to its every move. We are hoping to be able
to decipher what they are eating (krill or fish) based on that behavior
(e.g. you have to chase fish more). I likely wont be a big part of the
analysis of the data, but I hope someone fills me in later!

So during one of these captures I also go bit… again. Anyone who read this
last year might remember my harrowing, dramatic, definitely not over
exaggerated story of being chased down the beach by a crazy female fur seal
that ultimately caught up to me and gave me a good chomp on the finger.
Well this wasn't nearly as dramatic, though it was my left hand that got
the damage again.

The short version of the story is that we were capturing a seal who was
particularly feisty and had managed to keep herself from getting fully into
the narrowed end of the net. Among my many jobs here is restraining the
animals while they are in the net until we can sedate them and its safe to
get off the animal. When they get themselves in weird positions in the net,
it can mean that I have to simultaneously try to keep them from moving too
much and move them around to get them into proper position. Basically in
this case, I thought her head was more restricted than it was and she
managed to spin on my and tag me. It was not a terrible bite since it was
through the net and somewhat of a glancing blow, but it did remove a chunk
of skin about an inch long and half an inch wide on my thumb (along with a
~1/2 inch cut in the middle of the removed skin). She also got my index
finger and the top of my thumb a little in the process, but they were just
little cuts. Fortunately, due to the adrenaline of the capture, I didn't
even realize she had really cut me until I took off my gloves back at camp
30 minutes later.

The moral of the story is it was my fault I got bit. The seal was just
defending herself after I had thrown a net on her and jumped on her. I
should have been more cautious about where her head was and how much wiggle
room she had (plus she was just sneaky). I was lucky it wasn't worse, but
when you work hands-on with animals, getting bit is just part of the risk.
It is a good reminder to not take things for granted or let your guard
down. Although most of the seals here are fairly accustomed to our
presence, they are still wild animals. A full-size male fur seal could do
some serious damage, if not probably kill me if he really wanted to. Lucky
for us, they generally choose not to pick huge fights with us and just beat
up on each other.

That's it for now. And just so you know, yes getting bit by a seal can
carry a huge risk of infection (their mouths are nasty!), but I have been
keeping my cuts super clean and am going to be just fine (the cut on my
thumb didn't even break my latex glove!). Its getting a little harder for
me to keep up with writing this, but I will try.

Welcome

Hi there, its been a while. I've been told that the Swarthmore magazine
article is out, which had brief bio thing about the work I've been doing
and a link to this page. While I doubt many people will actually take the
time to take the magazine to their computer, type in the blog address-being
careful to spell my name right and what not, and they actually read this
(or maybe just click a link if the article is online too), I figured I
would give a brief synopsis of myself and my work and this site.

First off, let me just say I never intended to start a blog, and I largely
still do not view this as one. Yes it's a blogging site and I semi-
routinely make posts about most nothing, but still. It started because for
the last 2 years I have been working in remote field camps that have
extremely limited email (and no internet). Instead of writing 20 different
people the same stories, then responding to their 20 replies and infinite
more questions, I only told a select few my email address while I'm away
(hurray if you know it, if you don't, its nothing personal). This mostly is
stories, often played up to seem more dramatic or humorous than they really
were, about these places I've been, the work I've participated in, and the
animals that really are the reason for all of it.

So now that that is out of the way- My name is Wiley. I graduated
Swarthmore in 2010 with a BA in Biology. After Swat I worked in the SF bay
area on invasive plant mapping and eradication. Plants are not my typical
subject of choice, but it got me outside in the mud and it paid. In 2011 I
moved to Arcata, CA to start a Masters degree at Humboldt State University,
where I studied harbor seals, as well as Grey, humpback, and blue whales.
Along the way I've also worked with captive animals in both zoo and
research settings.

After (mostly) finishing my Masters in 2014, I finagled my way into a job
monitoring Steller's sea lion on Marmot Island, Alaska with the National
Marine Mammal Lab, a small branch of NOAA (the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration) based in Seattle. This work took me to a small
island near Kodiak, AK where I spent the summer in a small cabin on the
cliffs looking for marked sea lions and observing reproductive success and
behaviors. There were 4 people on the island- me and one other guy in our
camp, and two other people on the other side of the island, who we would
see about once a week.

Next up, while sitting in a parking lot of a camp ground in Denali National
Park, I was offered a position working at the NOAA field camp at Cape
Shirreff in Antarctica studying Antarctic fur seals. I obviously was not
about to say no to that, though it has required being away for 5 months at
a time on a remote island for the last two winters (Antaractic summers).
Its here in Antarctica that most of these stories come from and its here
that I've really grown the most as a researcher (and we will just say as a
person too because it sounds poetic).

I invite you to check out the stories (old ones are funnier) and some of
the links that are either to the right or at the bottom of the page. Maybe?
I've only actually seen this page a handful of times. Unfortunately because
of the aforementioned email restrictions I cannot post my email address
here, but if you leave a comment (or email wiley.archibald@gmail.com)
saying you want to get in touch I will happily reply in April or May when I
am back in the US. If its more urgent, there are a few people that read
this who do have my email here, so they can probably pass the word along
and I will do what I can to make contact. I'm happy to reply to questions
about the work we do here, remote living, job offers…

Anyway I hope this at least peaks some people's interests in some of the
work that goes on in places most people never even think about. There is a
whole "behind the scenes" level of research about fisheries and climate
change and just how the world is changing. These little projects in the
most remote reaches of the world, are often the first one to tell you that
generally something is wrong. It happens before the massive storms, before
the cities are flooded by a rising ocean, and before thousands of animals
right in front of everyone's faces begin to die. I know I don't need to
preach to anyone who would find their way to this site to begin with, but
the more who know, the better.