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.