Happy 2013 from all of us at SEFI! We have been celebrating the holidays and the
new year with surprising style for being located in a remote field camp. Our original scheduled boat day to bring us
resupplies and food on Saturday December 22nd had to be canceled due
to foul weather, leaving us with possibility of celebrating Christmas with a
dinner of cans of beans and corn.
Amazingly enough, thanks to efforts of skipper Harmon Shragge and his
crew on the sailboat named French Kiss, we were restocked with a bountiful
amount of food on Christmas Eve. As a
reward for their generous patrol run, everyone aboard the boat was treated with
an island tour in almost perfect weather!
On the menu for Christmas dinner included turkey, gravy, homemade
stuffing, seasoned green beans, marshmallow yams, crescent rolls, and two
varieties of pie, all made by the SEFI Winter Crew.
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| A Christmas feast |
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| The whole crew together at Christmas dinner! |
In additional to the wonderful dinner that everyone
pitched in to make, our holiday spirit was accentuated by the strings of
colored lights running through the house as well as a mini decorated Christmas
tree complete with presents from Santa.
Santa was kind enough to bring us multiple boxes of chocolates as well
as PRBO Conservation Science hoodies, shirts, and hats!
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| Dressed in our new gear! |
Although this year’s elephant seal season has started off
slow it is beginning to pick up steadily with at least one cow arriving per day. At this time last year we had recorded 17
cows and 7 pups on the island. Over the
past few years, the SEFI elephant seal population has been on a slow but steady
decline. This is more than likely
attributed to the degradation of suitable haul out habitat: Over the past 15
years we have experienced more frequent and violent storm events, which have
washed out much of the sandy island access areas. In years past, cows have arrived at the
island and been able to haul out onto a nice sandy gradual incline leading up
to the pupping areas. In recent years,
cows hauling out onto the island are met with rocky terrain involving a steep
climb – tough travels if you are an elephant seal! The lack of sand in the breeding colony areas
makes it a bit more uncomfortable for these pregnant cows to move across the
access points and into the pupping sites. We believe that many of these cows
are immigrating to the nearby Point Reyes breeding colony, approximately 20
miles northeast of SEFI.
As of today, we currently have ten cows on the island
with four pups, which we are able to see from the elephant seal blind. All of them have hauled out on Sand Flat
minus a younger cow named Prima, whom we do not think is pregnant. Prima has been hanging out up on the Mirounga
Beach Marine Terrace. Some of our newest
arrivals include Maddy, who just hauled out onto Sand Flat three days ago. Maddy was first tagged as a weaner in 1999,
which means she is now 13 years old! It
looks like she will be one of the cows to give birth this season.
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| The shot of the breeding colony areas. Sand Flat is located in the lower left hand corner. |
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| Prima on the grass at Marine Terrace |
Much to our surprise, Rose, a skinny cow who arrived two
days ago, and whom no one thought was pregnant, gave birth yesterday to our
fourth pup of the season! Rose was first
tagged as a weaner in 2007 and is now six years old. Our beloved SA-4 male Guthrie, whom always
seemed a bit slow and apprehensive, and was at the tail end of many jokes
(lovingly of course) has disappeared and has not been sighted for two weeks. Where he has gone, no one can say. Herzog remains the bull of the Sand Flat
harem and currently has nine cows with him, including both Maddy and Rose.
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Rose on Sand Flat with her new pup
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| Guthrie calling on Omega Terrace |
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One of the most exciting events of the past few days was our
first witnessed fight between two SA-3 males, stamped -04 and -07 respectively. The fight broke out late in the day on the
Terrance. Both males began calling when
all of a sudden, -04 charged at -07.
Both males exchanged bites and blows however the winner was clear when -07
advanced onto -04, pushing him back onto the rocks. -04 remained on the rocks as -07 gave a call
and advanced on -04 one last time to give him a few more bites. With both now covered in bites and blood, the
fight was over almost as quickly as it started.
As of today, both males are laying peacefully apart on the Terrace.
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| -07 (on the left) and -04 (on the right) begin to fight |
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| -07 bites down on -04's neck. (Note -07's stamp on the middle of his body.) |
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| -07 showing off his post-battle wounds |
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