Video: Breeding Season Brings Antarctica

Weddell seal mother and pup at Big Razorback Island. Photo by Jennifer Mannas

 

In the face of climate change, the habitat and behavior of wildlife in Antarctica, like the Arctic, is likely to change, too. A long-term study of Weddell seals allows researchers to track how the large mammals are being affected.

Weddell seals and researchers have a standing date on Antarctica’s Big Razorback Island. Since 1968 scientists have returned to the pristine Erebus Bay region of the Ross Sea each November to monitor the enormous mammals during breeding season, when the seals are out of the water and easy to study.

 

This year, anyone can tag along—virtually, that is. A photojournalist with the team is posting regular video blogs. The videos are chockfull of info about the seals, quite entertaining (the animals are ridiculously cute), even funny: For such graceful swimmers the seals are rather clumsy on land, and watching the researchers try to stay upright in bracing winds is comical.

 

"It's a place of great hope," says Jay Rotella, a Montana State University ecologist who co-leads the project with ecogist Bob Garrott. "To me, it's an inspirational place that allows us to study a wild population that is healthy and working well. The Ross Sea is a little slice of frozen Eden."

 

But don’t take Rotella’s word for it—see for yourself in the videos below (all produced by Mary Lynn Price).

 

Jay Rotella gives a brief introduction to Weddell seals. Remarkably, they don’t seem bothered by the people studying them, perhaps because they have no natural predators. Rotella and Garrott, both of Montana State University, took over the study in 2001 from University of Minnesota’s Don Siniff, who launched the project more than four decades ago.

 

Soon after pups are born they’re tagged and, because they always return to the same colony, tracked throughout their lives. So far, researchers have tagged more than 19,500 seals. Most of the mammals that grow to adulthood live to be about 15 years old, but one particularly hearty seal reached 30.

 

Weddell seals are adapted for the extreme weather in Antarctica. Humans? Not so much. Weddell seal field researchers work in all kinds of weather—sometimes mild and beautiful, sometimes windy and challenging.

 

Studying the seals is also revealing information about the broader marine environment, including data on sea ice, climate change, and fish such as the Antarctic toothfish, marketed in U.S. restaurants as Chilean sea bass.

 

For more videos, check out the Weddell Seal Science YouTube page.