Field Camp: Big Razorback

November 26 - December 12, 2001

A few weeks ago as I was resting in my room from Thanksgiving dinner and my recent two-week stint in the Dry Valleys, I got a call from Mike Cameron, who is the team leader for project BO-009, a seal ecology group. Mike and I talked about me joining his group on the following Monday, and despite the dirty clothes I had piled up and the last of showers I'd had in the last few weeks, I enthusiastically agreed to enter the field again.

I knew that Mike's team was continuing a seal census that dates back to the 1960s, but I had no idea how much interaction with the seal I'd have. On the sea ice around Ross Island, there are many colonies of Weddell seals, which are the study animals for the groups work on population dynamics. Within the McMurdo Sound study area, all the seals are tagged with numbered tags on both rear flippers. What the "sealheads," as I found the group was called, would do is go out twice a week and record all the tagged animals they saw within the study area. If an animal wasn't tagged, or if a seal's tag was broken or missing, they tag the animal, which involves "bagging" it in a canvas bag that covered the front half of the seal to prevent it from moving and then tagging that seal's rear flippers.

When I went out on the first Monday, I found that it was a survey day for the team and I was to help. I also found out that I was on their marine mammal permit and legally allowed to interact with the animals in the name of science. One of their team members had left the week before and I was stepping in to fill his spot for the following three weeks. That meant that I wasn't looking over someone's shoulder learning about science, I was learning by doing, which was a fabulous teaching tool. That first survey day, I personally read more than 100 tags.

I went from seeing seals at a distance to interacting with more than a hundred seals in a simple day. As the weeks progressed, I got even more hands-on, both bagging seals and tagging them myself.

Most of the time we zipped around the McMurdo Sound on Skandic snowmobiles, but on some occasions, we'd have helicopter flights to distant locations to observe seals outside the study area.

The work with the sealheads came to a close as their field season ended. The last few days, working with them was done in between McMurdo and the camp at Big Razorback, preparing to turn in all our supplies and gear. It was disappointing to finish the work with the seals. Everything about working at Big Razorback was great; the team members—Mike, Mark, Shawn, Peter, and Bob—were fabulous teachers. My hands-on learning and experiences were unforgettable and, of course, seeing so many seals close up every day was a unique occurrence.

The sealheads are going back to the States in a few days; as for myself, I am preparing for my trip to the South Pole Station at the end of December.

The Boy Scouts of America

http://www.scouting.org