July 24, 2024
“You’re not off the island until you’re off the island.” Truer words have not been spoken when it comes to traveling off San Miguel Island during the summer. When I went to bed last night, nothing obscured a clear, bright moon. A bathroom break in the middle of the night confirmed that we might indeed have flyable conditions and no fog to deal with for our flight scheduled this morning. To our surprise, it was actually sunny this morning, UNTIL…the fog rolled in about 15 minutes prior to the helicopter arriving over the island. The pilot searched for a way in to land for a while, but had to return to the mainland because they were not able to land. One could get discouraged, but not if you remember the adage…you’re not off the island until you’re off the island!
Once we finally did get off the island, we recorded this final video blog wrap up. Keep reading below for the highlights of our final week.
This past week, Chris, Jim, and I captured, weighed, and tagged a little over 50 northern fur seal pups (July 20). In September, another group of researchers (including myself) will try to recapture as many of these tagged pups as we can to reweigh them and determine their growth rates. We will also use their weights as a proxy of their health condition.
We also collected fecal samples for dietary studies (July 19), conducted more sighting efforts for marked sea lions and fur seals (various dates). And while last week we saw a plane conduct an aerial census of the California sea lion population, on July 23, we used a drone to perform a population census for the northern fur seals. This is usually done at the end of July/beginning of August when most all of the fur seal pups are born.
I asked Jim and Chris to summarize their first-time experience on this amazing island.
Jim said “My primary goal in visiting San Miguel was to gain more experience tagging fur seal pups with Tony, which I accomplished, but I was also able to broaden my perspective of pinniped rookeries from the Farallon Island’s rocky substrate to San Miguel’s sandy beaches. However, my passion in life is studying birds, so San Miguel provided a rare opportunity for me to see this island’s avifauna up close and learn how regional oceanographic conditions are negatively affecting seabirds across the California Current at both the Farallon and San Miguel Islands.”
Chris mentioned “My five-week stint at San Miguel as the summer intern was a rare experience for an aspiring marine scientist. Working with Dr. Sharon Melin, Dr. Tony Orr, and Heather Ziel, provided me the insight of both working in the field studying pinnipeds in a variety of ways, and what it's like to work for a government agency like NOAA. It confirmed my suspicions that field work doesn’t feel like “work”, rather an opportunity to learn from incredible animals in awe-inspiring places. Throughout my time on the island, I performed brand and tag resights, mortality counts, and tagged fur seal pups, all while being able to observe the incredible social behaviors displayed by seals and sea lions alike.”
And back to me (Tony), I believe this is my silver (25th) anniversary of coming out to San Miguel Island, and I see something new each year. This year was marked by: (1) the low number of gulls (esp. chicks) and other birds; (2) during two occurrences I saw two small adult male fur seals try to push their rivals over a bluff - one succeeded!; and (3) during our handling of the fur seal pups, they were very docile and some even stayed around as we were working on other pups. No life or limbs were taken, which is very different to what these animals usually try to do while being handled.
Chris and Jim finally flew off the island on July 27th and I on the 28th. Thank you for tuning in to our blog/vlog series highlighting some of our field activities on the pinniped species at San Miguel Island. I would like to thank all those who make our work on the island possible, as well as those who participated and made this project happen. Watch for other blogs, video blogs, and web stories covering the amazing work of researchers and support staff of NOAA Fisheries Alaska Fisheries Science Center.
Field work at San Miguel Island is permissible under Channel Islands National Park Service Permit # CHIS-2022-SCI-0021.
