Kimberly Goetz at McMurdo Station, Antarctica--On January 16th, Dr. Jennifer Burns and I donned our gear and headed to helo operations.  The goal of the mission was to fly within Erebus Bay and along the Victoria Land coastline of McMurco Sound in search of Weddell seals to tag during the next few weeks.  We not only needed to locate sizable groups of seals, but we needed to locate them on ice that was strong enough to support a helo loaded with 6 people and all our gear.

After weighing ourselves and our gear, we boarded the helo.  Upon takeoff, we were bestowed with breathtaking views of the Antarctic landscape. Like an artist taking a paintbrush to a blank canvas, glaciers and ice cracks created intricate, yet beautiful, patterns in the otherwise untouched terrain.  While there were several areas that were either devoid of seals or unworkable due to unstable ice, the two hour flight was an overall success and we found several locations that will be ideal for tagging seals. 

Now that we knew where the groups of seals were located, our next step was to find a snow machine route that would allow us to access seal groups near the station.  This task proved to be more difficult than we had expected.  As a result of the warm weather and the recent activity of the ice-breaker ship Oden near McMurdo, the ice is constantly melting and shifting day to day.  Overcast skies create flat lighting, which makes cracks in the sea ice difficult to see when driving by snow machine.  On one occurrence, we stopped our snow machines after seeing a slight hole in the snow to the side of us.  We used an ice probe to check the depth of the ice underneath the snow only to find out that the recently fallen snow was covering a one-foot wide ice crack that went all the way down to the freezing ocean below.  While we are allowed to drive snow machines over cracks up to 20 inches wide, one surely would not want to step into this type of crack.  As a result, we backtracked on our snow machines until we found a suitable way to access the seals.

 After reaching an area where the seals could be accessed safely, we needed to determine the molt status of the animals.  Like all seals, Weddell seals completely shed their fur once a year.  Because we are hoping to attach tags for nearly a year and then get the tags back, we can only tag animals that have completed this molt.  Otherwise, the tag would be sloughed off with the fur and little data would be collected.

We approached within feet of the Weddell seals before they even lifted their heads to notice our presence.  Weddell seals do not have any land based predators and, therefore, are not alarmed by humans.  After assessing several seals, we concluded that they still needed a week or two to complete the molt.  In the mean time, we will continue to find safe routes to the various seal groups and prepare gear in the lab. 

We are geared up and ready to go. Tagging will begin soon!