We just returned from a trip to San Nicolas Island in the Channel Islands off the coast of California.  We deployed 10 satellite/GPS tags on adult, lactating female California sea lions.  These tags will also collect temperature, light level and depth.  These data will enable us to look at not only the location of the females while they are foraging, but some of the oceanographic conditions, as well as their dive behavior.  Sea lions can be quite skittish and are faster than you think when trying to catch them, but we had a successful trip.  We choose adult, lactating females because if they have a pup, they will continue to return to the island to feed that pup.  Sea lions mothers forage for several days and then return to land to feed their pup, before heading back out to sea to find more food.  This cycle continues for anywhere from 8-11 months while the pup is still nursing.  We are particularly interested in sea lions that will return to a specific area because we want to retrieve our tags.  In January we will return to recapture these same 10 females and remove our tags. 

As part of a collaborative effort, a research group led by Sharon Melin from the National Marine Mammal Laboratory put out another set of tags on adult female sea lions on San Clemente Island at the same time as our deployment on San Nicolas Island.  San Clemente Island is also part of the Channel Islands and is farther south than San Nicolas Island.  These simultaneous deployments will provide an interesting comparison to see if sea lions behave similarly or different between islands.