Nicole Teutschel at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA - It was another successful day at Año, and the eleventh satellite tag recovery of the season! Yesterday we recovered tags from Coya, one of the featured elephant seals with TOPP. Coya, also known as R999, hauled out at North Point on January 18^th. Coya stayed in a harem with only a few females for a few days before she decided to move into another larger harem just north to have her pup on January 26^th.

Coya carried a special type of satellite tag called a SMRU CTD tag. CTD tags have a few extra bells and whistles compared to other satellite tags: This tag measures the salinity and temperature in addition to the location of the seal. These measurements allow the TOPP team to discover more about the North Pacific Ocean’s environments.

Oceanographers do what Coya’s tag does but in a more complicated way. They use large ships to transport their expensive equipment and crews all over the oceans to collect data. By tagging elephant seals with CTD tags we are able to learn much of the same information…only via seal, not ship!

Not only do oceanographers love the CTD tags, but some crazy marine hitchhikers do, too. Throughout Coya’s journey she picked up barnacles! The barnacles were growing on the back of her satellite and radio tags. These little barnacles had no easy trip; it’s pretty amazing what they were able to put up with! Imagine hitching a ride with an animal that dives to more than 1500 feet regularly -- that’s more than the length of 40 school buses! Not only do these barnacles have to deal with depth, no light, and the incredible amount of pressure at those depths of the ocean, but they also are deep in the ocean for about 20 minutes at a time. Pretty amazing little companions, don’t you think!?