Nicole Teutschel at UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, CA - Mukurma has returned to Año Nuevo State Reserve. How do we know? Easy: her satellite track. TOPP elephant seals each have a satellite (SAT) tag attached to their heads. While there is some variation in the bells and whistles associated with different tag types, they all tell us where the seal travels throughout her journey.

The E-Seal team is accustomed to regularly checking seals’ locations online throughout the day. Using the SAT data, we are able to find out how far away each seal is from the beach, or in this case…that she’s back!

This is a SAT tag similar to Mukurma's (and a cherry for context).

Satellites received data from Mukurma’s satellite tag continuously over her nine month swim! Mukurma’s tag works by transmitting her unique signal when she reaches the surface. If she is on the surface long enough for the satellite and the tag to connect, her position is calculated, and then sent via satellite through the ARGOS data collection system to the lab. Each time the SAT tag connected to the satellites, we received a data point. By graphing all those points together we map out what we call tracks, or the path she has taken on her journey.

Mukurma has taken the classic path that many female elephant seals take, out to the North Pacific. In this next figure we have color-coded her journey. Purple/blue is the beginning of Mukurma’s trip, ending in red.

As you can see, she's traveled an incredible distance: thousands of miles!

Tomorrow we are driving down the coast to Piedras Blancas to recover a satellite tag from Myoceen, another Elephant Seal Homecoming Days seal. Another group of TOPP researchers will go look for Mukurma, Isabel, and “WX403” (another satellite-tagged elephant seal that we didn't name) at Año Nuevo State Reserve.