Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

Chapter 11
Elephant seals, fieldwork: 1948 – 1949
Bull, cow and pup, in repose – with man for scale
he coasts of the island are rocky and much indented and I made regular seal
censuses which involved a thorough check on all beaches and isolated coves
around the island. In every little cove there might be some elephant seals even
towards the end of the summer. An accurate census entailed a systematic survey of
the whole coastline whether steep and rocky or not. However, I quickly established
that the vast majority of elephant seals congregated for moulting on the north-east
part of the island in Borge Bay, which became my main study area. This was
convenient as it was near the base. I made frequent and intensive counts in that area
backed up by fewer extensive counts over the whole coastline of the island. In
making these counts I covered the coast and inland wallows, divided into naturally
defined areas for studying movements between beaches. At their peak in that first
summer there were 3,200 elephant seals in the main study area – of about km2 T
.
Each count of that small area involved covering ten miles or so and in the process
I made observations on their behaviour. The most common seal was the elephant
seal, the main subject of my research, which hauled out in limited numbers for
breeding and now in summer was ashore for 4-6 weeks to moult. It is an ugly
monster at all but the youngest ages; the male has a proboscis and this together with
its great size (up to 20 ft long and to 4 tons or more in weight) is the reason for its
name. By the time we had arrived, the numbers were past their peak.
The least attractive part of my work involved collecting records and specimens
for subsequent laboratory analysis – biometrics, skulls, reproductive organs, stomach
samples, parasites. This involved killing individuals of both sexes and all ages – I
developed a new, accurate method of telling their age.
The other seal species on the island were the Weddell seal, the crabeater, the
leopard seal and a solitary fur seal. The first two are much more attractive than the
elephants, which are gross and very ugly except as pups, when they are fur-covered
and their bark is like a Pekinese dog! We saw very few crabeaters during my time at
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