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

Signy. The leopard is supposed to be rather dangerous and it kills and eats penguins
and other seals, but we had little trouble with them.
Two weeks after our arrival the numbers of elephant seals in our vicinity were
increasing rapidly. There were 29 around the old whaling station and 46 observed in
Paal Harbour, rising over the next few days to about 120. I hadn't time to do any
other counts, because the initial task was to move stores, and complete the laboratory
before high winds and snow made the work too unpleasant.
On 4 March before dinner Ralph and I went down to the cove to look at a young
elephant seal about 3 ft long. It was one of the pups of the year and its coat was a
light grey, quite long and silky. It was well-padded with blubber, which protected it
when scrambling over the rocks. Over the next few days I watched pairs of young
elephant seals, doing mock-battle together. One afternoon there were four of them in
the deep pool in the rocks at Berntsen Point. They were splashing about playfully,
snapping at each other and surging like salmon as the waves of the heavy swell
swamped the pool. All were heavily scarred about the neck, axilla and flanks, though
only 2-yr olds I thought. Elephant numbers in Paal Harbour increased to 189 by mid-
March and it was very difficult to count them when they were congregated in a ‘pod’
let alone to do a count of proportional age groups, but my skills were honed by
experience over the ensuing weeks.
In the denser concentrations the moulting elephant seals lay in stinking wallows
bunched together like sardines in oil – actually their own shit.. In the larger pods they
lay two and sometimes three deep, a roaring, snorting, writhing mass of blubber and
a revolting smell was wafted on the wind; it was in fact ‘visible’ on cold days,
because clouds of ammoniacal vapour emanated from them. Dante would have got
good ideas for describing another pit of hell. I walked through the area until I came
to a pod, then mounted the highest rock or hill around to count them. This could be
rather difficult, as I found at the height of the following season's moulting period,
when there were often over 300 to a pod in my main study area, in places twolayered.
I needed to get an idea of the sex and age structure of the population hauled
out at different times. If it was not possible to make a direct count the proportions by
age groups of both sexes, I counted a section and then applied the ratios to the whole.
Another four days and the seals on Signy Island seemed to have reached their
maximum numbers yet. I should finish the island survey as soon as possible. Ralph
marked some of the 23 bulls behind the digesters with paint.
I prepared maps for the census and made the first systematic count at the end of
March. The others came along as well, intending to return for the 3.0 o’clock Met Ob.
Landing at Waterpipe Beach we split up Derek going inland and Ralph and I
following the coast of the study area. I soon found that, inexperienced as I was, it was
difficult to distinguish the sexes other than the large bulls, though with practice it
became easier. We counted the seals on the coast and islands of Borge Bay up to the
top of Mirounga Flats in the north and inland wallows. Then Ralph went back to the
boat to take Derek home for the Ob. I had my lunch and worked right along the
remainder of the coast covering every yard of it; this established that it would be
possible on subsequent counts to miss out quite large stretches of coast, which were
unsuitable for seals to haul out.
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