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

(medical) stretcher to weigh the elephant pups on Drying Point. The idea was to pop
a coal sack over their head to pacify them, roll them onto the stretcher and carry
them up a knoll to the tripod; then we attached the stretcher to the balance and using
block-and-tackle the pup was hauled up and weighed. The advantages of this
method were that the harem bull couldn't get up the rocky knoll to disturb our work,
nor could the pups' mothers, and it was easier to carry the pups away than to fend
off the irate mothers! But it was very strenuous for the three of us. In practice we
found that the pups tended to roll off the stretcher making it extremely hard work to
lift 270 pounds of struggling pup over uneven ground – they struggled violently
even with a coal-sack over their head! But somehow we managed. The red/yellow
harem was still in charge of the green bull but the green harem was still without a
bull; it was as if the alpha-plus status of the green bull was explicitly recognized by
the other males!
I was making a regular daily round of the seals. On 23 October Derek and I made
the round together but decided we couldn't achieve any weighings without Ralph's
help. There was still no change in the green harem. The red/yellow bull held the
red/yellow harem and there was no trace of the green bull. The yellow harem hadn't
changed. Next day the three of us went to the seals: still no change in the yellow
harem, but the bull was much more aggressive than usual. I found that he could be
intimidated by raising the stretcher higher than he could raise his head; when I did
this he backed slowly away. This could be an important factor in aggressive display –
the bull that rears up higher has a decided advantage even before the fight begins.
Since size is correlated with fighting ability this would not be surprising. One pup
now weighed 226 pounds and another over 300 pounds – the upper limit of my
spring balance! I had not anticipated these weights from earlier accounts. Then the
stretcher broke when the bull fell on it – not surprisingly, it wasn't made for such
patients! Red/yellow bull was still in charge of that harem and much more
aggressive. There was no change in the green harem – and still no bull there. One of
the pups showed the beginning of the snow-throwing habit: not yet a flip, but the
flipper was moved forwards and scraped back up and snow was raised, but not
thrown onto the flanks and back.
Two days later a heavy snowfall occurred, turning to rain during the morning.
An unknown bull, which looked similar to one of the hangers-on seen earlier at the
blue harem, was sighted off Berntsen Point moving north-west, his tracks leading in
from the ice-edge. The red/yellow harem was unchanged and red/yellow bull had
ownership. One bull was in the same position as yesterday half a mile from Balin
Point. Tracks and blood-stains in the snow indicated a fight at the harem overnight
and red/yellow bull was freshly scarred about the neck, quite badly. One set of
tracks led off along the outside of the Balin Point islets and I followed them later to
Drying Point whence they led out to Berntsen Point as mentioned.
Another set of tracks led over the col into Starfish Bay where a relatively small
bull lay – unidentified, with bad wounds and much blood staining the snow. Still the
green harem was unchanged, again no bull and no tracks showing. One of the cows
was very light in colour; three had a light saddle-mark across the shoulders, formed
of many small scars inflicted by bulls and there were numerous small scars about 1/ 4
to 1/ 2 inch across. In the afternoon the new bull moved in from Berntsen Point and
after a brief encounter ousted yellow bull; he then attempted to pair with cow no. 2,
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