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

On 28 September we visited Gerd Island, where Weddell seals were present in
large numbers, confined to within 300-400 yards of the island. On the return
trip I found two dead Weddell pups, both females and both about a week old,
and collected the skull of one of them. I also sexed another two pups (male and
female) and unsuccessfully attempted to tag one. The tag could be further
improved by shaping the end of the strip to be threaded through the flipper web,
so as to give it a taper, and next morning I modified the tags accordingly and
sharpened my scalpel.
The last day of September 1948 it blew a gale in the morning, but I went down to
a seal in the cove just off Pebble Beach which we had been watching for several
days. I paint-marked her with the help of Derek and Ralph, and tagged, weighed
(110 pounds) and branded the pup (with caustic soda); but the latter was not a
success. The tagging however was a rapidly accomplished and the main problem
was to keep the mother away, by beating a petrol can with an ice-chisel. (A rattle
would be very useful; these seals appear to dislike such mechanical noises,
which they rarely if ever encounter naturally). With the canvas sling (for
weighing) in use, the extremities of the pup tended to touch the ground, so later I
constructed another with bamboo poles as stiffeners for the sides. It had a
concave bottom, which was successfully designed to arch the pup’s extremities
upwards, to keep them clear of the ground. Later I made another thirty tags for
marking the pups. At a time when few seal species had been lastingly tagged for
identification, these ‘hand made’ tags proved to be very effective. (In fact some
were still being recorded on the Signy Island seals up to 22 years later!)
At the beginning of October Ralph and I set off again to tag, measure and weigh
Weddell pups, but it was a bad day with a strong wind and we took about two
hours to complete a mere fifteen applications. Again the main trouble was
separating them from their mothers. I classed the reactions of the mothers as 4
fierce (persistent resistance); 6 medium (fierce at first); 4 weak (indifferent and
made off when disturbed). The new sling was successful, but the weighing was
still hard work.
In two cases while the pup was being marked, its mother made for another pup,
whose mother resented it, so a fight developed. Once the mother made for a
solitary pup and was rejoined by her own, so she had two pups for a time. No
doubt fighting occurred when the true parent returned from her latest feeding
foray. This aggression between females was not violent, usually being confined
to a few passes with the jaws open, while the combatants lay on their side or
belly. When trying to separate pups from mothers for tagging, in two cases the
mother (‘fierce’) repeatedly grabbed the skin of the pup’s face and neck in her
teeth and backed away trying to pull the pup with it. They moved backwards by
reversing the normal locomotory rhythm - thrusting forwards with the foreflippers
and looping backwards, caterpillar fashion. One dragged the pup
around to her other side in this way and another lifted it almost off the surface.
When returning to their young the mothers opened their jaws and gently nipped
the pup, and often the pup returned the nip in earnest! The mother usually
nosed the pup all over and on occasion lay on her back rubbing her head from
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