The Weddle Seals of Antarctica

Today, we listened to a speaker named Jay Rotella. Jay is a faculty member of MSU and

has been studying the Weddle seal in Antarctica. His presentation covered the study and the

seals. I thought that the presentation was very interesting.

The presentation covered the Weddle seal. The Weddle seal is the southernmost mammal

on the planet. They are the size of horses weighing up to 1000 lbs. The scientists have been

studying the seals since 1973. The scientists study the seals by recording the birthing records of

the seals, they implant a radio tracker at birth and its tracked every time the seals are seen on the

ice. The seals have no natural land predators. This means that the animals are very

approachable by the scientists. This allows them to tag all the newborn seals and record the tags

of the older seals. This means that the scientists get an accurate measurement of the seal

population each year. The scientists stay in four cabins. There is one for food, one for male

bunking, one for female bunking, one for gear and the other for cooking. The main challenge the

scientists face is the elements, in Antarctica the temp ranges from 20 to -20 and the winds

approach 100 mph.

When I was listening to the lecture I thought that this would be a fun study to participate

in. The conditions would be lonely but overall the study itself would be very fun to do. I feel

like I would enjoy the days on the ice of observing and cataloging the seals and their habits. The

one thing I noticed was there is a lot of paperwork. Personally, I have never been a fan of

writing so that would be something to get used too. However, the study of animals and their

movement patterns has always fascinated me. Thus, the ability to go out into the environment

and study seals would be a blessing. Also, I thought that the ability of the study to show the
habits of the seals over time, the study was able to show the peak age for motherhood, and the

average lifespan. I thought it was very interesting that with the start of commercial fishing the

study was able to show the impact it had on the seals.