When most people think of seals they usually think of the white baby fur seal, cute cuddly, big eyed baby fur seals. We do have fur seals here around Palmer Station, but they are a different variety and the babies have grown into juveniles by this time of year. We also have three other varieties of seals around Palmer Station and I have been lucky enough to see all four varieties.
Fur seal.
Most seals are curious individuals when they are in the water, often times one will swim up to the boat or even get fairly close to the divers when they are in the water. Most of the seals are harmless to the divers, because as the Principal Investigator (PI) Dr. Amsler likes to say, those seals don’t eat things the size of humans, but there is one seal the divers and tenders are always on the lookout for, and that is the leopard seal, because that seal does hunt, kill and eat things that are as big and even bigger than a human.
Leopard seal eating a fish.
Leopard seal on an ice floe.
Although there has only been one confirmed death to a human from a leopard seal, there is strict protocol of looking for leopard seals before the divers go in, and then if one is spotted after the divers are in the water the tenders drop an alarm in the water that the divers can hear and they know they must return to the Zodiac immediately. The seals here can be spotted swimming in the ocean, lounging on the ice floes or even laying on the land. While out hiking the backyard last weekend, I came across a fur seal and the rules with wildlife here is if you alter the behavior of the animal you are too close, and for that reason, I made sure I kept my distance, but as I passed the seal barked at me to let me know he saw me. I think elephant seals are my favorite even though I have yet to see one up close, they are sort of occupying a niche almost like a whale, but one that still can move around on land, because they can dive so deep to obtain their food.
Elephant seal on the boat ramp at Palmer Station.
Crabeater seals are interesting in the fact that they don’t actually eat crabs, but when early sealers came down to the Antarctic on caught these seals, their guts were pink from what the sealers thought were crabs, but it turns out that they actually eat mostly krill.
Crabeater seal.
Today's question comes from Malikai L.: How large is Antarctica?
Student Question
Antarctica is larger than the US.
US vs. Antarctica
Add new comment