Cape Shirreff Situation Reports 2023-2024

These reports highlight science activities and events from the U.S. Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program Field Camp at Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, part of the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica

West Coast

U.S. AMLR Program 2023–24 Cape Shirreff Field Team:

Dr. Douglas Krause, Program Lead and Head of Pinniped Studies
Dr. Jefferson Hinke, Head of Seabird Studies
Samuel Woodman, Research Biologist
Lieutenant Junior Grade Abby Letts, NOAA Corps Officer
Jaelyn Leslie, Biological Science Technician
Kristen Alvstad, Biological Science Technician
Heidi Taylor, Deputy Director, Ecosystem Science Division
Lieutenant Sydney Catoire, NOAA Corps Officer

Situation Report 1: Arrival. November 15–December 3, 2023

Camp Opening

The primary project goals for the 2023–24 Cape Shirreff field season are 1) to complete the construction of the Holt Watters Field Camp, and 2) to complete annual monitoring for both the AMLR Seabird and Pinniped science programs. All members departed the U.S. and traveled south to Punta Arenas, Chile during November 15–16, 2023. The crew inspected, inventoried, and repacked essential gear and cargo in Chile between November 16–20.

The view of the ocean and the snow-covered mountains from Cape Shirreff. Some rocky outcroppings and an small iceberg are in the foreground. — The view of the mountains on an unusually clear day at Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

On November 20, we began working with a new logistical support vessel, the M/V Betanzos. Cargo loading operations began in the afternoon of November 20 after a weather delay, and continued on November 21 until the ship departed the pier at approximately 3:30 p.m. The NOAA, Bespoke, and Betanzos crews worked tirelessly to load and secure-for-sea each piece of science, sustenance, and construction materials; in all, over 50,000 pounds of cargo. The captain sailed us south and east around Tierra del Fuego and through the Beagle Channel, which provided a gorgeous and protected route down to Cape Horn. The weather and sea conditions during the Drake’s Passage crossing were excellent. We arrived at Cape Shirreff in the morning of November 25.

The back deck of the ship MV Betanzos anchored off Cape Shirreff. The deck contains rope, cranes, and inflatable boats. Water, snow-covered mountains, and grey clouds are in the background. — The M/V Betanzos anchored off of Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

The ship arrived at 6:00 a.m. and anchored at 7:00 a.m. Gear staging began at 7:30 a.m. and Zodiacs were launched by 8:30 a.m. The conditions at the ship were workable with a 2–3 m swell and moderate (~15 knot) winds. The ship used two “tender” boats—rigid hulled 1-ton boats that can hold ~50 percent more cargo than a traditional Zodiac—in addition to one Zodiac piloted by our EYOS colleagues Brandon Harvey and Simon Ager. Conditions on shore were workable, but unusually snowy. There were 4–14 feet of snow piled and drifted up around the main camp. The ATV was excavated from its shed and was intermittently useful throughout the day, though it was severely hampered by the deep snow. It is worth noting that the design of the Holt Watters camp left it almost entirely free of snow drifting, and it was opened easily within seconds of arrival; no mold abatement was needed in either building. Cargo operations continued until 2:30 p.m. when the ship called off operations due to increasing winds and seas. The NOAA and Bespoke teams continued working on shore, securing gear and cargo, and opening and cleaning the Cape Shirreff and Holt Watters camps for habitation.

Cargo offload operations continued for the next week. There were intermittent interruptions due to weather, a crew injury aboard the vessel, and a few boating issues and repairs; however, the AMLR and ship’s crew were always prepared to operate during the best conditions, which often included operations starting as early as 3:00 a.m. In all, the efforts of the AMLR and Bespoke teams were nothing short of heroic. Each piece of the two new buildings, along with tons of food, science gear, and sundries was offloaded by hand and carried up the snow and rocks to secure on the beach. Long, odd hours and physical exertion did not dampen the spirits or good humor of this truly amazing group of individuals. In fact, since the human discovery of Cape Shirreff by William Smith and crew on January 18, 1820, this place has not seen such determination and hard work combined with so many laughs. We also thank the crew of the Betanzos and Brandon and Simon from EYOS, whose support at every stage cannot be overstated.

View of the back deck of the M/V Betanzos, the ocean, and two inflatable boats in the water, taken from above. Each boat has two people. The people in the boat closest to the ship are waving and giving a thumbs-up. — Transporting people and gear from the M/V Betanzos to Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

The last load of cargo was brought ashore at 10:18 a.m. on Friday, December 1. And there was much rejoicing. In total, 178 full zodiac loads were transported ashore. For the rest of that day, the AMLR crew worked to secure cargo on the beach, and move essential items up to the main camp through challenging, melting snow conditions.

All buildings in the Cape Shirreff, Holt Watters, and Chilean camps have been inspected and opened. There is no detectable damage to any essential infrastructure—we send a big thank you to the closing crew from February 2023 for doing such a great job! All buildings have been cleaned, particularly for mold using the safety protocol in the Operations and Safety Manual.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

After finishing the offload and initial camp setup on December 1, we began science activities on December 2, with initial colony surveys of all U.S. AMLR study beaches. We also performed censuses of all South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) on these beaches, with a focus on adult females, adult males, and pups.

Six people in warm snow gear with snow shoes and poles stand in the snow at the base of a hill. The sky is so grey that it's almost the same color as the snow. — The Cape Shirreff science team, along with one member of the construction team, gets ready for their first hike around Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), we have been closely monitoring all study beaches for signs of sick or dead animals. We observed one dead SSAFS male on one of our study beaches, and two dead males on a non-study beach. While it is plausible that they all died of natural causes, either recently or over-winter, we will not enter but monitor these beaches for the next week for any signs of infection as per our HPAI monitoring protocol.

Our most recent census of SSAFS pups on U.S. AMLR study beaches, conducted on December 3, found 54 live pups and one dead pup. Last season on December 3, 2022, 88 pups had been born on the same study beaches.

As of December 3, we have resighted 17 tagged SSAFS—16 females and one male—of which five are known-age fur seals. We have also resighted one Weddell seal tagged in 2016.

While we have not surveyed Media Luna, the main southern elephant seal breeding beach, we have observed approximately 15 recently-weaned juveniles (“weaners”) around our study beaches. This indicates that this year was at least a mildly productive one for southern elephant seals at Cape Shirreff. These elephant seals, two of which were dubbed George (Michael and Harrison), were our friendly and supportive companions throughout the offload.

We plan to begin our study of the attendance behavior of SSAFS mothers during the coming week, once we have completed lab prep and capture training.

Seabirds

During our first visit to the penguin colonies, we checked the status of our overwinter reproduction study cameras. All were intact and successful throughout winter. Those will keep taking pictures for the rest of summer to track the reproductive success of chinstrap and gentoo penguins.

The emergency shelter used as a bird blind was deconstructed last season to make way for the new emergency shelter. As such, the seabird research supplies were stored on site in fish storage boxes. We inspected them and all appeared well except one fish storage box, which lost its lid at some point over the winter. Nothing appeared to be missing but most supplies were covered in water and snow. More to come after the fish box is accessed further.

Known-age (KA) and general banded penguin resights began on December 2. The seabird team has split up the east and west colonies and found 28 KA nests between the two. The known-age nests will be monitored throughout the summer to track their reproductive success.

Most of the gentoo penguin nests have two eggs and one nest was observed with two chicks already! Measurements of egg size and weights and the nest census are planned for the beginning of next week.

Most chinstrap penguin nests had two eggs upon beginning resights. Due to this, measurements of chinstrap adult and first egg weights, our standard metrics of arrival condition, were skipped. As with gentoo penguins, we plan to complete measurements of egg sizes and weights, our standard metric of female investment in the clutch, and the nest census next week.

We will begin brown skua nest territory surveys next week.

Snow depths were observed at all four study locations at Cape Shirreff. The blind and west stakes had no snow, but the Copihue (77 cm exposed) and Flats (105 cm exposed) stakes were surrounded by snow.

Camp Maintenance and Life

On December 2, the AMLR team conducted an orientation and fire safety drill.

The weather station has been set up and is operational. A full report will be provided next week.

The weather has been favorable this week. We have shoveled out the majority of entrances and windows on the Chilean and Cape Shirreff buildings. Again, this wasn’t necessary for the Holt-Watters camp because…design and architecture are real. We have moved all of our fresh and frozen food up from the beach to camp, and moved the available fresh food supplies into the Chilean camp to await the construction team in January.

On December 2, the shower room was excavated and cleaned and showers became available that evening. And, there was much rejoicing.

Water

Currently, we are at approximately 90 percent of our total water storage capacity at Cape Shirreff. The weather is still too cold to install the water collection gutters, so we will continue to melt stored water/ice and snow as needed.

Power

As of December 2, the wind and solar power systems were installed and operational at the Cape Shirreff camp. The battery bank is functional, but performance indicates it is coming to the end of its useful life. Currently only two of four solar panels are in use due to a fault in the system.

Communications

Our Iridium telephone, email system with Iridium Certus, and Somewear Iridium texting units are currently operational. One Somewear unit is experiencing problems and we are trouble-shooting the issue.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

All seabird and pinniped colonies have been scanned daily. To date, no signs or symptoms of avian flu have been detected in any animals at Cape Shirreff.

Fun

The AMLR and Bespoke crews celebrated Thanksgiving together aboard the Bentanzos on the trip south. Thank you to Christian, the head chef, and Aldo, the world’s best steward, for preparing some turkey and mashed potatoes to help us feel a bit more festive!

We are extremely happy to have the Bespoke crew with us and have truly enjoyed their good humor while being constantly impressed by their hard work and expertise! Justin Dye, in particular, has left mouths hanging open a couple of times.

Situation Report 2: December 4–10, 2023

Weekly Overview

As our bodies and minds cleared from the intense ship-offload portion of the season, the NOAA team set their sights on ramping up monitoring and science protocols and the Bespoke team pivoted to the rebuild project. Spirits are high as the Cape reveals layers of its beauty between bouts of wind and weather. Antarctic fur seal pups are being born, and even some penguin chicks have started to hatch, providing a stark contrast between this rugged landscape and the wonder of new life.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

This week, the pinniped team pivoted from opening camp and doing initial, baseline science activities (e.g., resights, census) to beginning to capture South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) to deploy instruments or otherwise mark them to collect some of our core datasets. These core datasets include pup growth rates and foraging trip durations.

We completed the fur seal lab prep and capture training with the science team. This included drawing up capture drugs, prepping sample vials, and generally unpacking and testing all capture gear.

We completed repairs to both of our automated VHF radio monitoring stations, which were damaged over winter. Once operational, we conducted range testing to evaluate the performance of the system and optimize electronic settings.

We performed three attendance study perinatal captures of SSAFS mother-pup pairs this past week. During each capture, we took samples and morphometric measurements from both mother and pup, deployed Wildlife Computers Mk10 TDRs (time-depth recorders) on the mother to learn about her foraging behavior and location, and tagged or marked both seals so we can track them throughout the season. We hope to complete several more perinatal captures during the coming week.

This week we switched to only counting the pups on U.S. AMLR study beaches during our study beach census. As of December 10, our most recent census, 126 SSAFS pups had been born on these study beaches. This is a stark decrease from last season, when on December 10, 2022, 152 pups had been born. This pup production decrease fits within a 16-year downward trend in the SSAFS population.

As of December 10, we have resighted 37 tagged SSAFS: 36 females and one male, of which seven are known-age fur seals. Two fur seals are seven years old; one is 12, one is 14, one is 17, one is 18, and one is 21 years old. We have also resighted one Weddell seal tagged in 2016, and one southern elephant seal tagged by another pinniped program. Finally, we observed two untagged (i.e., transient) leopard seals.

Seabirds

This week we continued our daily monitoring of the known-age (KA) breeding chinstrap and gentoo penguins (penguins that were flipper banded as fledglings). Every day we track which parent is occupying its nest and opportunistically view the nest contents if the bird stands up. One of our KA gentoo penguins has three eggs in his nest! As part of our monitoring effort, we also measured the eggs of our female KA gentoo and chinstrap penguins this week.

This week we completed our egg measurement studies for both chinstrap and gentoo penguins. One hundred eggs were measured from 50 nests (two eggs per nest) for each species. Average gentoo egg one weighed 122 grams (heaviest 141 grams) and egg two weighed 118 grams. Average chinstrap egg one weighed 101 grams (heaviest 115 grams) and egg two weighed 96 grams. The heaviest of a nest’s two eggs is always considered egg one.

During our chinstrap egg measurement study, we recovered two GLS (geo-locating sensor) tags that were deployed over winter. Twenty were deployed so only 18 more to find!

Daily observations of all banded penguins continue. When a banded penguin is found, their band number, colony number, sex, and mate band (if they have one) is recorded. This information informs the survival rate of adults.

The gentoo nest census was completed for all colonies on December 10. The count (1038 nests) is the second highest nest count ever recorded for gentoo penguins at Cape Shirreff and represents a 20 percent increase in the breeding population over last year, continuing an upward trend in the population size over the past several years. The highest count was recorded 23 years ago, when 1043 nests were observed in the 2000–01 season. The lowest count was 655 from 2015–2016.

An adult gentoo penguin sits on a nest on a rocky ledge above the ocean, attending to two chicks. The rocks are covered in penguin guano, and there are four gentoo penguins on other nests in the background. Also in the background are the ocean, some sea ice, another island, and a cloudy sky. — A gentoo penguin parent attends to the first chicks hatched this season. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

The seabird team lent a helping hand this week with three successful Antarctic fur seal perinatal captures. The pups thus far have been named Ms. Claus (who is now divorced from Santa Claus and runs her own Christmas operations down here in the South Pole), The Grinch (a feisty yet loveable pup who lives alongside Ms. Claus as a power couple), and Mariah Carey (an energetic diva puppy with endless charisma).

This week Bespoke helped us hike a 10’ x 20’ Arctic Oven tent out to the seabird colonies where we set it up, and did our best to secure it from the harsh westerly winds. It will need some reinforcement in the future, but for now has been holding steady and providing deeply-appreciated shelter for the seabird team while on daily rounds.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

This week we set up and tested one of our Autel drones, and conducted our first monitoring flights of the main campus construction project. We are currently charging batteries, loading maps, and preparing to conduct penguin nest census flights during the coming week.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Due to the worldwide spread of a Highly Pathogenic strain of Avian Influenza (HPAI), we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead seabirds or pinnipeds, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We observed no new dead animals or signs of HPAI this week.

Weather

This week our weather station was installed and tested. The main camp weather station was set up last week and successfully started recording for us on December 5, 2023. Wind speed averaged at 14.4 mph with gusts that reached a maximum of 33.0 mph. Winds have been coming from the west 70.1 percent of the time followed by winds from the south 19.4 percent of the time. The temperature was 0.5^oC on average, with a high of 2.6^oC and a low of -0.9^oC. We do not have precipitation or solar radiation data for this week’s weather report.

Camp Maintenance

Water

Sam has been watching the temperatures like a hawk, waiting for the stretch of above-freezing temperature that will tell us we can install gutters.

Power

Justin Dye generously donated a few hours of his electrician expertise to help us track down a fault in the main camp 110v electrical system. He installed new power delivery to the building allowing us, hopefully, to limp into the deconstruction phase of this camp’s life. Thank you, Justin!

Pop-up Camp

All spaces have been inspected, and are in MUCH better shape than they were at the start of last season. Preliminary cleaning and organization have started, especially in the freshies and freezer storage area. Bespoke has taken over a schedule of running the generators to keep the frozen food frozen. We are also scouting the snow melt conditions for an opening to install tents.

We installed a second external Iridium antenna on main camp to be used in the case of an emergency.

The M/V Betanzos left one of their tender boats on a beach near the penguin colonies due to conditions and inclement weather. We have checked on, and resecured the boat several times. No word yet on when they plan to retrieve it.

Camp Life and Safety

We conducted a medical drill with all NOAA and Bespoke team members. Our phone connection with our medical support service was tested and our account verified. Our medical kit was inspected by all team members, and we reviewed good emergency response actions and priorities.

It has been a busy opening couple of weeks at Cape Shirreff, but we’ve carved out a few evenings for card games or a movie. Pitch Perfect provided some lovely tunes and quotable moments for campers to share, though Will is leading the way with quotable moments.

The pinniped team brought the new BBQ grill up from the beach and set it up. It is nothing short of pure joy to have a safe, well-operating grill to help us prepare our 8-person meals! Thank you to all of the AMLR staff that contributed to its purchase and transport.

While we have not had any substantial accumulation since arriving, there is still and above-average amount of snow around the Cape which slows hikes, surveys, and has provided A LOT of opportunity for shoveling…walkways, decks, uncovering fish boxes and trailers, and of course trying to clear a path for the ATV.

Cleaning, organizing, and general mold hunting continued this week.

The AMLR team is both amazed and impressed with the quick work of the Bespoke team on berthing. Flooring and all mechanical and air flow systems have been installed. Lights and ventilation will operate from a generator until the workshop and power systems have been installed near the end of January.

We have had a suite of delicious meals this week, punctuated by some truly luscious deserts created by several camp members. Highlights include a berry cobbler, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and a sumptuous cheesecake!

Situation Report 3: December 11–17, 2023

Weekly Overview

Another week of amazing progress and another pivot in our focus. Given our late start to the season, and intense offload, the last 1.5 weeks were full of the efficient, extensive effort needed to establish our seasonal monitoring of both seabird and pinniped populations at Cape Shirreff. Despite some of our team being new to this area and these species, everyone took to the work like a fur seal to water. Once we accomplished several of our major milestones (see below) we were able to focus on setting up our field camps more properly—completing needed repairs, organizing, and moving needed equipment and resources up from the boat landing beach in cooperation with our Bespoke teammates. Be sure to read all the way to the end for an update from the construction team!

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

This week we, the pinniped team, with lots of help from the seabird team, completed the last three of this season’s set of six perinatal captures. This completes our initial stage of South Shetland Antarctic fur seal (SSAFS) captures, and completes our set of fur seal attendance females for which we will track their foraging trip length, among other data. We look forward to watching the attendance pups, (Ms. Claus, Grinch, Mariah Carey, Buddy the Elf, Frosty, and Challah), grow and prosper, and to see the data that their moms collect for us with their new instruments.

A male South Shetland Antarctic fur seal sits in the foreground on a rocky beach. In the background is another fur seal, the ocean washing up on the rocks, an iceberg in the distance, and a cloudy sky. — A male South Shetland Antarctic fur seal hangs out at the beach. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

We continued our US AMLR study beach census of SSAFS. As of December 17, our most recent census, 156 SSAFS pups had been born on these study beaches, and during this census we observed 113 adult females, 142 adult males, and four juveniles. For reference, on December 16 last season, 181 pups had been born on the study beaches.

So far, through December 17, we have resighted 59 tagged SSAFS, including the five we have tagged this season. Of these 53, 51 are females and two are male, and 13 are known-age fur seals. We have also resighted one Weddell seal and five southern elephant seals: four tagged by another pinniped program, and one tagged by the US AMLR Program at the Cape as a pup in 2008. Finally, we observed three untagged (i.e., transient) leopard seals.

A close-up picture of a fur seal pup sitting on rocks with its head sideways in an inquisitive stare. — A South Shetland Antarctic fur seal pup gives an inquisitive stare. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Because last week we had to delay the phocid census, this week we performed two phocid censuses. Across December 10 and 11, we counted 441 southern elephant seals, 17 Weddell seals, and 2 leopard seals. On December 15, we counted 503 elephant seals, 12 Weddell seals, and 1 leopard seal. Currently the majority of the elephant seals we see are juveniles, mostly males. During our first census we counted 35 weaned elephant seal pups, meaning at least that many pups were born on the Cape this past October/November.

We tagged one leopard seal, an adult female we had seen a few times during the past week.

Seabirds

The seabird team helped the pinniped team finish their SSAFS perinatal captures. With three successful captures, three more pups were named. Buddy the elf is a sweet but very energetic boy, while Challah is a calm, loving, and very sleepy pup. Lastly, Frosty is rocking frosted tips and singing for the whole beach to hear.

This week, we completed the chinstrap nest census (2085 nests). The chinstrap penguins like to nest much closer together than the gentoos to avoid brown skua predation (who are always on the prowl for tasty penguin eggs) so it gave our seabird team a great multi-day counting challenge! The current count represents the smallest breeding population of chinstrap penguins observed at Cape Shirreff, continuing a long-term trend of declining population size, which now has declined by 73 percent since a peak in 1999.

This week we found a new known-age chinstrap during nest checks and daily band resights of the colonies here on Cape Shirreff. His nest was marked and he will become part of our daily nest check routine.

Abby had a surprise visitor in the East colonies on Sunday. A macaroni penguin decided to join the chinstraps in colony 10. Maybe he or she is the same friend seen here over the last couple years?

A macaroni penguin with an orange bill and yellow crest feathers sits on a rock above the ocean. Two chinstrap penguins are in the foreground and one is in the background. Also in the background are more rocks, the ocean, and a grey, cloudy sky. — A visiting macaroni penguin at Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

The skua nest hunt was in full swing this week! After a multi-day Cape-wide search, we found 20 active brown skua nests and measured their eggs. These nests will be monitored every week to keep track of their eggs and chicks to determine their reproductive success. We also found two Antarctic tern nests! Although we do not monitor or track tern populations on the Cape, the nests we super exciting to see as they are typically very difficult to find.

This week, we did a preliminary search of our kelp gull breeding grounds. Due to the amount of snow received at the Cape this year, their nesting territory has just recently melted out in Loberia valley. The gulls might be slightly behind on building their nests due to this. We will check back next week to complete the official kelp gull nest and egg census.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

This week we flew our Autel system over all penguin study colonies to obtain aerial imagery in conjunction with our ground surveys. These images allow us to permanently document the status of the population and obtain ground-truthed counts to support our development of automated census algorithms. The UAS manufactured by Aerial Imaging Solutions were inspected, but have not yet been calibrated and set up.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

We continued to closely monitor all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead seabirds or pinnipeds this week. We observed one new dead animal this week: an adult South Shetland Antarctic fur seal male. While it is likely that this animal died last year and the carcass just melted out of the snow, for the next week we are staying off this beach and using binoculars to scan for any signs of HPAI infection in other animals on the beach.

Weather

We have two types of weather reports for this week. Since arriving at the Cape, I (Jaelyn, aka Jae) have observed that the state of my hair provides a highly accurate indication of that day’s weather report. For reference, I have a very thick head of hair with pinky width curls that when pulled straight reach my mid-back, but due to shrinkage sit just below my collar bone. The environment is highly influential on the state and cooperation of my curls, which is why we will be using it from here on out as a reference for our weekly weather report.

(H)Air Quality Report:

The week started off rough with a lot of tangles and a makeshift low bun tucked under a bright orange beanie that was a reflection of windy/cold days from the week before, as well as a lack of motivation to take on the long process of detangling my curls. This transitioned into Dutch braids about mid-week due to what felt like warmer weather. You see, having my hair down in a bun with my curls stretched over my ears helps to keep my head insulated during cold windy days. The Dutch braids were a risk that turned into a reward that lasted until shower day. We now have a fresh curly fro to help with next week’s weather report.

Weather Station Report:

Our weather station recorded an average wind speed of 11.7 mph with the occasional gust that maxed out at 21 mph. Maximum overall wind speed reached 34 mph at the beginning of the week (reference to the messy hair described above). Winds have been predominately from the west (47.7 percent) and north (31.9 percent) and occasionally from the east (17.9 percent). The temperature reached a high of 5^oC, a low of -0.7^oC, and averaged at 1.1^oC. The wind chill averaged about -3.4^oC for the week. We received a total of 0.24 inches of precipitation. We are not going to be recording solar radiation for this season.

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Justin moved into the Chilean main camp this week, and in the process spent a lot of time and energy cleaning and de-molding the building.

Between the NOAA and Bespoke crews (with a heavy balance toward Bespoke) we have shoveled what feels like miles of road and tons of snow to facilitate the use of our ATVs to bring up needed equipment, materials, and food. This week we brought up the remaining food stores for both Science and Construction crews from the boat beach.

Chilean Power: We placed two generators at the camp to provide power for two of the three freezers in the Commander’s hut.

In addition to the Arctic Oven tent set up on the old emergency shelter platform (to support seabird science), we set up one AO and one Weather Haven tent to provide storage for building interiors and tools.

We shoveled out and moved the second outhouse to the Holt Watters campus to improve access for those working there, and those sleeping in the berthing suite.

We plan to install the Chilean hut gutters during the coming week, conditions pending.

Two empty fish boxes were moved up to main camp next to the ATV path to facilitate the movement of gear from the beach to the new buildings as they become habitable.

Water

Thanks to a bit of rainy weather, the U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 90% full.

Power

We have experienced several small issues with our gasoline generators including: a broken pull cord, water-gas intrusion, and a mal-adjusted carburetor. All generators have been repaired and are functional.

Other

The M/V Betanzos left one of their tender boats on a beach near the penguin colonies. We continue to check on, and resecured the boat. No word yet on when they plan to retrieve it.

Camp Life and Safety

As the holiday season draws closer a few signs of holiday spirit are appearing. The Christmas tree was set up and trimmed, a few presents have been delivered early by Santa, and holiday-themed music is making the rounds on people’s playlists.

This year we’re continuing our tradition of a community cooked, Mexican-themed dinner on Taco Tuesday nights. This continues to be a big hit.

Cleaning, organizing, and general mold hunting continued this week.

Bespoke Construction Updates

Bespoke continues to struggle, along with any camp activities involving logistics, with the amount of snow accumulation and, as of this week, the resultant melt water. While being very cognizant of ATV track marks and taking care not to mar the landscape outside regular, established transit paths, we have been able to move some material including all tool bins, fasteners, HVAC sheet stock and duct connectors, construction consumables and most of the new lab millwork and interior cladding to the main build site. For a few days last week, the crew started at 0300 to try to take advantage of the coldest part of the day, and thus firmest snow strata, but as temps rose the effort became less advantageous and we resumed normal working hours to match the rest of the team.

An aerial image showing the new Cape Shirreff buildings in the foreground, the old Cape Shirreff camp in the middle ground, and the Chilean camp in the background. Snow covers the ground, with several footprint trails through the snow between the camps. There are patches of dirt where the snow has melted, and the beach and ocean are in the far background. — The new camp buildings (foreground), the old camp buildings (middle ground), and the Chilean camp (background). Credit: NOAA Fisheries

We, with camp staff assistance, have been able to erect the tool bin Arctic Oven as well as the NSF Weather Haven to be used for storage of millwork. Both structures continue to have material brought to them as possible.

HVAC and temp Electrical service in the berthing suite have been completed and are temporarily being run off a gasoline generator. All systems are performing as designed and we are excited to see them on permanent power soon.

Galley HVAC, Electrical and architectural finishes are being completed. Duct connections have been completed and we will begin running the system in the coming week. The new galley range has been installed and tested and is working per manufacturer’s specifications. Somehow, incredibly, it made the journey all the way from Denver, CO in a shipping container to Punta Arenas, Chile to the vessel to the Zodiac to the beach to the new galley and installed without a scratch. We all can’t wait to see what the increased capabilities that specific piece of equipment will add to the enjoyment of the crew for many years to come.

Bespoke has been graciously accepted yet again into camp and have truly been made to feel a part of the AMLR team. Will has been doing a fantastic job of bartering for the Cape Shirreff crew’s love with delicious and increasingly complex desserts. What a special place and an incredible group of people!

Situation Report 4: December 18–24, 2023

Weekly Overview

We’ve had another full week as we close in on the Christmas holiday. A lot of the week was spent moving gear, food, and equipment up from the beach, organizing, and inventorying it all. We got a chilly, but clear day on Sunday so the science team hiked all the way out to Punta Oeste to survey skuas and see a bit more of Livingston Island. We also transitioned from the old to the new kitchen, see details below.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

We continue to monitor our six South Shetland Antarctic Fur Seal (SSAFS) attendance pups this week, and all six pups are healthy and growing quickly. We performed five post-perinatal pup weights this week, meaning we weighed the pups 24 hours after their moms left on their first foraging trips to sea. All pups gained at least 0.4 kg, while one pup gained a whopping 2.5 kg in just her first week after being born.

During our most recent full U.S. AMLR study beach census on December 22, 162 SSAFS pups had been born. On December 22 last season, 188 pups had been born on the study beaches.

On December 22, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We observed 495 southern elephant seals, three leopard seals, and 18 Weddell seals. This elephant seal count is over one hundred elephant seals more than any other count from the week of December 22 across all Cape Shirreff phocid censuses!

To date we have resighted six tagged elephant seals: four with non-AMLR tags, and two who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and one in 2016). We have resighted 59 fur seals, including 16 known-age animals. We also have resighted three tagged adult female leopard seals and one tagged Weddell seal.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples each from leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. This week we collected DNA samples from seven Weddell seals and one leopard seal.

The SSAFS pups have already begun exploring. We have seen several pups climbing the hills around their home beaches, and even had one puppy sleep next to the deck of our old camp.

Seabirds

This week the seabird team took census of the kelp gull breeding grounds. We found 27 nests, 12 eggs, and 15 chicks in the Toki breeding area and two nests, one egg, and two chicks in the Bahamonde breeding area.

On December 22, chinstrap chicks in our largest chinstrap colony, 29, began to hatch. As the week has progressed more and more gentoo and chinstrap chicks have been hatching every day. We continued to monitor the known-age penguin nests and two nests now have hatched chicks. Congrats proud penguin parents!

Daily penguin band resights in the East and West colonies were continued.

The whole team hiked to Punta Oeste across the Cape to locate additional brown skua territories. Only one nest was found and we’ll check in with them again at the end of the season to see if their chicks survive. Additionally, the seabird team continued to monitor the 21 active nests around the Cape by visiting, checking nest contents, and reading the bands of the territory-holding skuas at each nest.

Two more geo-locating sensor tags were recovered from chinstrap penguins this week. Only 16 more to find before the end of the season. They are particularly hard to spot because they are a small white leg band that’s only visible when the penguins are walking or standing.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

We did not operate any drones this week.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

We continued to closely monitor all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead seabirds or pinnipeds this week. We observed four lethargic gentoo penguins along the coast between main camp and Playa Media Luna. Two of the four were expelling bright green feces, and one of those two died the day after being spotted. The three remaining birds were seen on one day and not seen again, and no carcasses have been found. We have been monitoring these beaches daily, and so far, have not observed any sign of further infection. As per the U.S. AMLR influenza monitoring protocol, we have begun using boot washing stations at main camp and the bird blind, and we are staying off of the beaches where sick birds were spotted. We are also using KN95 masks when directly interacting with any animals. We are avoiding nest checks on the two closest skua territories to the dead gentoo because they presumably scavenged the dead carcass. We will continue to use binoculars to scan for any signs of infection in other animals on all beaches.

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

This week’s HQR was full of surprises! I started off sporting a big green claw clip to pull the hair out of my face in preparation for a hike around in the Cape in search of Weddell seals. Claw clips, at least in my experience, are not the best way to secure my curls, but the sun and minimal wind gusts had me extra confident that it would hold out. Little did I know that the wind would be whipping across the Cape so fast you could lean into it without falling on your face. By the time I got back to main camp, my hair, like the Grinch’s heart, had grown three sizes, and the claw clip simply gave out. This was my only claw clip… Anyways, after learning my lesson, I decided to just rock the two pigtail braids. There were a couple of days later in the week that were beautiful, low wind, and sunny where I tried a half up half down hair style. It was very silly of me to think that was a good idea. What can I say, I caught the holiday spirit and was just trying to be a bit more creative with my hair styles. Bad decision but still cute while it lasted. I ended off the week with another low bun to get the curls tied back while making holiday cookies and prepping for our camp holiday celebration!

Weather Station Report:

Our weather station recorded an average wind speed of 14.2 mph with the occasional gusts into the 40s. The maximum overall wind speed reached 53 mph at the beginning of the week. A total of 76.7 percent of the winds we experienced were coming from the west. The temperature reached a high of 3.4^oC, a low of -0.3^oC, and averaged 1.1^oC. The wind chill averaged -3.7^oC and a low of -7.3^oC.

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Will and Shaggy moved out of the galley building and into Little Chile and the Old Fart’s Room, respectively. Doug moved out of the Old Fart’s Room and into the new berthing suite.

The snow has finally melted enough to expose the majority of the ATV path. We took advantage to conduct many hours of runs to the beach and move up all of the science and pop-up camp food and supplies.

Chilean Power: We placed a 3rd generator in the Little Chile workshop to power that building as needed.

We plan to install the Chilean hut gutters during the coming week, conditions pending.

Three additional fish boxes were moved up from the beach to the side of Little Chile in order to store food and supplies for the pop-up camp.

Water

Despite some snow, we haven’t had much precipitation this week. The U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 70 percent full.

Power

Power is being delivered to the galley and the berthing suite on the Holt Watters campus by generator for 2–4 hours per day to circulate air and provide heat. We repaired one of our 3 kw generators this week.

Other

No updates on the M/V Betanzos’ boat that they left on a beach by the penguin colonies.

We prepared two camera systems to monitor the build site during the main construction portion of the season. One, a Reconyx camera, was deployed from our wind generator tower. The other has been located and should be launched in the coming day or two.

We built the first three Metro shelves in galley to house our fresh foods and vegetables. So far so clean and classy.

Camp Life and Safety

We have planned out our Christmas dinner meal, and pulled various meats from the freezer and started prepping desserts.

A big social highlight for the week was our official transfer from the old main camp kitchen to the new Holt Watters galley. The moving crew was efficient and mostly gentle while moving all of the pots, pans, dishes, and cooking supplies (after some thorough cleaning). The new kitchen, highlighted by the incredible Wolf stove-range, is absolutely beautiful and a pleasure to cook in, hang out in, and get our work done in. We simply cannot say “thank you!” enough to Bespoke for getting the building finished up, and of course, the Colorado Building Workshop for all of the thought that went into the design.

Cleaning, organizing, and general mold hunting continued this week.

Bespoke Construction Updates

As a necessary diversion from the ongoing yet often times relatively futile efforts of snow and melt water redistribution efforts, Bespoke focused this week on preparation for the impending arrival of the main construction crew in approximately 10 days. This included the unpacking and organization of small tools, consumables, cords, fasteners, and other items that will allow main construction activities to commence immediately when the team arrives.

Overall, berthing suite mechanical systems continue to perform as expected. There has been a small recurring problem with the circuitry of the duct heater, causing it to need to be reset occasionally. Technical support from the manufacturer as well as the mechanical engineer of record for the project have been consulted and are providing guidance to fix this problem. Bespoke will continue to monitor, modify as directed by the engineer and manufacturer, and in general assure NOAA as to the long-term functionality and viability of this particular component. As a back-up there is, on station, a replacement duct heater; however, we would rather leave this as replacement stock. We think that the genesis of this issue is the fact that the entire system is being powered by a generator. Systems like this, while robust, do not like the modulation of frequencies presented with generator power. We think once hooked to a cleaner, more consistent power source, this issue will disappear completely. However, a new board as well as controller have been sent to the engineer (Miles Dake) and we will deliver this material to NOAA. While we want all systems to work after initial installation, we are glad this is happening now while we are on site and can fix it and provide a long-term solution. We will continue to monitor until this problem is fixed entirely.

The galley has been completed, architecturally and mechanically, and has been turned over to the camp staff for full-time use. Again, we will monitor any deficiencies that may arise, but none have so far.

We continue to transport materials from the main beach and we are pleased that all the millwork and interior cladding is now stored in the Weather Haven at the main camp site. We will shift focus in the coming week from material movement to layout of batter boards to establish elevation and corners for the new lab building, installation of foundation material, and installation of drop beam structural supports. After we complete this phase, the main construction crew will be onsite to help facilitate moving the rest of the materials and constructing the lab facility.

Situation Report 5: December 25–31, 2023

Weekly Overview

We had an extremely productive week bookended by major holidays. Who could ask for more? It’s hard to articulate this weeks’ work because it involved a lot of hard work and accomplishment on a suite of smaller projects, but the forward progress is being enjoyed by all. The holidays were enjoyed by the team and punctuated by some amazing whale sightings through the huge galley windows on both Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

The science team at Cape Shirreff poses for a selfie on the beach with their science gear (binoculars). The ocean with chunks of sea ice is in the immediate background, while snow-covered mountains on distant land and a cloudy sky are in the far background. — From left to right: Doug Krause, Sam Woodman, Jaelyn Leslie, Abby Letts, and Kristen Alvstad enjoy a day of data collection. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

We performed most of our annual South Shetland Antarctic Fur Seal (SSAFS) Cape-wide pup census during a festive, post-Christmas December 27, and completed the census on December 30. This census involves us walking every beach at the Cape and counting all of the SSAFS pups. Our synoptic pup count for this year was 410 pups (standard deviation 3.7). This count represents a 17.6 percent decline from the 2022-23 season, continuing the recent Cape Shirreff SSAFS population crash.

While the Cape-wide pup census marks the end of our U.S. AMLR study beach pup censuses for this season, we look forward to watching these puppies continue to grow and explore the Cape. From the study beach pup counts, the date of median pupping (the date by which half of the total pups had been born) is December 6, 2023. This is two days later than last season (December 4, 2022). This shift later by two days may be indicative of a drop in the average age of the females in our population, since older females tend to arrive and pup earlier than younger ones. If true, such a shift is a positive sign for the shrinking population – a drop in average age reflects the process of younger females surviving and joining the breeding population.

We continue to monitor our six SSAFS attendance pups this week, including weighing our final pup (Challah) for her post-perinatal pup weight. She gained a full 2.0 kg.

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female SSAFS to measure their foraging trip lengths. This season, we are tracking 11 female fur seals. To date, their average trip length is 101.5 hours for the first trip (n = 11), 120.9 hours for the second trip (n = 7), 89.5 hours for the third trip (n = 2), and 116.2 hours for the fourth trip (n = 1). The average across all seals and trips is 107.6 hours (n = 21, 4.5 days).

On December 30, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We observed 527 southern elephant seals, two leopard seals, and 13 Weddell seals. Again, this week, the elephant seal count is over one hundred elephant seals more than any other count from the week of December 30 across all historical Cape Shirreff phocid censuses (1998-2023).

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. This week we collected DNA samples from two Weddell seals, bringing our season total to ten Weddell seal samples.

To date, we have resighted seven tagged elephant seals: four with non-AMLR tags, and three who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and two in 2016). We have resighted 62 tagged fur seals, including 18 known-age animals. One of these known-age SSAFS is a first-time mom on one of our U.S. AMLR study beaches. We also became reacquainted with one new tagged leopard seal this week, an adult female who both was tagged way back in 2012 and had slightly swollen nipples, potentially indicating that she was nursing a pup until recently. This brings our season total to four tagged adult female leopard seals and one tagged Weddell seal.

A leopard seal rests upside down on a pebbly beach with its mouth open and its front flippers curled in front. The ocean is in the background. — A leopard seal rolls around on the beach. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Seabirds

This week, Sam led the seabird team to an additional two brown skua nests. This puts our active skua nest count at 19, with nine of those now having tiny, floofy brown chicks. Every four days we check each nest to confirm it is still active and track the survival of the chicks.

Known-age gentoo and chinstrap penguin nest monitoring continued. By the end of the week, 16 gentoo and eight chinstrap known age nests had chicks hatch.

A new friend appeared on the beach Media Luna this week. While checking a skua nest in the area, Kristen saw a penguin on the horizon that appeared bigger than the rest. Upon looking through her binoculars, she saw the distinguishing yellow markings of a king penguin. After radioing to tell of her discovery, the entire Cape Shirreff team quickly scurried out of camp to gaze upon its wondrous, royal plumage.

A king penguin visits Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

We finished setting up and testing our radio tags this week. Next week, these tags will be deployed on 15 chinstrap penguins and 15 gentoos in order to measure how long they spend foraging at sea. The radio tags send out a signal, each at their own frequency, that is then picked up by our receiver. We can then determine when the penguins are at their nest (being picked up by the receiver) or at sea foraging (not being picked up by the receiver).

Our chinstrap penguins hit their peak hatch date on December 28, 2023.

This week we’re spotlighting one of our favorite gentoo chicks: Carl! Carl was one of two chicks to hatch from a nest that was way ahead of the game. Carl was first sighted with its sibling on December 3, but they already appeared to be a few days old (the sibling unfortunately disappeared a few weeks later). The earliest recorded hatch date for Cape Shirreff is 11/30 so Carl is certainly close to the record. Most of the gentoo chicks hatched a full month later than Carl, so it’s easy to pick our large fluffy chick out of the crowd. Abby looks forward to seeing Carl every day – a perfectly plump fluffball who’s awkwardly larger than all the rest.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

This week we completed the “out of storage” checklist to inspect, test, and prepare our APH-28 drone (Aerial Imaging Solutions, LLC) for use. This week, weather permitting, we’ll conduct a survey of the nearby San Telmo Islets for SSAFS pups.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. This week we did not observe any further signs of infection on the beaches with the likely sick gentoo penguins, or on any other beaches on the Cape. One of the gentoos died two days after being observed; the other three birds were not seen again. We have continued to wash our boots with the disinfectant Vikron when either leaving the penguin colonies or returning to the field camp buildings.

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

The beginning of the week was Christmas day so of course I decided it was the perfect opportunity to wear my hair out with freshly shampooed curls to start off the holiday. Louise sent us all the cutest holiday themed buffs for a Christmas gift that I used as a headband to try and preserve my curls from the humidity while on my morning resights hike. Thank you, Louise! It was a valiant attempt to reduce frizz but the humidity had set in and the frizz was just something I had to accept. The rest of the week was pretty basic in terms of hair style choices. We had some really warm days that prompted me to just rock two pigtail braids under some ear warmers instead of a beanie. I did pull out a baseball cap for one of our low wind days. That also happened to be a day where I could not have been bothered to try a anything other than a messy bun. I finished off the week strong with, you guessed it, two pigtail braids. It was a little windier than the rest of the week and felt a lot colder so the braids helped keep my ears warm.

Weather Station Report:

Winds speed was on average 10.6 mph with and reached a maximum speed of 55 mph on Monday. Wind direction was from the west 44.7 percent of the time followed by winds from the north 23.5 percent of the time. Wind chill was -3.2^oC on average with a low of -6.8^oC. The highest recorded temperature for this week was 3.7^oC with a low of -1.3^oC. Temperatures averaged 0.9^oC.

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

After weeks of waiting for the snow to melt and the ground to dry, Bespoke and NOAA completed setting up eight Polar Pyramid and four Mountain tents to house the construction crew.

Chilean Power: Justin re-wired the power supplies to the main Chilean building, and repaired the generator. The power system is up and running in Little Chile.

We plan to install the Chilean hut gutters during the coming week, conditions pending.

The Bespoke crew completed preliminary cleaning of Little Chile in preparation of the main construction team’s arrival, hopefully on January 2, 2024.

Water

This was another low precipitation week. The U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 60 percent full.

Power

Power is being delivered to the galley and berthing suite on the Holt Watters campus by generator for 2-4 hours per day to circulate air and provide heat.

Other

No updates on the M/V Betanzos’ boat that they left on a beach by the penguin colonies.

We launched two camera systems to monitor the build site during the main construction portion of the season.

Work has continued all week to build Metro shelving for the dry storage area of the galley building.

The last of the fresh food and vegetables were triaged for rot, containers cleaned, moved into the new galley building, and organized. As much as (some of us) will miss the old freshies closet, it is exciting to see such a clean and efficient space!

Camp Life and Safety

A wooden bench inside the new camp building is covered in Christmas decorations, a small Christmas tree, and wrapped presents. A window behind the bench looks out at the beach, the ocean, and a cloudy sky. — It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Cape Shirreff! Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Christmas opened with some of the most delicious cinnamon rolls the world has ever known (orange zest? YES.), shared around a table in the new galley, surrounded by gorgeous hand-made Christmas decorations.

A close-up of a glass baking dish containing freshly baked, frosted cinnamon rolls. — Christmas Day cinnamon rolls. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

After breakfast, a suite of thoughtful gifts was shared among the crew. Then we did some science, and pivoted to dinner prep. The menu included a charcuterie, pasta salad, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato hash, fresh baked bread, smoked salmon and turkey. Dessert included a pecan tart, a pumpkin pie, and strawberry pretzel delight. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm doesn’t cover it!

Five people sit in a group on the floor in the new camp building, in front of the Christmas tree and presents, for a Christmas morning portrait. All are wearing pajamas and matching blue shoes. — From left to right: Jaelyn Leslie, Kristen Alvstad, Abby Letts, Doug Krause, and Sam Woodman enjoy Christmas morning at the Cape. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

A lot of time, thought, and effort has gone into the transition of personnel, equipment, and gear from the old buildings and the sea shipment into the new buildings. Progress has been encouraging and the new facility continues to impress.

To round out the week, we had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. The science and logistical work day were a bit longer with preparations in full swing for coming pinniped and seabird work as well as the pop-up camp; however, the Cape chefs came through in fine style with an impressive layout: Gumbo, collard-green-style spinach, black-eyed peas, bread, and baked mac ’n’ cheese. Dessert included sweet potato and chocolate pudding pies. A huge “Happy 2024” to all of our friends and family. We’re warm, safe, and missing you all!

Eight people gather around the kitchen table in the new camp galley opening Christmas presents. The table is cluttered with wrapping paper and gift bags. Everyone looks happy. — Christmas morning gift exchange at Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Situation Report 6: January 1–7, 2024

Weekly Overview

Happily, this week has been dominated both socially and logistically by the arrival for the “second wave” team to Cape Shirreff. We welcomed four NOAA team members and eleven Bespoke team members to bring the total Cape Shirreff population to a world record twenty-two! It has been great seeing old and new friends, and watching the construction project get a gigantic boost of activity and enthusiasm. The science team has also been invigorated by two new biologists joining the animal geek squad.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. To date, their average trip length is 112.9 hours (n = 30, 4.7 days). The average trip length has been 101.5 hours for the first trip (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 117.1 hours for the third trip (n = 6), 110.1 hours for the fourth trip (n = 2), and 78.7 hours for the fifth trip (n = 1). These trip lengths are well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions are sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our six SSAFS attendance pups this week. All six pups are busy exploring their home beaches when not hanging out with or waiting for their moms.

On January 5, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We observed 506 southern elephant seals, three leopard seals, and 17 Weddell seals. Continuing the theme from the past two weeks, the elephant seal count is almost two hundred elephant seals higher than any other count from the week of January 5 across all previous Cape Shirreff phocid censuses. Conversely, the leopard seal count is similar to last year, and much lower than the counts from the week of January 5 from 2011-2020 (mean = 7.1).

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. This week we collected DNA samples from one leopard seal, bringing our season total to two leopard seal and ten Weddell seal samples.

To date we have resighted nine tagged elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and four who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and three in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals. We also have seen five tagged adult female leopard seals and one tagged Weddell seal, as well as one untagged male leopard seal that we have seen on three separate occasions.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, for the rest of the season we will aim to collect 10 scats from SSAFS adult females that we find on the beach per week. However, with the smaller population size and longer foraging trips there have not been many scats. This past week we collected two scats. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the U.S., and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

Soon after the build team arrived, construction began on the new emergency shelter, which also serves as a bird blind (i.e., a shelter used to observe wildlife while minimizing disturbance). Kristen and Abby are happy to have new company out at the penguin colonies and they are excited to watch and help where they can as the new building starts to take shape.

The seabird team took new camp additions, Heidi and Sydney, on a tour of the colonies and the nests we monitor daily. We showed them how we record which parents are attending their nests every day and how many eggs or chicks they have.

The team continues to monitor the known-age chinstrap and gentoo nests on a daily basis. At this point, we have 10 chinstrap and 21 gentoo active known age nests. This week we wanted to highlight the ages of our active known age birds – we have observed one gentoo penguin banded during the 2006-2007 field season (17 years old!) and one chinstrap penguin banded during the 2005-2006 field season (18 years old!). The ages of both species range from four years to 18 years.

On January 3 and 4, the team deployed radio tags on 15 healthy chinstrap parents. The data collected from these tags will help determine how long the penguins are out at sea foraging. We look forward to deploying another 15 tags on gentoos next week.

Brown skua nests checks continued this week. So far, 17 nests remain active.

Evening beach sweeps are being completed in order to have higher chances of resighting known-age banded penguins. Every evening Kristen and Abby scour the beaches surrounding the west and east colonies and record every band number they see. Some of these penguins are not breeding, so we can catch them on the beaches instead of in the colonies.

This week the seabird team observed two macaroni penguins in colony 11. The pair was seen moving some pebbles around and Abby was hopeful they would build a nest and she would get to see a macaroni chick. Sadly, the pair departed the next day.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

The weather has not allowed us to conduct our planned survey of the San Telmo Islets this week. However, we remain hopeful that we can complete it in the coming days. We flew two survey routes of an ATV route between the main boat landing beach and the remote construction site at Cerro Enrique. Those images will be used to help us monitor and mitigate potential impacts of ATV use to the landscape.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We observed one dead adult male SSAFS on a non-breeding beach, and will monitor for any additional signs of infection.

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

We have a guest star on this week’s (H)Air Quality Report! Sam has so kindly given us a detailed description on the state of his “flow” throughout this week. Sam’s flow was thriving at the beginning of the week, fluffy and full of volume from the warmer temperatures and westward winds. As the week went on and the grease set in, a combination of precipitation and day three hair caused Sam’s flow to slick down into an “emo-esque” situation over his face. A mid-week shower brought on a new fresh flow that has been tucked underneath a skull cap to protect against the cooler temperatures during the later part of the week. Besides his “flow,” Sam has decided to shave his beard and sport a handle bar mustache! He has reported that his face is cold without the beard but that just poses more opportunities to wear cool buffs!

Weather Station Report:

This week’s mean temperature was 1.4^oC with a high of 3.6^oC and a low of -0.9^oC. Wind chill was -3.7^oC on average with the lowest recorded wind chill being -7.3^oC. Wind speed averaged 14.9 mph with a maximum speed of 42 mph. Average wind gust speed was highest on Wednesday, January 3, at 29 mph. Wind direction was predominantly from the west (77.7 percent) followed by winds from the north (19.6 percent).

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

The opening crew of Bespoke and NOAA completed the last of demolding buildings, transporting goods and food, and setting up tents on January 1. On January 2, we welcomed Ellie and Rene, Camp Manager and Chef respectively, who have taken over the organization and management of the Pop-up camp. It has been amazing to see them so quickly whip everything into efficient shape and begin to deliver all needed food and services to the 13-person construction crew.

Water

Although the skies have been grey, and there has been intermittent snow, it was overall another low precipitation week. The U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 44 percent full.

Power

Power is being delivered to the galley and berthing suite on the Holt Watters campus by generator for two hours per day to circulate air and provide heat.

Fuel

We started the field season with over 300 gallons of gasoline, and as of this reporting, the total stock is at approximately 200 gallons. We will monitor fuel consumption during the construction project and enact fuel conservation where possible.

Other

No updates on the M/V Betanzos’ boat that they left on a beach by the penguin colonies.

All Metro shelving construction was completed in the galley dry stores and freshies areas. All dry stores were cleaned, organized, and transported to their new home in the galley. While some organization and planning will continue in the coming weeks, a HUGE thank you to Jaelyn, Heidi, and Sydney, who led that charge.

In parallel with the dry stores, we have created temporary storage for science and emergency medical gear in the main hut, and have begun the transition of main hut supplies and gear to galley (thank you, Sam!).

Another coordination task this week has been planning out the logistics and timing of the movement of communications gear into the new galley building. We will be setting up a main communications tower that will facilitate VHF communications, science-based VHF monitoring, and Certus satellite communications equipment.

Camp Life and Safety

Among the wonderful things that came along with the Bespoke/Colorado Building Workshop team arriving this week were: 1) welcoming the Ecosystem Science Division Deputy Director Heidi Taylor and LT Sydney Catoire to the science team, and 2) that the construction team chef, Rene, has kindly been dropping off special baked treats.

Situation Report 7: January 8–14, 2024

Weekly Overview

Logistics and science came together like tributaries flowing into a great river of accomplishment this week. The seabird team, with support from the seal side of town, kept things rolling on the penguin instrument deployments, we supported the Bespoke team by moving heavy materials, and undertook more waves of organization and movement from the old to the new facility. We also embarked on a new tradition of swapping science and construction personnel during dinner. So fun. So delicious.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. To date, their average trip length across is 113.7 hours (n = 38, 4.7 days). The average trip length has been 101.5 hours for the first trip (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n = 10), 111.3 hours for the fourth trip (n = 4), 85.6 hours for the fifth trip (n = 2), and 78.7 hours for the sixth trip (n = 1). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our SSAFS attendance pups this week. We said our farewells to two of these pups that died this week; one was eaten by a leopard seal and one died after her mom did not come back from her latest foraging trip. The remaining four pups are all healthy and enjoying exploring hills and tide pools.

We weighed one pup, Buddy the Elf, for his post-fourth trip attendance weight. We weigh the attendance pups after their moms have completed their fourth and sixth foraging trips, which allows us to look at their growth rates with their moms’ foraging trip lengths and behavior. Buddy weighed 8.4 kg, which is 2.0 kg more than during his post-perinatal weight.

An adult South Shetlands Antarctic fur seal with unusual blonde fur sits on a rocky beach with a rocky outcropping in the background. — A rare blonde South Shetland Antarctic fur seal. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

On January 12, we conducted our weekly, Cape-wide phocid census survey. The Cape continues to be awash with southern elephant seals: we observed 533 southern elephant seals, five leopard seals, and 22 Weddell seals. In addition, for the first time this year during a Cape Shirreff phocid survey, we saw two crabeater seals.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10–12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a genetics study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. This week we collected DNA samples from one leopard seal, bringing our season total to three leopard seal and 10 Weddell seal samples.

To date, we have resighted nine tagged elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and four who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and three in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals. This week we resighted two new (for this season) pinnipeds: one leopard seal and one Weddell seal, and thus we have seen six tagged adult female leopard seals and two tagged Weddell seals.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected 10 scats from SSAFS adult females. Nine out of the 10 scats had krill, while two of the scats appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the US, and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

On January 9 and 10, we deployed 15 radio tags on breeding gentoo penguins. Each radio tag sends out pings at a certain frequency. The frequencies are then picked up by a receiver in the east colonies. When the radio pings are picked up by the receiver, it means the penguin with that tag is on their nest. When there are no pings picked up, it means the penguin is at sea foraging. By looking at the time between when pings stop and start again, we can determine how long they are at sea foraging.

A scientist sits on an upside-down empty bucket on a rocky beach. She is holding a gentoo penguin carefully under her arm while another scientist carefully attaches a radio transmitter to the penguin's back. Other gentoo penguins sit on their nests in the background. The ocean, small ice floes, and snow-covered mountains are in the distant background. — Kristen Alvstad (standing) and Jaelyn Leslie (seated) apply a radio transmitter to a gentoo penguin's back. Photo credit: NOAA Fisheries

In addition to the radio tags, the seabird team also started our GPS deployments. Four GPS/TDR (global positioning system/time-depth recorder) tags were attached to healthy chinstrap parents this week. These tags will remain deployed on the penguins for four full days before we recapture them to remove the tags and download the data. These tags will tell us where penguins are foraging during their chick-guarding phase. After the tags are recovered, they will be redeployed on different penguins to collect data during the chick crèche phase.

With all these tags out, we have a lot more nests to monitor. Every day, we are now checking 65 penguin nests (31 known-age nests, 30 radio tag nests, and four GPS/TDR tag nests) to ensure they are still active and record their number of chicks. Unfortunately, this week one radio-tagged chinstrap and one known-age chinstrap both lost their chicks.

A gentoo penguin adult and its chick sit on their nest on top of a rocky outcropping. Other gentoo penguin adults and chicks sit on nests in the immediate and distant background. Behind the foreground penguins, the terrain is covered with green moss. The sky is a brilliant blue. — A gentoo penguin adult and chick on a rare sunny day at Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Skua nest checks continue every four days. This week wasn’t a good one for our breeding brown skua pairs. Out of the 22 chicks that hatched, we are down to 12 remaining chicks. We will keep checking each skua territory in case the chicks were hiding from us on our last check.

We completed a kelp gull census on January 14 to check in on their mid-season chick count. We surveyed the three breeding grounds (Bahamonde, Toki, and Loberias) and found 23 kelp gull chicks.

A panoramic view of Cape Shirreff taken from the top of a hill. The landscape is brown and rocky with large patches of snow. The ocean and snow-covered mountains are in the background. There are wispy clouds in the blue sky, and the sun has started to set. — A panoramic view of Cape Shirreff. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Due to some technical difficulties and a stretch of bad weather, we were not able to complete our UAS survey of the San Telmo Islets this year. However, we continued our weekly surveys of the construction sites and gathered some video of the construction process.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We observed one new dead adult male SSAFS on a non-study beach, and will monitor the beach for any additional signs of infection.

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

This week’s (H)Air Quality report features another guest star! Please enjoy this lovely description of the week’s weather through the blonde locks of Kristen. Coming off her shower last week, Kristen had a fresh head of fluffy soft blonde hair which Abby promptly made into a rat’s nest by giving her head scratches after a long day. She then had to brush out her hair, which she usually doesn’t do because she has wavy hair which is not necessary to comb out every day. This was followed by a day of heavy snow that forced her to tie her freshly-brushed hair back into two French braids. Due to a combination of the French braids and warm sunny days following our snow day, her hair greased up more than it has the entire season. She then transitioned from the French braids to a slick back bun/pony tail situation. This was followed by two warm sunny days so she let her goldilocks loose in two pig tails to catch as much sun as she could. She finished off the week with a shower and rocked some pigtails because it was warm enough to wear a baseball cap.

Weather Station Report:

This week’s weather report will only include readings from January 8– 12 because we have officially moved the weather station from the Old Fart’s room to the new Holt Watters communications tower. The average temperature this week was 1.2^oC with a high of 3.3^oC and a low of -0.2^oC. Wind chill was lowest at -6.6^oC and averaged -2.4^oC. Wind speeds were highest on Thursday, reaching a maximum of 49 mph. Heidi and Jaelyn both experienced these high winds first hand while making a valiant attempt to collect scat for our diet study. They may not have collected the scat but they walked away with plenty of sand in their hair to create a mini beach back at main camp. Although Thursday was very windy, the average wind speed for the days recorded was 9.1 mph. Wind direction was predominately from the west (42.4 percent) followed by winds from the north (30.4 percent). We had one surprise snow day this week that painted the Cape in a beautiful blanket of white long enough for everyone to get some great landscape photos.

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Ellie and Rene are running this show like bosses.

Water

Sydney took over as “Vital Liquids” Czar this week, and sure enough we started getting precipitation! The U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 55 percent full.

Power

Power is being delivered to the galley and berthing suite on the Holt Watters campus by generator for two hours per day to circulate air and provide heat.

Fuel

As of this reporting the total stock is at 140 gallons. We will monitor fuel consumption during the construction project and enact fuel conservation where possible.

Other

No updates on the M/V Betanzos’ boat that they left on a beach by the penguin colonies.

This week, thanks to leadership from Sam and support from the rest of the team, we moved, cleaned, and reorganized the contents of the main hut ground level and attic. It continues to be exciting and a little unsettling to see our long-lived-in buildings empty with bare walls and shelves.

After a week or investigating, planning, and problem solving, we moved the core communications facilities (Certus satellite data, VHF base station, weather station, and a monitoring system for pinniped radio tags) to a new, centralized “communications tower” installed on the galley. It is BEAUTIFUL and all systems seem to be functioning extremely well.

Camp Life and Safety

On Wednesday and Thursday this week (and during the coming weeks), we exchanged two science team folks with two construction team folks during dinner time. This is a great new tradition! It was so much fun to mix up the group and learn a bit more about the amazing folks we’re sharing the Cape with.

On Friday, the Bespoke and NOAA teams came together for an epic game night including ping-pong and a rowdy game of Cranium.

Situation Report 8: January 15–21, 2024

Weekly Overview

Science, construction, and lumberjack games are all going at full tilt at the moment! Penguin and seal captures, deployments, and recoveries have been keeping the science team busy. The construction team has closed in both new buildings and have turned to interiors, electrical, and demolition of the old buildings. And, in addition to a very special birthday this week, the whole campus came together to compete using feats of woodsman skills…

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. Their average trip length is 114.1 hours (n = 42, 4.8 days). The average length was 101.5 hours for the first trip to sea (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n = 10), 116.8 hours for the fourth trip (n = 6), 98.6 hours for the fifth trip (n = 3), and 83.5 hours for the sixth trip (n = 2). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our three surviving SSAFS attendance pups this week. These pups are growing rapidly and continuing to explore farther afield each week.

We weighed two pups, Grinch and Challah, for their post-fourth trip attendance weight. We weigh the attendance pups after their moms have completed their fourth and sixth trips, which allows us to look at their growth rate with mom’s foraging trip length and behavior. Grinch and Challah both weighed 9.8 kg, and in a funny coincidence both weighed 2.5 kg more than their post-perinatal weights.

On January 19, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid survey. While there were fewer southern elephant seals than last week, we still observed 489 southern elephant seals, in addition to five leopard seals and 18 Weddell seals.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. This week we collected a DNA sample from one leopard seal, bringing our season total to four leopard seal and ten Weddell seal samples.

This week, we resighted two (new, for this season) pinnipeds: one elephant seal and one Weddell seal. To date we have resighted ten tagged elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and five who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and four in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals, and we have seen six tagged adult female leopard seals and three tagged Weddell seals.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected eight scats from SSAFS adult females. Five out of the eight scats had krill, while three of the scats appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the US, and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

On Friday, January 19, we observed an unusual fur seal on one of our northern beaches. This fur seal was the size of a large subadult male (SAM) and behaved like a SAM, but had the body proportions of an adult female fur seal. In addition, the seal had a penile aperture, but no visible testes.

Seabirds

The seabird team started this week by recovering the GPS/TDR tags deployed last week on chinstrap penguins. All four tags were recovered after spending 4-5 days on the backs of our junior scientists (a.k.a., penguins). The data was successfully downloaded from all four tags as well.

After recharging the GPS/TDR tags, they were ready for another round of deployments. On January 21, the tags were attached to four healthy gentoo penguin parents in the west colonies. Stay tuned next week for those recoveries.

With help from Doug and Sam from the pinniped team, Abby and Kristen began their flipper banding training. So far, eight flipper bands have been deployed on chinstrap penguins in the east colonies. These flipper bands are used to track survival rates of reproducing birds.

This week our first known-age gentoo nest had crèched chicks. When chicks crèche, it means they form a group on the beach with other chicks for protection while their parents forage. We continue to monitor all active known-age gentoo and chinstrap nests until their chicks have crèched.

Two brown skua nest checks were completed. Unfortunately, another two skua chicks were lost this week. Sam observed one skua chick being killed by its sibling (fratricide) on Loberia beach. This brings our total chick count down to 10.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

We took advantage of some calm weather last weekend to complete our weekly survey of the construction site.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We observed one new dead juvenile Weddell seal on a non-study beach, and will monitor the beach for any additional signs of infection.

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

Cold. Wet. Tangled. Matted. That is all I have for the (H)Air Quality Report this week. All the context I am willing to provide is that we received a lot of precipitation in many different forms. That combined with the wind just created a never-ending ball of tangles that I attempted to pull off as a messy bun. The rest of the crew will have to weigh in on how well I disguised the matted mess of my hair.

Weather Station Report:

The average temperature reported by the weather station this week was 1.3^oC with a high of 3.5^oC and a low of -0.1^oC. Average wind chill was -2.1^oC with a low of -6.6^oC. Wind speeds were highest on Thursday, reaching 30 mph but relatively low for the rest of the week. Average wind speed was only 8.3 mph. Wind direction was spread pretty even between north winds (31 percent), east winds (31.0 percent), and west winds (34.7 percent).

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Ellie and Rene are keeping everything running smoothly and everyone fed!

Water

Sydney, “Vital Liquids” Czar, indicates that the U.S. field camp storage barrels are now approximately 55 percent full. While use is high with 22 people consuming, we’ve had a steady stream of precipitation as well.

Power

As with previous weeks, power is being delivered to the galley and berthing buildings on the Holt Watters campus by generator for two hours per day to circulate air and provide heat.

Fuel

As of this reporting the total stock is at 105 gallons. We will monitor fuel consumption during the construction project and enact fuel conservation where possible.

Other

No updates on the M/V Betanzos’ boat that they left on a beach by the penguin colonies.

This week the team’s pre-move triage was focused on cleaning and organizing the fur seal lab and workshop spaces. Several hundred pounds of donation and trash materials have been set aside to come off the island, and all items set to move into the new buildings have been bleached clean.

Camp Life and Safety

Without question, one of the highlights of the season was the campus-wide celebration of Ellie’s birthday. Rene and Jae made some tasty desserts, Sean Cornish wrote a hilarious folk song about her life…at least 42 verses’ worth. Then a “Dancing with the Stars” competition commenced where the star and the real talent were both clearly Ellie. The evening rounded out with her coronation as the Penguin Queen of Dance.

All members of the science team are now officially initiated as Antarctic scientists after tracking the antics at U.S. Antarctic Science Post 31 in the movie The Thing. Classic.

Game night last Saturday took a turn for the lumberjack competition with a tournament of Hammerschlagen. Look it up. It was fun. The science team represented pretty well considering none of us had ever played before. The grand champion, Bo, won with an expertly delivered cross-table slam of his opponent’s near-finished nail!

Situation Report 9: January 22–29, 2024

Weekly Overview

This week was busy, but punctuated with a changeover of personnel in camp. We have therefore extended this week’s sit rep by a day to cover the transition to the closing crew that remain. On Monday, January 29, the Hanse Explorer arrived in a dense fog and facilitated a transfer of personnel. We bid fond farewells to George, Heidi, Sam, Doug, and 11 members of the main construction team. The amount of work, both science and construction, these folks accomplished in such a short time is staggering and we thank them heartily for their herculean efforts and constant good cheer throughout. We also welcomed Jefferson from over yonder in the banana belt of Admiralty Bay. What was 22 is now eight, and the Cape seems strangely quiet, yet primed for the final push of the season. The progress of the week is detailed below.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. Their average trip length is 114.2 hours (n = 45, 4.8 days). The average length was 101.5 hours for the first trip (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n = 10), 116.8 hours for the fourth trip (n = 6), 107.5 hours for the fifth trip (n = 5), and 91.4 hours for the sixth trip (n = 6). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our three surviving SSAFS attendance pups this week. These pups are growing rapidly and continuing to explore farther afield each week.

We weighed one pup, Buddy the Elf, for his post-sixth trip attendance weight on January 24. We weigh the attendance pups after their moms have completed their fourth and sixth trips, which allows us to look at their growth rates with their moms’ foraging trip lengths and behavior. Buddy weighed in at 10 kgs and has gained 1.6 kgs since his post-fourth trip attendance weight.

On January 27, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We continue to see fewer southern elephant seals than we have in previous weeks, but we did observe 478 southern elephant seals, in addition to four leopard seals, 22 Weddell seals, and one crabeater seal.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. We have collected a total of four leopard seal and ten Weddell seal samples for the 2023-24 field season.

To date, we have resighted ten tagged southern elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and five who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and four in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals, and we have seen six tagged adult female leopard seals and three tagged Weddell seals.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected eight scats from SSAFS adult females. Six out of the eight scats had krill, while five of the scats appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the U.S., and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

This week the seabird team finished our flipper banding for studying the survival of reproducing penguins. With the help of Jae and Doug, the team banded 72 chinstrap and 40 gentoo penguins throughout the east and west colonies. These bands are stainless steel and have a unique five-number code that identifies the individual. Over the coming years, we will resight these bands to help determine their overall survival.

During our banding effort, we were fortunate to find an additional five geo-locating sensor tags (GLS) that were deployed on chinstrap penguins last season. They were all successfully recovered except one, which only had the leg band but sadly no instrument.

Our junior scientist gentoo penguins brought back their tags this week. After their chicks crèched, all four GPS/TDR tags were recovered on January 25 and 26. These tags tracked the locations of the gentoos over four days and will provide us with information on where and how deep they were foraging.

On January 28, 10 cloacal swabs (four gentoo and six chinstrap) were taken from crèched chicks. These swabs were sent off with Doug to be sent to Chile’s Escudero Base where they will test for the presence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

After checking on our active brown skua territories, all our remaining 10 chicks are alive and accounted for.

This week we now have 10 crèched gentoo known-age nests and one crèched chinstrap nest. We will continue to monitor the remaining active nests until the chicks are seen without a parent (crèche).

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

We flew one routine monitoring flight over the construction site of main camp.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Weather

(H)Air Quality Report:

PRECIPITATION! This week was simple in terms of the style of choice to get through the ever-changing forms of precipitation, including horizontal snow and spitting rain. I thought I could get away with just a messy bun for a few days but I was poorly mistaken. When I finally decided to take the bun out my hair it maintained its wet/matted shape without the hair tie. Gross. With no hope on the horizon for a change in the weather, I took the time to detangle the wet matted nest of hair on my head and secure it into a single braid. Sunshine and low winds graced our presence on Sunday so I decided a ponytail would be a good choice for a science walk with the construction team. This was, again, a poor choice. I ended the week with another matted nest. Stay tuned to see if I ever learn my lesson.

Weather Station Report:

This week there was an average temperature of 1.2^oC with a high of 3.7^oC and a low of -0.3^oC. Windchill was lowest at -8^oC with an average of -3.2^oC. We do not have an accurate precipitation reading for this week but we can confidently say that we received quite a bit compared to previous weeks here at Cape Shirreff. Wind speed was lower on average for this week at 12.3 mph but reached a maximum of 55 mph on Wednesday. Wind direction was pretty evenly spread between east (36.8 percent), west (31.7 percent), and north (28.6 percent) winds.

Camp Maintenance

None noted. None needed.

Camp Life and Safety

On Sunday, January 28, two members of the pinniped team, Jae and Sydney, lead a science hike for five members of the construction crew. It was a beautiful bright sunny day for a hike. They started off the hike in search of leopard seals on the west side of the Cape. Their search was successful and they were able to observe one of our tagged females, 174O, hauled out on Schiappacasse. Then they headed north from Schiappacasse to find the penguin team, Abby and Kristen, to tour the penguin colonies. While at the colonies, they saw Carl, the oldest gentoo chick in full molt, watched gentoo chicks chase their parents around to demand food, and saw a nest with newly hatched gentoo chicks on the beach. After spending time at the East colonies, Kristen took the crew up to the top of colony 29 where they were greeted by a skua and her chick from a territory next to the colony. The construction crew also had the opportunity to practice reading penguin bands.

Nine people stand in a row, bundled up in cold weather gear and smiling at the camera. Dirt and rocks are in the foreground, while a cloudy sky is in the background. — The science team takes the construction team on a science hike. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

A gentoo penguin chick nicknamed "Carl" stands on a rocky outcropping. Carl is growing his adult plumage of black feathers on his back and white feathers on his chest, but he's also molting his downy chick feathers, which makes him look a little scruffy. Guano-covered rocks are in the foreground, and more rocks and other gentoo penguins are in the background. The sky is cloudy grey. — The oldest gentoo penguin chick at Cape Shirreff this season, "Carl," is molting his downy chick feathers and growing his adult plumage. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Situation Report 10: January 30–February 4, 2024

Weekly Overview

We’ve had another successful week here at Cape Shirreff. From pup weights to gentoo chick counts, and from energizing the new solar system to disassembling the pop-up camp, the team has been busy. The details are below.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. Their average trip length is 113 hours (n = 47, 4.7 days). The average length was 101.5 hours for the first trip (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n=10), 116.8 hours for the fourth trip (n = 6), 107.5 hours for the fifth trip (n=5), and 89.4 hours for the sixth trip (n = 5). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, likely indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our three surviving SSAFS attendance pups this week. These pups are growing rapidly and continuing to explore farther afield each week.

We weighed one pup, Challah, for her post-sixth trip attendance weight on February 4. We weigh the attendance pups after their moms have completed their fourth and sixth trips, which allows us to look at their growth rate with mom’s foraging trip length and behavior. Challah weighed in at 10.8 kgs and has gained 1 kg since her post-fourth trip attendance weight.

Four people dressed in foul weather gear smile while holding spring scales and other equipment used to weigh fur seal pups. They are standing in a field of mud, puddles, and moss. Dark grey hills are in the background, and the sky is a light grey. — Dressed and ready to weigh pups! Credit: NOAA Fisheries

We performed our 3^rd round of CCAMLR pup weights on February 4, where we weigh the first 41 pups we find. The average weights were 11.8 for females (n = 35) and 13.9 for males (n = 20)

On January 27, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We continue to see fewer southern elephant seals than we have in previous weeks but we did observe 390 southern elephant seals, in addition to four leopard seals and 11 Weddell seals.

In the foreground on a sandy beach, three seals lie along the water edge. Big chunks of ice line the beach where the water meets the sand. Ice floes float in blue water behind the seals. In the background are brown hills with patches of snow, and blue sky. — So many seals! Credit: NOAA Fisheries

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. We have collected a total of four leopard and ten Weddell samples for the 2023-24 field season.

To date we have resighted ten tagged elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and five who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and four in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals, and we have seen eight tagged adult female leopard seals and three tagged Weddell seals.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected two scats from SSAFS adult females. One scat had krill, and the other scat appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the U.S., and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

This week, the seabird team deployed video recorders with GPS tags on four gentoo parents. The video cameras are attached to the backs of the penguins with tape and zip ties, so they have the perfect view of the penguins foraging at sea. After retrieval, the team was ecstatic to see all four video loggers had hours of footage of the birds at sea. Next week, we hope to be just as lucky with our deployments on chinstrap penguins.

A still image of a krill swarm captured from a video recorder deployed on a penguin's back while the penguin forages underwater. The back of the penguin's head is visible in the foreground. The rest of the frame is filled with swimming krill. — A still image of a krill swarm captured from a video recorder deployed on a penguin's back while the penguin foraged underwater. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

On February 1, Jefferson, Abby, and Kristen had the pleasure of counting gentoo chicks in both the east and west colonies, completing our gentoo chick census for the year. This year there were 1,023 successfully crèched gentoo chicks. We counted 1,038 gentoo nests, which means their reproductive success was slightly less than one chick (0.98) produced per nest. This is less than the Cape Shirreff average of 1.08 chicks per nest.

After the chick census, the gentoo reproduction monitoring cameras were disarmed. These cameras were positioned amongst the colonies in front of groups of nests. An image was taken every 30 minutes since last February when the cameras were set up. All the images were downloaded. When we return from the field, Kristen will sift through these photos in order to determine the nesting penguins’ reproductive success.

This year we estimated the chinstrap peak crèche (the date in which over 59% of chicks have been left alone by their parents) to be February 2.

All the monitored known-age birds in the west colonies have now crèched. Abby continues to monitor one gentoo and two chinstrap known-age penguins who are still tending to their ever-growing chicks.

This week, all radio-tagged nests have crèched except for one. Abby will continue to monitor the chinstrap nest until it has crèched. We will also continue to collect the radio transmitted data for about another three weeks.

Last but not least, the seabird team had a great day banding our 10 remaining brown skua chicks. Newbie bander Kristen was able to pick up many helpful tips and tricks from pro Jefferson! These small metal bands have a unique five-digit number that will help to identify these skuas for many years to come.

Two scientists stand side-by-side in a rocky field. One is holding a skua chick while the other uses a tool to apply a band to its leg. In the background is a steep rocky hillside with a patch of snow and some green moss. — Banding skua chicks. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. A lethargic adult chinstrap was observed near Punta Ventana on February 1 and found dead and scavenged on February 2 on Playa Marko. In an abundance of caution, Playa Marko was closed to all activity pending further observations.

Cloacal swabs that were collected last week from random gentoo and chinstrap chicks for influenza detection all tested negative for the virus.

Weather

(H)air Quality Report:

We have another guest star this week! Here is a description of Abby’s (H)Air Quality Report. Abby had not taken a shower in so long that her hair was an impenetrable grease ball that responded the same to every type of weather we experienced, which was mostly windy and wet. The wind couldn’t lift a single curl of frizz from her head because of the grease. We consider this a representation of the hard work she has been putting in this season. She hid the grease ball back in a braid under a beanie for most of the week until she finally had the time to take a shower. Unfortunately, her gorgeous fresh hair was immediately soiled by horizontal snow during CCAMLR pup weights but like always, she wore her soiled curls with confidence!

Weather Station Report:

This week’s temperature averaged 1.6^oC with a high of 4.4^oC and a low of 0.1^oC. The average windchill for the week was -3.2^oC with a low of -7.2^oC. Wind speed averaged 13.6 mph but we experienced our highest wind speed yet this season at a whopping 66 mph on Friday, February 5. Wind direction was predominantly from the west (57.4 percent) followed by winds from the east (26.3 percent).

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

We flew five missions this week with our Autel EVOII drones to collect aerial imagery of the construction site, the ATV path from Playa Modulo to the new emergency shelter, and the gentoo colonies for their chick census. All equipment performed as expected.

Camp Maintenance

Rebuild and demolition activities continued this week. In main camp, the solar array was installed and connected to the new battery and inverter system. Shortly after, galley and berthing suite units were connected and there was power and light! The lone 12V DC system that remains functional is our VHF base station. All other systems have been switched to 110V AC.

We continue to monitor the power system and troubleshoot the performance of the air handling and heater systems in the berthing suite.

Work was also progressed at the bird blind despite the weather’s best attempts to thwart progress. Phase one of work to install a temporary vinyl roof was completed, which involved sealing roof joints and staging vinyl sheeting.

The emergency shelter cook top was connected to propane.

Materials to complete the solar electrical system for the emergency shelter were also staged for the next good day.

Efforts continued to complete at other punch-list tasks, clean camp, and inventory tools.

The pop-up camp is disappearing. Five tents have been packed for removal from the island, leaving only their fairy rings of rocks as a reminder of the former glory of Camp Condor.

Inventories of food stores at Little Chile and all U.S. Antarctic Program gear are complete.

Planning for the efficient transfer of trash, demolition debris, and all cargo to the beach was initiated, complete with a map drawn on old card board to guide staging efforts.

Finally, the whole team made a good dent in the enormous pile of woody debris from demolition of the old camp, spending several hours, regardless of wind or rain (and there was lots of both), banding piles for removal from the island.

Camp Life and Safety

A highlight of the week was the washing of galley floor, which involved Justin channeling intergalactic energy forces to fuel the effort. The resulting like-new gleam heralded the strict adherence of a hut-shoe-only policy in the galley. Long may the tiles shine.

Abby, Jae, and Kristen also spent a few nights in the camping tents that remain. They all enjoyed the tent life and agreed that the mountain tents were their preference.

Dessert consumption is off the charts, prompting Jae to proclaim one evening that “the whipped cream really cuts the richness of the chocolate!”

Situation Report 11: February 5–11, 2024

Weekly Overview

Cape Shirreff saw a lot of rain and fog this past week. Water barrels are overflowing and streams are trickling everywhere. Camp, however, remains dry, comfortable and well-provisioned with sugary desserts. The reach of electricity and lighting now extends into both bathrooms and shower, with preliminary work in the lab underway. Over at the old camp, the debris pile has thinned somewhat, while the staging area on the beach continues to expand. The only structure from the old camp that remains for demolition is the floor and foundation of the supply hut; two outhouses and all decking have been dismantled and most has already been cut to size and hauled to the beach. On the research side, we remained busy with tag resights and banding, and saw the conclusion of daily nest checks in the penguin colonies. The end of the research season is upon us. Full details of our progress are below.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season we are tracking 11 females. Their average trip length is 113 hours (n = 47, 4.7 days). The average length was 101.5 hours for the first trip to sea (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n = 10), 116.8 hours for the fourth trip (n = 6), 107.5 hours for the fifth trip (n = 5), and 89.4 hours for the sixth trip (n = 5). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our three surviving SSAFS attendance pups this week. As they grow older, we see them less frequently due to their continued exploration around the Cape. Most of our resights of these study pups are when they are seen near their mothers during provisioning visits.

SSAFS pups continue to explore beyond their natal beaches and have been congregating in several “puppy ponds” between the hills and ridges around the Cape. We have seen a few SSAFS pups that are newly molted, sporting their signature light silver coat, while others are still catching up.

We had a surprise visit from a leucistic sub-adult male SSAFS that hung around for two days at the landing beach! He was blonde with faint round brown patches and very dark brown hind and fore flippers. This is the third leucistic male observed at Cape Shirreff this season. We have also spotted a few of our tagged leopard seals hauled out on the ice floes that have accumulated around the Cape.

On February 9, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We observed 369 southern elephant seals, in addition to one leopard seal and 12 Weddell seals.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. We have collected a total of four leopard and ten Weddell samples for the 2023-24 field season.

As of this week, we have resighted ten tagged elephant seals: five with non-AMLR tags, and five who were tagged at Cape Shirreff as pups (one in 2008 and four in 2016). We have resighted 64 tagged fur seals, including 20 known-age animals, and we have seen eight tagged adult female leopard seals and three tagged Weddell seals.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected seven scats from SSAFS adult females. Three of them were krill scats, and the other four appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the U.S., and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

As of this week, all known-age and radio-tagged nests that the seabird team has been monitoring throughout the breeding season have crèched chicks! This marked the end of our daily monitoring efforts.

On February 2, the chinstrap chick census was completed. We counted 2,577 chicks. The chinstrap nest census was 2,083 nests, which means their reproductive success (1.23) was above the long-term Cape Shirreff average (1.01). This means there are 1.23 successfully crèched chicks for every chinstrap nest.

Brown skua nest checks were completed as usual. All 10 chicks are alive and doing well with their new leg bands.

This week, all nest-monitoring cameras got a fresh set of batteries, some positioning adjustments, and were programmed to start taking pictures for the next year. These cameras will take an image once every half hour during daylight hours every day so we can keep track of the breeding penguins’ activities and reproduction. The chinstrap images from this year were downloaded successfully.

Two people stand next to a small pile of rocks that has a metal pole sticking out of it. They are mounting a camera on it that is aimed at penguin colonies. Mossy groundcover and a few penguins are in the immediate background. The ocean and a grey sky are in the distant background. — Two Cape Shirreff scientists mount an overwinter trail camera at the penguin colonies. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

While redeploying the colony cameras, some fresh krill that spilled during gentoo chick feeding was discovered in the west colonies. Eight whole krill were measured from this collection.

100 flipper bands were put out on gentoo chicks this week and 200 will be deployed on chinstrap chicks next week. These bands will help to determine the survival of this year’s cohort by tracking how many of these known-age birds return to Cape Shirreff in the coming years.

Last but not least, a small miracle occurred this week on Cape Shirreff. While visiting the intertidal zone, Abby looked down to discover a GLS tag amongst the rocks and algae! The tag must have fallen off the leg band of a bird at some point over the season, as it contained a full winter of movement data for analysis. What luck! Good job, Abby! We also found another GLS tag (on a bird) and deployed 16 new GLS tags (six on previously tagged chinstraps and 10 on new chinstraps).

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We have no new suspected incidents to report from last week and all beaches are open for research again.

Weather

(H)air Quality Report:

The (H)air Quality report continues with a description of Sydney’s lovely brunette curls and how they responded to the week’s weather patterns. Sydney’s hair was pulled back into a French braid most of the week, but due to the substantial amount of rain we received, it was a sopping wet rope. Sensing the impending doom of continued precipitation, Sydney decided to continue to braid her hair without brushing it out, causing it to turn into a matted nest. Following her mid-week shower, a blanket of fog rolled in and worked as a nice hair moisturizer to keep her curls hydrated. This did not last long, because the wind rolled in and caused endless frizz that turned into a perfect halo around her head.

Weather Station Report:

This week’s temperature averaged 2.1°C, with a high of 3.9°C and a low of 0.4°C. The wind chill reached its lowest at -5.1°C and averaged -1.8°C. Wind speed averaged 12.5 mph with a maximum wind speed of 49 mph. The majority of the winds this week were from the west (46.3 percent) followed by winds from the east (28.9 percent). We received 2.85 inches of precipitation this week, our wettest week of the season.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

We flew twice this week before soggy and windy weather halted further missions. The first flight was our weekly assessment of the construction site. The second flight covered several chinstrap colonies for a chick census, but was cut short by worsening winds. The wet and foggy weather that dominated the week precluded other flights. All equipment performed as expected.

Camp Maintenance

Rebuild and demolition activities continued this week. Lighting was installed in both outhouses and the shower room. Conduit and wiring were also extended into the fur seal lab and work to connect lighting and electrical outlets is expected to wrap up imminently.

Continued work on finishing details around main camp continue, including projects on shelving, HVAC, doors, and painting.

Efforts to continue waterproofing the emergency shelter continue, though foul weather prevented installation of the vinyl roof.

We experienced a power shut off one night this week, likely due to excess draw from the duct heater in berthing. The relatively shorter days of February, coupled with heavy cloud cover, emphasize the need for careful energy management.

“Sparky” (a.k.a. Kristen from the construction team) provided all campers a tool and saw safety orientation, which greatly increased our range of options for progressing demolition activities. We rapidly took down all remaining decking from the old main camp, cut it to size, banded it, and transported it to the beach. Two old outhouses were also dismantled. Team Demo is efficient! The concerted efforts have left only the floor and foundation of the supply hut standing.

A collage of six photos showing people carrying wood debris, swinging hammers to break up sections of the old Cape Shirreff camp, and stacking wood in preparation for removing it from the islands. The sky is grey and cloudy in all photos. — "Team Demo" works on taking apart sections of the old Cape Shirreff field camp and staging materials to remove them from the island. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Consolidation and organization of Bespoke tools continues and we prepare to migrate AMLR gear into the new workshop and remove the three large storage tents in the coming week.

Gear on loan from U.S. Antarctic Program is largely packed and stored on the beach for transport to the ship. Only three sleep tents remain in Camp Condor.

Camp Life and Safety

A highlight of the week was our Superbowl Sunday snack attack and a viewing of the extended cut (all four hours!) of Dances with Wolves, without subtitles. Snacks included ice cream sandwiches, the football brownie, little smokies, and nachos.

In lieu of the traditional Taco Tuesday this week, we enjoyed a “Hot Ones” challenge with fried shrimp, chicken, and broccoli. Progressively spicier hot sauces were sampled, bringing several participants to uncomfortable distress with the dangerously spicy conclusion, “Da Bomb”.

The rare visit by a leucistic fur seal prompted a team excursion to Playa Modulo for a group viewing.

A collage of two photos stacked top to bottom. The top photo is a leucistic, or blonde, fur seal pup with brown spots. It is standing in a rocky intertidal area with the ocean in the background. The bottom photo is a selfie of the eight people remaining at Cape Shirreff in the rocky intertidal zone. The ocean and an iceberg are in the background. The sky is grey. — Top: A rare leucistic, or blonde, South Shetland Antarctic fur seal pup. Bottom: Team selfie of all remaining Cape Shirreff inhabitants on their hike out to see the rare pup. Credit: NOAA Fisheries (top), NOAA Fisheries/Jaelyn Leslie (bottom)

Situation Report 12: February 12–18, 2024

Weekly Overview

The weeks are slipping by quickly here as we near the end of the research season. This week we started measurements on fledging penguins and skuas, wrapped up the penguin chick census, and continued pinniped resighting efforts and pup monitoring. More tents in Camp Condor were removed, the debris pile from the demolition of the old camp continues to thin despite tearing down the last standing structures from old camp, and we ramped up efforts to organize, pack, and inventory everything for the close. Last, but not least, the projects to finalize construction and install the new camp continue almost around the clock. We did, naturally, make time to celebrate Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day with an abundance of food and fabulous desserts, too. Read on for all the details.

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Over the past three seasons, we have attached micro-VHF transmitters to adult female South Shetland Antarctic fur seals (SSAFS) in order to measure their foraging trip lengths. During this season, we are tracking 11 females. Their average trip length is 113 hours (n = 47, 4.7 days). The average length was 101.5 hours for the first trip to sea (n = 11), 126.9 hours for the second trip (n = 10), 124.1 hours for the third trip (n = 10), 116.8 hours for the fourth trip (n = 6), 107.5 hours for the fifth trip (n = 5), and 89.4 hours for the sixth trip (n = 5). These trip lengths continue to be well above the long-term average of 3.5 days, indicating that foraging conditions continue to be sub-optimal for SSAFS mothers.

We continue to monitor our three surviving SSAFS attendance pups this week. Resighting our attendance pups continues to increase in difficulty as they have begun to molt. Grinch is almost fully molted and was observed napping with mom, A115, on Modulo Flats this week.

The influx of sub-adult male fur seals (SAMs) has challenged us to up our beach census skills while navigating the crowed study sites. These SAMs are a bit more cautious and reactive to our presence so we take extra care when conducting our daily resights. Although they are more reactive to our presence, they are just as interesting to observe when it comes to their behavior compared to the adult male fur seals that were at the Cape at the start of the season.

On February16, we conducted our weekly Cape Shirreff phocid census. We observed 283 southern elephant seals, five leopard seals, and 19 Weddell seals.

This season, we are aiming to collect 10-12 DNA samples from both leopard and Weddell seals in support of a study investigating the relationship between diving behaviors and genetic markers across these two species. This study is led by Dr. Carolina Bonin of Hampton University. We have collected a total of five leopard and ten Weddell samples for the 2023-24 field season.

As part of our long-term SSAFS diet study, this week we collected five scats from SSAFS adult females. Two of them were krill scats, and the other three appeared to have fish parts. These scats will be frozen, shipped back to the U.S., and then processed back at our laboratory in La Jolla, CA.

Seabirds

This week the seabird team received the help of campmates Jae, Sydney, and Ellie for a day of deploying chinstrap penguin bands. With the six of us geared up in our heftiest penguin gear, we were able to deploy all 200 stainless steel flipper bands in just a few hours. These bands have a unique five-digit number that will identify these chicks for many years of research to come.

The remaining four GLS (geo-locating sensor) tags were deployed this week (three on penguins that overwintered with tags in 2023 and one on a new bird). These tags will remain on 20 chinstraps for the winter and will be recovered next season when they are back again to breed.

All remaining brown skua chicks are alive and well. Four territories had their 48-day measurements this week. After these measurements, the chicks are considered successfully fledged and we will no longer monitor the territory. We are still monitoring two territories.

In the left photo, a researcher in a blue jacket and goggles stands on a rocky beach holding a skua chick. The ocean with waves is in the background, along with blue sky and some puffy clouds. In the right picture, a researcher in a blue jacket and black overalls holds up an orange bag with a skua chick in it. The bag is attached to a spring scale to weigh the chick. Rocky hills with penguins on them are in the background, along with blue sky and puffy clouds. — Left: A researcher holds a skua chick. Right: A researcher holds a skua chick in a bag suspended from a spring scale to weigh the chick. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

On the final hike to Punta Oeste, we checked on the active skua territory in the area to find one large chick, which we banded for future monitoring.

Gentoo fledge weights were completed this week. On February 16, Kristen, Abby, and Jefferson had the pleasure of walking the east and west colonies to weigh 100 fluffy gentoo chicks. The average fledge weight was 4.24 kg. Gentoo penguin studies are now complete for the season.

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

All drones were idle this week due to winds, fogs, or rain.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Due to the worldwide spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, we have been closely monitoring all study beaches and colony areas for signs of sick or dead animals, and checking all other beaches/locations when in those areas. We have no new suspected incidents to report from last week and all beaches are open for research.

Weather

(H)air Quality Report:

This week’s (H)air Quality report is brought to you by none other than Jaelyn! We had a relatively dry week here at the Cape which also meant that my hair was minimally moisturized. These dry conditions lead to quite a bit of frizz and brittle ends. A trip to the hair salon is at the top of the list when we return. Most of the week, my hair was protected underneath a baseball cap with a braided pony tail to minimize the tangles from the westward winds and little precipitation we did receive. I transitioned out of the braided pony tail into a low bun that spiraled into a tangled mess as the week went on and the winds picked up. I should have taken advantage of the low winds on Saturday to actually “tame the mane,” but I just could not muster up the motivation to actually comb it out just yet. There is also a constant sprinkle of saw dust falling from my hair from helping with demolition throughout the week.

Weather Station Report:

This week’s temperature was 2.2^oC on average with a high of 4.3^oC and a low of 0.4^oC. The windchill reached its lowest at -6.2^oC and averaged -2.9^oC. Wind speed averaged 15.6 mph with a maximum wind speed of 55 mph. Majority of the winds this week were from the west (79.1 percent) and we received 0.52 inches of precipitation.

Camp Maintenance

One sleep tent was removed from Camp Condor and Ellie moved into the berthing building to enjoy solid walls and utter darkness for the first time in months.

A vast majority of all United States Antarctic Program gear on loan to the U.S. AMLR Program is already packed and stowed on the beach.

Construction of additional shelving in the workshop was progressed enough for all Bespoke tools and materials to be organized and removed from the workshop. This allowed us to move in all the U.S. AMLR tools, hardware, and materials. Completion of shelving and move-in continues, and there is plenty of space for future optimization.

The water collection system on the lab and workshop were taken down for the winter and efforts to ensure adequate filtered water supplies for camp close and opening next year are complete.

Electricity was connected to the laboratory, completing all electrical work in the main campus.

A ventilation fan was installed in the shower room to help prevent a stay-wet-room situation.

Door catches were installed on new doors of the lab, outhouses, and work shop.

At the emergency shelter, a vinyl roof was installed, additional sealant for water proofing was added to many seams and joints, and improvements were made to cladding.

Shelving above the windows in each outhouse were installed, providing campers the opportunity to customize the space under the tutelage of camp carpenter, Kristen.

Several shelves in the galley were replaced, secured, or installed. We’re particularly keen on the new water station shelf, which entirely frees the counter island for more serious cooking endeavors.

The last remaining structures from old camp were demolished this week. The floor and foundation from the Supply Hut were pried apart, cut to size, and carted to the beach.

A forest of puffy gravel sacks, stuffed with camp insulation and demolition trash has spouted on the landing beach, surely visible from space.

Camp Life and Safety

Highlights of camp life include a feast fit for Mardi Gras – shrimp and grits, eggs benedict, and a brioche King Cake sprinkled with three colors of dyed sugar. Not to be outdone, the very next day we decorated the windows with red hearts and celebrated Valentine’s Day with chocolate-dipped red velvet and strawberry cake pops.

We also found time for two whole-camp group hikes. The first was to revisit the photo scavenger hunt sites on a sunny, though very windy day. Two days later we all embarked on our longer trek to Punta Oeste for a skua resighting and chick ringing effort. Along the way we climbed a steep route where howling winds blew a small waterfall back uphill, creating a shower screen for all to scramble through.

On way to Punta Oeste we discovered two remarkable things. The first was a ski pole, reportedly lost in high winds on an earlier hike to Punta Oeste. It was found nearly a half mile from the suspected loss site. The second, and more important, was the discovery of two large bones protruding from a recently eroded moraine of rubble along the beach. The bones were buried under several feet of gravel, roughly 15 feet above sea level, with the largest bone protruding almost three feet from the rubble. We collected the smaller bone and hope to return it for analysis to learn more about the creature.

A large jagged bone protrudes approximately three feet from a dirt hillside. In the foreground is a ski pole, lost in high winds during a hike. Blue sky and streaky white clouds are in the background. — An unknown bone protrudes from a hillside, along with a ski pole lost in high winds during a hike earlier in the season. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

Last updated by Southwest Fisheries Science Center on 07/29/2024

Cape Shirreff Situation Reports 2023-2024

Table of Contents

Situation Report 1: Arrival. November 15–December 3, 2023

Camp Opening

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Camp Maintenance and Life

Water

Power

Communications

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Fun

Situation Report 2: December 4–10, 2023

Weekly Overview

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Weather

Camp Maintenance

Water

Power

Pop-up Camp

Camp Life and Safety

Situation Report 3: December 11–17, 2023

Weekly Overview

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Weather

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Water

Power

Other

Camp Life and Safety

Bespoke Construction Updates

Situation Report 4: December 18–24, 2023

Weekly Overview

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Weather

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Water

Power

Other

Camp Life and Safety

Bespoke Construction Updates

Situation Report 5: December 25–31, 2023

Weekly Overview

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Weather

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp

Water

Power

Other

Camp Life and Safety

Situation Report 6: January 1–7, 2024

Weekly Overview

Science Activities

Pinnipeds

Seabirds

Unoccupied Aerial Systems

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Monitoring

Weather

Camp Maintenance

Pop-up Camp