It's been a few days since I've written, so I thought I'd fill you in a little.
Not much has gone on lately. the last couple of days have been beautiful. Around 5 F with no wind and sunny skies. Today, however, was a bit windy. There were no gusts like the other night (67 mph - this year's record so far), but it was a constant 40 mph wind. ALL DAY. It was sunny, though, so I guess it could have been worse. Then I came into town to run a few errands and got some frostnip on my cheek. I warmed it back up, and all's well now.
I've mostly been tagging the last few days, but yesterday I got to hogtie a seal pup. OK, I guess I should explain. We try to weigh certain females at post-partruition and post-weaning, but to do this, we have to get them on the weigh sled (essentially a big scale we can drag around behind the snowmobiles - see picture). So we get everything in place, then grab th
e pup by the back flippers and slowly drag it towards the scale to entice the female. Once we get the pup on the sled, we loop a rope around its flippers and leave it on the scale while we hide so the female will (hopefully) get up on the scale. It doesn't always go so smoothly. As my last post noted, pups are squirmy and also heavy (about 50-60 lbs when we're doing this) and pretty strong. So you try to drag the pup but not too fast, while keeping the rope somewhat tight around its flippers so it doesn't come off, all in 15 lbs of clothes. It's definitely a work out. I wish I had pictures, but there's not much standing around to do and, therefore, not many picture opportunities.
e pup by the back flippers and slowly drag it towards the scale to entice the female. Once we get the pup on the sled, we loop a rope around its flippers and leave it on the scale while we hide so the female will (hopefully) get up on the scale. It doesn't always go so smoothly. As my last post noted, pups are squirmy and also heavy (about 50-60 lbs when we're doing this) and pretty strong. So you try to drag the pup but not too fast, while keeping the rope somewhat tight around its flippers so it doesn't come off, all in 15 lbs of clothes. It's definitely a work out. I wish I had pictures, but there's not much standing around to do and, therefore, not many picture opportunities. 
2 comments:
do the tags have a tracking device in them?
Aunt Stacy's class
Nope, no tracking devices. Actually, we just use cattle ear tags and put them through the hind flippers. Radio transmitters are pretty expensive and we put out a lot of tags. Also, because of the study we don't need to track the animals, just know if they come back. The tags are used to be able to uniquely identify a seal.
Post a Comment