Seal Pups Are Very Squirmy

So you'd think that a furry, weak seal pup would be pretty easy to grab a hold of and tag, but you'd be wrong. The last couple of days, we've started tagging some seals. I've tagged about 4 pups so far, and though I'm getting the hang of it, they're not so easy to hold on to. First, we get all the tags ready away from the seals so they don't get worked up. Then someone goes in to distract the female so she doesn't get too close to the tagger. The tagger tries to quickly tag the pup with 2 tags. Easy enough, you say. Not so. The pups are about 50 lbs at even a couple of days old and they're pretty strong. Then we have gloves on, add a little snow, and they're mighty hard to get a tag in. Meanwhile, you're trying to keep an eye on the 800 lb. female that wants you to get away and will bite you if necessary. It makes for a pretty stressful couple of minutes. Other than that, we've flagged some roads, and today I weighed a couple of pups. This entails dragging the pup away from the female by its back flippers, then throwing a duffle bag over its head, rolling it on its back, zipping up the duffle bag, and weighing the thing. It's actually much easier than tagging the things, at least while they're only 50-60 lbs. When we have to do the same thing to a 300 lb pup, I might change my tune. Also, we stopped in a hut to have lunch today, and when we stepped out of the hut to leave, the visibility had dropped to about 1/4 mile. Instead of finishing the rest of the day's work, we headed back to camp. Better to have more work tomorrow than fall in a crack. So that's been it so far. I'm sure more pups will start showing up soon and we'll have our hands full. Until then, I've nothing left to say.

Except that, I've added a video of the Big Razorback seal colony from the helicopter flight.