Hi twitter! I have spent the last 5 weeks practicing #SocialDistancing and doing fun science in #Antarctica. It's been an INCREDIBLE trip. We were due to return home yesterday but bad weather means I get a few extra days in paradise. Time to share some of the adventure with you! 
I am here as part of #RossRAMP's second seal team, equipping #WeddellSeals with CTD tags to see the how they utilize their environment throughout winter. We aimed to tag 21 post-moult post-partum females near NZ's Scott Base to see if they use the #RossSeaMarineProtectedArea
On the team we have Professors @RobHarcourt and Mark Hindell, wildlife vet @WellingtonZoo Baukje Lenting and UCSC PhD student @RachelHolser. This work is part of a 5-year @niwa_nz project that is looking at foraging behavior of Adelie and emperor penguins and Weddell seals.
We've been lucky enough to stay in the absolute luxury of Scott Base for the last 5 weeks and have been incredibly well looked after by the awesome SB team. There is only 22 people on base and everyone except the winter over staff are due to depart with us when the weather clears
When @drmichellelarue told me four months ago that I'd been asked to join the team and would be spending 1.5 months in Antarctica at the end of the season - I cried like any sane person would - and then realized I'd be seeing the first sunset of 2020 (and then I cried some more).
And when the sun sets it generally rises, so I got to see the first sunrise of 2020 too. This trip has been so mind-blowingly beautiful. Every day since I arrived I've had an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness for everyone and everything that helped me achieve this crazy dream.
A few days after we arrived the sea ice cracked and the ice sheet that covered the entire bay was blown away (taking most of our seals with it). A few days later, the ice shelf started calving and we woke up in an utter #Antarctic wonderland.
After the sea ice floated away with most of the seals on it, we were a little worried that finding 21 suitable candidates may be a challenge. Luckily there were a few remaining seal nooks near base.
(All photos and activities approved by MFAT and ACA (permit # DOC-69331-MAR).
(All photos and activities approved by MFAT and ACA (permit # DOC-69331-MAR).
Our goal was to tag 10 breeders and 10 skippers (females that did not pup this previous summer) to understand whether they forage in the same areas. Thanks to the work of B-009, we have the breeding history and age of almost every seal encountered during our trip. (DOC-69331-MAR)
The tags are already giving us lots of information about each seal's location and the oceanographic conditions they encounter- one female in particular, a 19 year old who has had 11 pups, has already travelled more than 160km away and dived down to 600m (zoom lens, DOC-69331-MAR)
In total, we managed to get 18 of our 21 tags out and consider this trip to be a huge success. The information gathered by each seal over the coming months will aid in highlighting the areas most frequently used by this demographic and the depths at which they forage.
If you want to have a look at why our flight is delayed - check out antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base/web… for live updates on the view outside my window right now. Very happily stuck in a #whiteout paradise and hope that you are staying safe wherever in the world you are too!
At the start of the trip, I had almost no experience with doing research of this kind. I learnt more than I ever imagined over the last 5-weeks and cannot thank @drmichellelarue and Dr Matt Pinkerton @niwa_nz enough for allowing me to take part in this incredibly exciting project
