GCMD

Summary

Abstract: The objectives for this project were:

The project aims to quantify the patterns of dispersal and survival of newly weaned southern elephant seal pups to provide information on position at sea and foraging behaviour of the pups once they leave Macquarie Island, and to examine how this is related to position at sea and foraging behaviour in the second year. This information will be used to test the hypothesis that first year survival is a consequence of the young animals exploiting different foraging grounds to adults, and that fishing activity on the Campbell Plateau may be a contributing factor. In addition, stable isotope analysis and fatty acid signature analysis will be used to examine differences in foraging behaviour from animals while they are at sea.

The raw data from this project is added to the long term database described by the metadata records 'Macquarie Island Elephant Seal Populations 1950-1965', and 'Macquarie Island Elephant Seal Populations 1985 Onwards'. This database is currently not available to the general public (URL provided below).

A number of papers have been produced from this project. Some of these papers are included in the reference section below.

The data collected for the database is as follows:

Seal Number
Status (new or resight)
Date
Location
Age Class
Status (cow, beachmaster, pregnant cow, dead etc)
Sex
Weight
Length
Size
Back Fat
Flipper
Body Water
Time Depth Recorder

Data Center

Australian Antarctic Data Centre, Australia [Information]
Data Center URL: http://data.aad.gov.au

Data Center Personnel
Name: DATA OFFICER AADC Phone: +61 3 6232 3244 Fax: +61 3 6232 3351 Email: metadata at aad.gov.au Contact Address: Australian Antarctic Division 203 Channel Highway City: Kingston Province or State: Tasmania Postal Code: 7050 Country: Australia

Personnel

HARRY BURTON
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Role: DIF AUTHOR
Email: harry.burton at aad.gov.au
Contact Address:
Australian Antarctic Division
203 Channel Highway
City: Kingston
Province or State: Tasmania
Postal Code: 7050
Country: Australia

Related URL

Link: GET DATA
Description: Seal Database

Link: VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Description: Public information for ASAC project 862

Link: VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Description: Citation reference for this metadata record and dataset

Publications/References

Hindell, M.A., McConnell, B.J., Fedak, M.A., Slip, D.J., Burton, H.R., Reijnders, P.J.H., McMahon, C.R. (1999), Environmental and physiological determinants of successful foraging by naive southern elephant seal pups during their first trip to sea., Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77, 1807-1821

McMahon, C.R., Burton, H., Bester, M.N. (1999), First-year survival of southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina , at sub-antarctic Macquarie Island., Polar Biology, 21, 279 - 284

McMahon, C.R., Burton, H.R., Bester, M.N. (2000), Weaning mass and the future survival of juvenile southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina , at Macquarie Island., Antarctic Science, 12, 149-153

McMahon, C.R., Burton, H.R., Bester, M.N. (2003), A demographic comparison of two southern elephant seal populations., Journal of Animal Ecology, 72, 61-74

van den Hoff, J., Burton, H.R., Hindell, M.A., Sumner, M.D., McMahon, C.R. (2002), Migrations and foraging of juvbenile southern elephant seals from Macquarie Island within CCAMLR managed areas., Antarctic Science, 14, 2, 134-145