The story of the day is about an elephant seal that "hauled out" on the beach very close to where we were doing our observations. She did not look well. Upon closer observation, we noticed she had a large injury just under her left pectoral fin. We made a call to the Marine Mammal Center and reported her. They arrived and inspected her. They informed us that the injury was bad, but was not new. They were not sure if it was a shark bite or possibly a boat inflicted injury. She was actually recovering pretty well. They also said that she was considerably under weight probably only 500 lbs. She is an older female and had probably hauled out to get some rest. The crew on the boat observing dolphins today spotted a small group of killer whales! My field study group will be out on the boat tomorrow. Hope we get that lucky. Tonight we will go back to the house and spend 2 hours entering the day's data into the various data bases. This process must be completed after each day in the field.

Questions for the day:

1. How much should an adult female elephant seal weigh?

2. Where is the pectoral fin located?

3. Do elephant seals have ears?

4. Why might she have been swimming in the Elkhorn Slough where these types of seals are rarely seen?

Here is a website to check out.

http://www.cambriasbest.com/elephantseals/index.html

August 31,2006
We arrived at Elkhorn Slough, a few miles north of Monterey, at 8:00 am. Ruth and I began collecting data right away. The data was collected by one of us observing the sea otter behavior while the other timed the length of the behavior and recorded it. Ruth Sweeny is the other teacher on the expedition. She is from MA.

This is Daniela Maldini and Thomas Jefferson. They are both marine mammal biologists and the principal investigators on the Earthwatch project. We are down at the coastline getting a bird's eye view of Monterey Bay where all of our field work will take place. We will be splitting the team in half each day to divide up the tasks. Tomorrow my task will be to collect data on sea otters including gender, age, behavior, and population. The field work will take place in the Elkhorn Slough, a location in the middle of the bay where a giant canyon runs underwater and meets the shoreline. The canyon is called Monterey Canyon.
Here are some challenge questions for all students following the expedition.

1. How deep is the Monterey Canyon?
2. Where is there another canyon this large?
3. How did it form?
4. How does the canyon's proximity to the shoreline affect the type of marine mammals that reside in the area?

How is your research going? Here is a great website to help.
http://montereybay.com/creagus/MtyBay.html

I arrived in Monterey this morning at 10:00 am. I was picked up at the airport by Anna, an Earthwatch staff member. We are staying in Pacific Grove. Here I am in my upstairs room updating my blog. Later this afternoon, we will take a walk along the coastline to get a feel for the area. The coastline is a 10 minute walk from the house.

We will be residing in a lovely victorian home in Pacific Grove. It was built in 1893 and originally owned by Margaret McCormick. Downstairs there is a large sitting room with fireplace, an office for data entry and internet use, a dining room, large kitchen, pantry, one bedroom and one bathroom. Upstairs there is an additional bathroom and four more bedrooms. We also have a nice large common area for team meetings and there is also a television. Out back we have a small yard, deck, gas fire pit and a hot tub.

We will be studying the southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis). This otter is listed as "threatened" under the US Endangered Species Act. The study will include the coastline of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the Elkhorn Slough. The overall goal of the sea otter study is to understand how shifts in prey affect the sea otter population both in abundance and density.

Here is the website for the expedition - Check it out


http://www.earthwatch.org/site/pp2.asp?c=dsJSK6PFJnH&b=1170779

The Marine Mammals of Monterey Bay project's dolphin study examines the population ecology of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in inshore waters. The study's first objective is to estimate density and abundance of these dolphins in the Monterey Bay. It will be important to determine basic information such as population size, rate of increase and decrease, life history, distribution, movement patterns, and genetics.