Weddell Seals: Science, Life History, and Population Dynamics

Jeremy Schmidt

Okt 2023 · Weddell Seal Science

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For more than 50 years, the Weddell Seal Science project has been studying the world’s southernmost breeding mammal in its farthest-south location, McMurdo Sound, on the ice-bound edge of Antarctica. This book explores the life history of Weddell seals — surprisingly approachable big-eyed, smiling-faced creatures — and details the science of studying them: the techniques, the motivations, the objectives, and the results. Although science is at the heart of the book, this is also an adventure story about scientists living in a remote field camp, far out on the sea ice, surrounded by glaciers, where you can feel the ocean pulsing beneath your feet. Seals are all around, penguins walk through camp, the weather can be exquisitely beautiful or too severe to step outside. Simply being there would be a wonderful experience on its own but in this case the objective is science — a deeper understanding of our endlessly fascinating planet.

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The Weddell Seal Science project has studied a breeding population of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay on the southern edge of the Ross Sea since 1968. The long-term database, resulting from decades of research, includes data on more than 28,000 seals, providing detailed information on the populations and individual animals. This allows excellent opportunities to study linkages between environmental conditions and demographic processes in the Antarctic.

Jeremy Schmidt is author of more than 20 books and hundreds of magazine articles. He writes about natural history and adventure travel in places where the wild and the indigenous still survive. His book Himalayan Passage won the first Barbara Savage Award for adventure writing; it’s recently been called a “classic of Himalayan travel as it used to be.”

Assignments have taken him to all continents, including Antarctica where he joined the Weddell Seal Science team as writer and producer of this ebook.