About Me

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Bird Island, South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands
I work as a Zoological Field Assistant, and am the 2009 Winter Base Commander, at Bird Island Research Station, one of the British Antarctic Survey's five research bases in Antarctica. The main remit of my job is seal fieldwork as part of BAS' Long Term Monitoring and Survey programme. Science has been carried out on Bird Island since 1958. I work with Antarctic fur seals and leopard seals, as well as assisting with the seabird fieldwork programme. Contact me on: ewanedwards at gmail dot com

Tuesday 7 July 2009

05.07.2009 - Tagging a leopard seal

An adult male leopard seal dozes at the shoreline. I approached by stealth, crawling in to its tail end, to try and place a tag and GLS (geolocator) device

When I tried to put the tag into its hind flipper, the 3m long animal woke up and saw me

The seal gives its threat display, a wide-open mouth showing his teeth. Time to make a quick exit...

After this disturbance, the seal headed to the water. Hopefully he'll come back to give me another chance to tag him!