A Steller Study

Paper in a Nutshell: Bishop, Dubel, Sattler, Brown, Horning. 2019. Wanted dead or alive: characterizing likelihood of juvenile Steller sea lion predation from diving and space use patterns. Endangered Species Research. Endangered species is a topic that we can all relate to. Whether it is a Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) that is living in your […]

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Data in the blind spot

Paper in a Nutshell:Constraint lines and performance envelopes in behavioral physiology: the case of the aerobic dive limit. Markus Horning, Frontiers in Physiology 2012; 3:381 All humans have a blind spot (puntum caecum in medical parlance): if you look directly at something it’s hard to see, but if you look to the side it becomes […]

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Can you hear me now?

In our last post (click here if you missed it!), we chatted about tools scientists use to monitor and estimate wildlife population size. While we mentioned several techniques that can be used, we ended with the question: Can Argos satellite transmitter tags be used for electronic mark-resight studies? The short answer: probably yes. The long […]

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Gummy Bears and Math

Electronic mark-resight studies: part 1 Aspiring young scientists often joke that they should put “expert counter” on their resume. Counting seals, counting barnacles in a quadrat, counting birds, counting cells… you name it, an intern has counted it. This is because a lot of ecological research and conservation requires knowing how many of something there […]

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Instruction manuals for scientists

Horning M, et al. 2019. Best practice recommendations for the use of external telemetry devices on pinnipeds. Animal Biotelemetry, 7(1), 1-17. Open Access As scientists, we often connect with each other over a coffee at conferences, through message boards on online forums, and more recently through various social media outlets such as blogging and twitter.  Connecting with […]

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Sunset on Shark Season 2019

We had our last day sharking on this past Sunday, but no weekend sharks were to be found. So as we pack up the totes of line, buoys and gear— it looks like it’s a wrap for shark season 2019! And what a season it was!   Our team spent over 30 days on the […]

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Déjà vu

Translocations Season 1 Recap Last season, Obedient Juvie (a.k.a. O.J.) and Curious Juvie (a.k.a. C.J.) helped me out with my first pilot study to test heat flux biologgers (what are these?) on freely swimming juvenile elephant seals. Not only did we learn what worked and what didn’t work in terms of sensor attachment and configuration, […]

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Question and Answer

As part of our new science exhibit at the Alaska SeaLife Center, we asked you–the visitors–to write down your questions about the ocean, tagging, or marine research. The participation has been amazing and we’re going to highlight answers to your burning questions here on 60°N Science and social media (follow us on Facebook and Instagram). […]

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Science on Exhibit!

This summer at the ASLC there is a new exhibit in town and it is all about science! As you walk past the model ship and across from Harbor Bottom, you notice a door. Last year in celebration of our 20th Anniversary, this room showcased our history and our mission. It reminded us of where […]

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To build a tag

We had 5 days to prep 4 tags—should be doable, right? Add a couple extra pairs of hands to help and it should be a walk in the park…right? Maybe I should start with the fact that I had no experience refurbishing and prepping tags before the Tag Workshop hosted by Dr. Markus Horning at […]

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Needle in a haystack

Back in August we caught our 4th Pacific Sleeper shark. This animal was tagged with a Wildlife Computers mini-PAT (satellite pop-up tag) and then was released right off Caines Head in Resurrection Bay. The mini-PAT had been scheduled to detach itself 90 days after deployment, which was Monday. And right on schedule, on Monday, the tag […]

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Sleeper Shark Season Wrap-up

Lessons learned and new horizons Well our first season of researching sharks is wrapped up! It has been a roller coaster and an example of teamwork in action. Since our first efforts at camera deployment and attempts at fishing, we have logged over 20 days on the water, from 3 different boats, and with a […]

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Home Sweet Home Range

Paper in a Nutshell Bishop AM, Brown CB, Rehberg M, Torres L, & Horning M. 2018. Juvenile Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) utilization distributions in the Gulf of Alaska. Movement Ecology, 6:6 Open Access *** It is a Saturday morning. You wake up, walk to your kitchen, and make breakfast. Maybe you then head out […]

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It’s a shark!

To wrap up Shark week, we will continue the story of our Pacific sleeper shark research project. Now where did we leave off…? “It’s a shark!” Everyone clambered to the side of the boat to lean over and get a look. Sure enough, on our last hook of the day was a huge shark! Days […]

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Shark Tag Recovered!

On May 31st, our ASLC Shark Research Team caught our first Pacific Sleeper Shark (we posted the picture of our success a few weeks ago here). As she was too big for our main study, we collected various measurements, samples, and attached a satellite tag to track her movements and diving patterns after release (Permit […]

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Sadly, Otto has died

Alas, today’s post is about a sad event that happened recently, but is nonetheless important to share: Otto, the southern sea otter we had previously posted about, died on December 19th. His body was recovered floating in Morro Bay, California. As we previously reported, Otto was one of two southern sea otters recently taken to […]

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BLS6: Greetings from Konstanz, Germany!

6th International Bio-Logging Symposium Nope, ASLC scientists have not gone into green forestry science. Rather, biologging in the broadest sense refers to animal biotelemetry, that is the use of data recording and transmitting telemetry devices on wild animals. BLS6 follows in the footsteps of very successful prior symposia in Tokyo, Japan, in St. Andrews, Scotland, […]

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Animals on the Move

We have posted many blogs about our fieldwork, in-house, and collaborators’ research projects on 60N. But we haven’t talked much about the other big part of doing research: data and data analysis.

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Pills and x-rays

The Pills If this sounds like a medical story, it is not. The pills in this case are stomach temperature pills. Stomach temperature pill (STPs) are telemetry devices we use to record or transmit the stomach temperature in an animal. But why would we want to know the temperature in an animal’s stomach? When the […]

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Cue the Jaws Theme Song Please

The Horning Lab spent the day on Resurrection Bay simulating predation events in an effort to test the accuracy of the Life History Tag. A simulated predation event is not as scary as it sounds! Read my blog about how this data will ultimately provide more information about the role of predation on Steller sea lions in our study area.

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