• Jen Sloth

    Jen Sloth
    Western WA Univ.
    Collected data on California sea lions with the AFSC's National Marine Mammal Laboratory.

    My internship this summer gave me one of the most memorable and valuable experiences I've had in my collegiate career so far. I had the opportunity to work in the field for a long period of time with some really amazing people from the AFSC's National Marine Mammal Laboratory. San Miguel Island is home to large breeding populations of seals and sea lions. California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) and northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) are the two prominent species, both with a pupping and breeding season in the summer months.

    During my two-month stay on the island I was exposed to the various stages of each species' life cycle. Throughout the duration of my stay I participated in many projects, each contributing data to master databases that have been ongoing for as long as 20+ years. We did resights of branded California sea lion individuals, read tags on northern fur seals, did both California sea lion and northern fur seal pup mortality and live pup censuses, and in the end we even collected teeth and scats. This data collected over time gives us valuable information about mortality rates, lifespan, breeding regularity, reproductive status, and many more aspects concerning the lives of individual animals and their societies as a whole.

    San Miguel Island, one of eight Channel Islands off the coast of southern California, is very isolated and often seems a world away from what we think of as "every day life". All of our supplies were flown in, our only transportation on the island was our own two feet,

  • seals

    The distribution pattern of Zalophus and Callorhinus in the Adams Cove study area as viewed from one of our stationary blinds.

    and the only other inhabitants on the island besides the thousands of seals and sea lions were some miniature island foxes, deer mice, a park ranger, and our research crew of 2-4 people.

    Because San Miguel is so windy and exposed to the elements, there are no trees, and most of the plants are brush-like or are succulents. This type of environment was entirely new to me and it was a challenge to get used to the extremes of this island. Being isolated on San Miguel Island for two months with little outside contact helped to determine whether field work is something I enjoy and would be able to do as a career or at least for extended periods of time.

    Throughout my stay on the island we had a couple crew changes, giving me the opportunity to work with several amazing people who were each very excited about the work we were doing. Everyone was so patient and helpful in my training. The other researchers were always giving me as much information as possible as we worked together on various projects. Because we lived together in our research station for several weeks, (and because we were basically the only people on the island) we all got to be close friends.

    The research we were conducting taught me many valuable field techniques and data management skills. I have done previous research where Microsoft Excel was the main program used to record data,
















  • however my skills at using portable computers, transferring data, creating master files, and working with several spreadsheets were greatly sharpened. I also was able to help out with data summaries in the Seattle lab after our island stay was finished. It was exciting to see what all of the work we did over the summer contributed to the previous research and what exactly we were able to obtain from all of the work we did. I learned many techniques in the field that I will carry with me in future research.