2013 pups born

Brian Hatfield, USGS Wildlife Biologist, gave this report:

 2013 Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal Breeding Season Summary

The elephants seal colony at Piedras Blancas continues to grow. The total number of live pups,
weaners (weaned pups), and orphaned pups counted at the end of the 2013 season was just over
4,800 seals - up 4% from the 2012 season (Figure 1). Based on a rough estimate of the actual
number of births, it appears that pre-weaning mortality was fairly low again this year (about 7%),
which is not surprising considering we had another mild winter. There were increases in three of
six survey segments compared to last year, with the biggest increase being in the area from
Arroyo Laguna and South, followed by the area from Pt. Piedras Blancas to South Point (Figure
2). With the exception of a single pup born (and weaned) just up coast of the Piedras Blancas
Motel (site), there was no expansion of the breeding range along the coast.
* does not include VP-3 ** includes cove just south of dunes ^ does not include beach at Arroyo Laguna

Giant Squid research

This isn't directly related to elephant seals, but Humboldt squid are one of their prey species. I'm not sure whether anyone knows if elephant seals eat giant squid, although I can't imagine they would turn down the chance to eat one. They certainly share those deep sea waters. From The Scientist:

© DAVID PAUL
The deep sea-dwelling giant squid Arciteuthis has turned up all over the world. But, whether in Florida or Japan, the invertebrates are all members of the same species, according to a paper published today (March 20) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.  Analyses of 43 squid from diverse locations showed that their mitochondrial DNA varies surprisingly little.
This lack of genetic diversity is puzzling. While giant squid are elusive, the researchers wrote, their populations are believed to be relatively large and geographically spread out—qualities usually associated with high diversity. The first live giant squid was spotted in 2004, and the Discovery Channel published the first video of the species earlier this year. But partially digested fragments of the cephalopods are found frequently in the stomachs of a key predator, the sperm whale, and scientists believe that they wouldn’t be able to support such common predation if their global population were small.
“It is difficult to reconcile this low genetic diversity with the reasonable assumption that Architeuthis are globally distributed with relatively large population size,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
The team collected 43 squid from diverse locations, including New Zealand, South Africa, and the Falkland Islands. They were found floating dead in the water, washed up on beaches, or as accidental by-catch from deep-sea fishermen.
The researchers said that there were many possible explanations for their findings. The squid’s mitochondria may have evolved unusually slowly, or they could have recently expanded from a small population to a large, widely distributed one. But the explanation they considered most likely was that the squid were unusually well traveled.
This could mean that the squid, which can grow as big as 18 meters in length, migrate through the oceans as adults. But past studies had shown that they are generally restricted to small hunting ranges. Instead, the researchers said, the squid may float long distances on sea currents in a juvenile, larva-like form, keeping geographically separate squid populations from forming.

Learning to swim

These two babies practice holding their breath in the shallows along the Piedras Blancas beach.

The beach is dominated by weaners now.

The few adult males left are catching up on sleep. They'll soon return to the ocean to eat. Most are so thin now!

Seals sleep with half their brains

This is a frequent question on the bluff, one that we all wonder about: how do they sleep? At sea, they are swimming non-stop. This helps answer the question:

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.
The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.
“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.
The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.
But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.
These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.
An abstract of the study can be found online: http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/peever-john/symmetrical-serotonin-release-during-asymmetrical-slow-wave-sleep-implications-n
- See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html?print#sthash.rxzsmUxJ.dpuf

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.
The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.
“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.
The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.
But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.
These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.
An abstract of the study can be found online: http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/peever-john/symmetrical-serotonin-release-during-asymmetrical-slow-wave-sleep-implications-n
- See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html?print#sthash.rxzsmUxJ.dpuf

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.

The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.

“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.

The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.

But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.

These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.

An abstract of the study can be found online.

The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep. - See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html?print#sthash.rxzsmUxJ.dpuf

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.
The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.
“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.
The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.
But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.
These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.
An abstract of the study can be found online: http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/peever-john/symmetrical-serotonin-release-during-asymmetrical-slow-wave-sleep-implications-n
- See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html#sthash.hM8IugBZ.dpuf

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.
The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.
“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.
The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.
But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.
These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.
An abstract of the study can be found online: http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/peever-john/symmetrical-serotonin-release-during-asymmetrical-slow-wave-sleep-implications-n
- See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html#sthash.hM8IugBZ.dpuf

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.
The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.
“Seals do something biologically amazing — they sleep with half their brain at a time. The left side of their brain can sleep while the right side stays awake. Seals sleep this way while they’re in water, but they sleep like humans while on land. Our research may explain how this unique biological phenomenon happens” said Professor John Peever of the University of Toronto.
The study’s first author, University of Toronto PhD student Jennifer Lapierre, made this discovery by measuring how different chemicals change in the sleeping and waking sides of the brain. She found that acetylcholine – an important brain chemical – was at low levels on the sleeping side of the brain but at high levels on the waking side. This finding suggests that acetylcholine may drive brain alertness on the side that is awake.
But, the study also showed that another important brain chemical – serotonin – was present at the equal levels on both sides of the brain whether the seals were awake or asleep.  This was a surprising finding because scientist long thought that serotonin was a chemical that causes brain arousal.
These findings have possible human health implications because “about 40% of North Americans suffer from sleep problems and understanding which brain chemicals function to keep us awake or asleep is a major scientific advance. It could help solve the mystery of how and why we sleep” says the study’s senior author Jerome Siegel of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute.
An abstract of the study can be found online: http://www.csb.utoronto.ca/faculty/peever-john/symmetrical-serotonin-release-during-asymmetrical-slow-wave-sleep-implications-n
- See more at: http://www.healthcanal.com/brain-nerves/36331-New-study-shows-how-seals-sleep-with-only-half-their-brain-time.html#sthash.hM8IugBZ.dpuf

Squid

Squid are an important part of elephant seals diet. Squid expert Danna Staaf updates recent squid news on her Squid a Day blog:

"In the three months since my daughter's birth, this is what you've pulled: Humboldt squid stranding. Market squid boom. Humboldt squid re-invasion. Giant squid video (finally). Deep-sea squid sex. Giant squid specimen. Flying squid (again)."

 

I missed some of these stories but enjoyed the Discovery Channel's Giant Squid video. A very dramatic story. 

More squid means more elephant seal food. Seeing so many huge animals lying on the beach certainly attests to plenty of life in those waters!

NRDC fights Navy sonar

Thanks, NRDC, for protecting the oceans. I'm not sure even they are much aware of elephant seals, but they live in this same environment and will be affected.

NRDC sued the U.S. Navy  and the government agency charged with protecting marine mammals from the Navy’s harmful use of sonar on October 12, 2012.  Both the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) have a responsibility to manage, conserve, and protect living marine resources, like whales and dolphins, particularly those protected by the Endangered Species Act.  Unfortunately, the Navy and NMFS failed to meet their obligation to protect whales and other marine life from the harmful impacts of low-frequency active sonar (“LFA”), when they authorized the deployment of LFA in 70-75 % of the World’s Oceans without instituting adequate protective measures.

As we noted when filing our case, the deployment of LFA will harm thousands of marine mammals, including significant numbers of endangered species such as blue whales, humpback whales, sperm whales (all shown in photos here), and other species whose numbers are depleted.  Impacts from LFA will occur hundreds of miles from the source of the technology.  Indeed, during one test of the LFA system, the Navy calculated LFA sound waves at a level known to disturb gray whales more than 300 miles from the source (the distance between Boston, MA and Philadelphia, PA).  And, while the use of this technology for the past ten years has been limited to discrete portions of the northern Pacific Ocean, the Navy is now authorized to introduce use of the LFA system to all of the world’s oceans other than Antarctica’s Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.

Because a single LFA source is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with intense levels of sound, the Navy and NMFS should have restricted the activity in areas around the globe of biological importance to whales and dolphins.  Instead, they adopted measures that are grossly disproportionate to the scope of the plan – setting aside a mere twenty-two “Offshore Biologically Important Areas” that are literally a drop in the bucket when compared to the more than 98 million square miles of ocean (yes, that’s 50% of the surface of the planet) open to LFA deployment.  The apparent belief that there are fewer than two dozen small areas throughout the world’s oceans that warrant protection from this technology is not based in reality.
Make no mistake, high-intensity sounds can kill, injure, and disturb marine mammals.  The Navy and NMFS accept this fact.  It has definitively caused or been associated with multiple mass stranding events of whales and other marine mammals around the world.
Our suit, which we bring with other concerned organizations, asks the Court to send the Navy and NMFS back to the drawing board, with instructions to get it right – do your duty under the law, do more to protect marine mammals.
I look forward to keeping you updated on our challenge in the months ahead.

Whale teeth

An interesting story evolution of whale teethe from Environmental News Network:

Whale Chewing

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Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. Whales are mammals, but they don’t look like the mammals living around us, as they have a triangular fluke for tail, no hind legs and no body hair. And inside their mouths, their teeth are unfamiliar too — being much simpler and peg like. A multidisciplinary team of researchers have now married together the fossil record and the embryonic development process to investigate how the whale got its teeth. In most mammals there are wedge-shaped incisors, a pointy canine, and premolars and molars with bumps and valleys that fit together like a mortar and pestle when you chew. Not all whales have teeth, but those that do, such as killer whales, have rows of simple peg like teeth, each one looking the same as the next. Whales use this spiked row of teeth to grab prey, but unlike other mammals, whales do not chew.

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In a new study published today in the open access journal PeerJ, Brooke Armfield and colleagues investigated the developmental processes that cause the teeth of dolphins, whales' smaller cousins, to be different, and tracked the evolutionary progression of their unique dentition across the fossil record.

The toothed whales (systematic name Odontoceti) form a suborder of the cetaceans, including sperm whales, beaked whales, dolphins, and others. As the name suggests, the suborder is characterized by the presence of teeth rather than the baleen of other whales.  he teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws. At the other extreme are the Narwhal with its single long tusk and the almost toothless beaked whales with bizarre teeth only in males.

Whales evolved from land mammals and so Armfield and co-workers first went to the fossil record to trace when and how whales evolved their simple teeth. The fossil record shows that, 48 million years ago, whales had the same four kinds of teeth just like most other mammals. Gradually, the teeth of whales became simpler and acquired their characteristic peg-like appearance around 30 million years ago, well after the time that they had acquired an array of adaptations for living in the water.

Next, Armfield and her colleagues explored just how teeth are shaped during development. Specific proteins in the embryo cause developing teeth to grow into certain shapes. Armfield and colleagues zeroed in on two proteins, BMP4 (Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4) and FGF8 (Fibroblast Growth Factor 8). BMP4 expression leads to teeth developing into simple prongs, and this occurs near the tip of the jaws, where the incisors form. Prior to teeth forming in the embryo, FGF8 expression in the back of the jaw leads to development of molar teeth with their complex hills and valleys in mice and other mammals.

Armfield and her co-workers studied FGF8 and BMP4 in pig embryos, relatives of whales and dolphins. Pigs have the four typical types of teeth, and, sure enough, the two proteins are distributed in the same way as they are in other mammals, showing that whales’ ancestors likely had this distribution of gene expression too. Next, the authors moved on to examine dolphin embryos.

Here, the pattern was different: FGF8 is present in the back part of the jaw, but BMP4 is present along the entire length of the jaw, including where FGF8 is found. The authors hypothesize that the overlapping presence of BMP4 in these new areas causes the teeth all along the jaw to be simple in shape, like incisors, and to be similar to each other. Interestingly, other researchers had shown that in mouse embryos in which BMP4 is experimentally introduced in the back of the jaw, the back teeth also take on this simplified appearance.

"It is exciting to identify a molecular change that occurred in nature and that so dramatically influenced the way in which a mammal can thrive in the ocean and to then trace the evolution of that change in the fossil record," says Armfield.

"The simple shift in the location of proteins that influence tooth shape found in whales may help us to better understand how mammals evolved their complex tooth in the first place." Says co-author Thewissen: "This shows that major changes to the design of an animal can result from small changes in early development, by simply shifting the region where an already existing protein occurs. It’s a beautiful, detailed example of a small developmental change having a big effect in evolution."

For further information see Whale Teeth.