Members of Weddell Seal Field Team 2024 have begun their annual population surveys of all the Weddell seals present this year in the entire Erebus Bay Study Area. We catch a glimpse of what it's like to travel across the frozen bay on snowmobiles from pupping colony to pupping colony. Also included in this music video are some of the Weddell moms and pups they encounter on their surveys using this season's new High Dynamic Range (HDR) field imaging!

The HDR videos and photos used in this music video were obtained by lead scientist Prof. Jay Rotella, PhD student and returning field team leader and PhD student Parker Levinson, and 1st time field team member Sophie Rotella, under NMFS Permit No. 26375. They are using iPhone 15 and 16 Pros filming in 4K resolution for our future Weddell Seal Population Study science videos to follow post-pupping season. While not quite the dynamic range of human vision, HDR video comes much closer to showing the amazing play of light and color experienced on The Ice. Video editing and HDR color grading by multimedia specialist Mary Lynn Price.

Weddell seal population surveys are conducted every annual Weddell seal pupping season by the field team to determine how many seals are in the Erebus Bay Study Area each year. Each full survey of the entire study area is accomplished in just 2 days! Because Weddell seals spend a lot of time swimming beneath the sea ice, not all seals in the study area will be on top of the sea ice and visible to the field team on any one survey. So the team conducts 6 to 8 full surveys every year to get an accurate population count and gather other important data. This information is vital to assess the health and stability of the population over time. To get a good sense of distances between the many major Weddell seal pupping colonies in Erebus Bay, check out the distance measurement capability of our cool interactive video popup Study Area Map!

– Mary Lynn Price