Counting on Seals
By Michael Lucibella,
Photo Credit: Kaitlin Macdonald
The 2020 seal team field crew. From left to right, Kaitlin Macdonald, Parker Levinson and Will McDonald.
Fewer researchers and support staff traveled to Antarctica in 2020 to reduce the risk of introducing the virus to the continent. One of the few science teams that did go is working on the long-term study of Weddell seals in McMurdo Sound. We re trying to understand how things mothers do for their offspring might help those pups do better or do worse later in life, said Jay Rotella, an ecologist at Montana State University and principal investigator on the project.