Steller Watch

What are the dark circles I see on some sea lions?

The dark circles are fungal patches. You may see animals with no patches, just a few patches, or covered in patches. Not a lot is known or published about fungal patches but they’re believed to have very little impact on animals. In the case where a sea lions is in poor health, the fungal patches could cause further problems. We see many marked individuals over their lifetime with the same fungal patch(es) living a long and healthy life.

How much do sea lions move throughout the day?

Since the images are displayed in random order, it’s hard to get a sense of how much these animals move while hauled out. Sea lions forage, or go to sea to catch their food, or prey. During the breeding season, which runs from May to August, males will stay on shore and not eat (fasting) in order to guard and keep their breeding territory on land.

I've made this time-lapse video of Cape Wrangell (Attu Island) to show you three days on the rookery, in one minute. These images were captured on June 25, 26, and 27 with an image captured every 10 minutes. Since it doesn't get very dark in the Aleutian Islands during the summer, these images were captured throughout the 24 hours of the day.

Did you notice how the bad weather rolled in at the end? The fog can be pretty bad in the Aleutian Islands, especially in the summer. You may have noticed when the weather came in the sea lions were not moving around as much either. The opposite is also true: when the weather is nice and temperatures are high, sea lions tend to be more active.

Another thing you may have noticed is there are way fewer sea lions hauled in the evening or early morning. This is when females and juveniles head out to sea to forage. Check out our blog to read more about studying the food habits of Steller sea lions.

Why don't you have us report our read of marked animals?

You will see many marked sea lions. There’s no need to report sighting of marked animals but you’re welcome to share with other citizen scientists if you wish! Reading marks can be tricky and we have resources to help us enhance images and a reference collection to confirm sightings. The data integrity protocol that we have to stick to is quite specific so we wanted to save your time and use it wisely towards classify the most important images. Check out our About page to read more about what we can learn by observing marked animals.

If you like looking at pictures for marked animals, check out the "Presence of Marked Animals" workflow. You can access this on the main page, below the sea lion picture. When you classify images in the "Presence of Absence" workflow, you are helping us find only those animals with sea lions present so we can put those in the "Presence of Marked Animals" workflow.

Why don't we count the sea lions?

We do have a counting workflow that has not been live, yet. However, our first priority right now is to process all of these images for those with sea lions present and those with marked animals. Once we complete these workflows we will post the counting workflow.

What are the possible reasons for the continued decline?

There's are many possible causes for the decline. This project will help eliminate and illuminate these causes. Check out this discussion to read more!

Why am I seeing so many dead sea lions?

Most likely, what you are seeing are just sea lions that are hauled out on land and sleeping. They forage at night so they sleep much of the day. Sea lions are very agile in the water but on land they tend to be a little less so. Although, when they want to, they can sure move quickly on land! They can contort their bodies in many different ways and sometimes they may be partially wet or dirty so their fur can look different sometimes. This is all perfectly normal and more often than not, they are alive and well. Check out the field guide for an image of what a dead sea lion may look like.

I really do see a dead sea lion—how did it die?

Cause of death could be anything and it's usually hard to tell from images. It’s possible for newborn sea lions, or pups, to die due to disease, contaminants, trauma from being trampled by other sea lions, or they could have been abandoned by their mother. Adult and juvenile sea lions may die for many of the same reasons, including trauma from confrontations with other sea lions, or 'old age.' Most sea lions die at-sea or in areas we cannot observe. This is why this project is so important, so we can estimate the proportion of animals that live and die.

I have seen an animal with a ring around its neck. What is this?

WARNING! SOME OF THE ENTANGLEMENT IMAGES AND LINKS MAY BE DISTURBING
Plastics and garbage cause huge problems for marine life around the world. In the remote area we visit, on occasion we see entangled sea lions. Usually we see them with a ring around their neck from fishing nets or more typically, packing bands (these bands secure boxes of bait used for fishing). Entanglements in the western Aleutian Islands are less common (less than 0.05%), but it is important to keep in mind that we are not seeing entangled animals that died at sea. Rarely we do see animals make a full recovery from an entanglement that has broken free. This is evident by significant scaring around their neck. They're the lucky ones.

Entanglement or swallowing of fishing lures and hooks kills thousands of marine mammals each year. This can be more prominent in populated areas. Currently, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) is conducting a study of entangled marked animals in southeast Alaska, an area where they observe high rates of entanglement. Also, ADFG has a disentanglement program where they locate and monitor these sea lions in trouble and hopefully intervene to remove the entanglement. Check out their Lose the Loop campaign.

I keep seeing same marked sea lion—what’s their story?

Good eye! Each month we will feature an individual as our Sea Lion of the Month and share what we know of their story. If there is a specific individual you keep seeing and are curious to learn more, head to our Sea Lion of the Month Nomination in the Talk forum and submit their entire unique code you wish to nominate. We will do our best to accommodate all nominations and share as much information as we can!

What if I see something in a photo that I want to ask a biologist about?

You may see other marine mammals, birds, or even killer whales! If you see something that you have a specific question about you can hit the Done & Talk button to enter a comment associated with that photo. You can also head to the Talk forum to ask any questions. We will do our best to reply and we encourage other citizen scientists to join in on the conversation!

If I identify something incorrectly will that skew your data?

No, each image will be reviewed by many citizen scientists so that we can pool all responses to find the correct answer. If an image is particularly difficult and the answers from a majority of users don’t lead to one answer, the image will be flagged for biologists to review so we won’t miss out on any sightings. Don't worry and have fun!

Can I return to a photo to correct a mistake?

No, you cannot revisit a photo but don’t worry! Each image will be reviewed by many citizen scientists so your answer will be considered among many. If an image is particularly difficult and we can't reach a consensus among numerous responses, the image will be flagged for review by biologists so we won't miss out on any information.

Why are there so many photos without animals in them?

Our cameras are programmed to capture images every five to 20 minutes during daylight hours, year-round. Summer time is when we see the largest number of sea lions hauled out. They tend to not haul-out as often in the winter, or may use other sites that we don't monitor. When they're not hauled out, they are at-sea and can cover great distances. If the weather is terrible (fog, snow, or rain) then the image may be obstructed so we can't even tell if there are sea lions present. When you go through images and you indicate those without any sea lions present, you’re saving us time and helping us a great deal! It's also quite informative to know when sea lions may or may not be present, especially when we go on trips in the fall or spring so we have more information to locate where they are most likely to be.

How many images are there?

So many images! We have almost 500,000 images we have yet to go through. In order to keep the image resolution and display these image to you online, we had to split each image into two halves. This means we have about 750,000 subjects (or halves of images) to get through. We will head back out to visit each camera and download images. We expect to bring back about 400,000 images, maybe even more! We will have to split these, as well.

How and when can I see the results of this project?

Studies like this can take several years, to two decades to collect enough data to calculate population estimates. It’s a long-term project that takes years of dedication but it is the best method we have for collecting this valuable information with the least amount of impact on the animals. Since we first started marking animals in 2011, we may not have complete survival rates estimated until 2021. We will always keep you updated and informed about the project in our Blog, Announcements forum, and the Results page.

How will this information be used?

Visit our Research and Education pages to learn more about how important this information is to figuring out why this part of the endangered Steller sea lion population continues to decline.

How does marking the sea lions impact their well being?

Steller sea lions, as an endangered and wild species, are protected under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Therefore, we go through a rigorous process to get permits to conduct all of the research that we do. In fact, all of our research involving animals, including this study, has been reviewed and is overseen by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in compliance with the U.S. Animal Welfare Act.

The impact of our presence on the rookery for the one day we mark is quite minimal. Animals come back on shore to previous numbers and resume normal behavior up to three days or less after our presence. Also, the disturbance caused by our presence has been observed to be similar to natural disturbances, which are not unusual. These studies were conducted at remote field camps where people perched hundreds of feet on cliffs can observe these animals without their knowledge for up to two months.

We anesthetize each animal that is marked (only a very small percentage of animals in the population are marked every other year). There have been studies showing that for sea lions, these marks are equal to a minor injury for which all physiological and behavioral symptoms return to normal after only a few days. Sea lions are very resilient. You regularly see animals with wounds (usually bites from other animals) doing just fine.

Pups are commonly separated from their mothers. Sea lion females often leave their pups onshore while they go out to regularly forage so these pups are certainly used to being left alone, or with other pups. This is why you see remote camera images with hardly any adults on shore and a group of pups all hanging out together! In fact, many of these pups' mothers could be out foraging the day we visit. During our time on-shore, these pups are only separated from their mothers for as little as an hour or up to five hours.

Most importantly, if this method impacted the behavior or survival of the animals in the long-term, this would not be an appropriate method for estimating vital rates for the population. This is quite literally the only long-term, practical, and least disruptive methods that we have to estimate vital information and is necessary for figuring out why this endangered population continues to decline. It's a long-term investment and takes years to conduct these studies, which means we are wholly committed and invested to observing these marked animals throughout their lifetime (up to 26 years!).

Is this work being used for machine learning?

Eventually, it would be great to use machine learning to perform these tasks however, it would be quite a challenging task to develop this method. Your efforts on Steller Watch are not going to be used for machine learning. We are working on using machine learning for automating counts of sea lions from our aerial images collected annually. These counts are used for population assessments to inform management decisions and stakeholders.

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We still haven't answered your question? No problem! Just head to our Talk forum to ask our biologists. We monitor the discussion boards and will do our best to answer as many questions as soon as we can. Other citizen scientists are welcome to offer advice and answer questions. We encourage respectful participation and interaction among all of our citizen scientists. If a question keeps coming up, we will be sure to update this FAQ page.