Steller Watch

The Steller Watch team is curious to learn more about our amazing team of citizen scientists and your thoughts on the project. Please click on the survey to share. All responses are anonymous and any information you provide will be reviewed only by our team to improve our communication with all of you and future outreach efforts. Thank you for the help!

Great news, you can now use the Zooniverse app to classify (Download for Apple or Android).

The Steller sea lion population in the westernmost Aleutian Islands has declined an alarming 94 percent in the last 30 years.

While we have been able to rule out many potential causes of the decline, we still do not have the answer as to why. Complicating matters, the western Aleutian Islands are remote and inaccessible so we are only able to conduct field studies once, sometimes twice a year. To help, we placed remote cameras at known sea lion sites automated to collect images year-round. The images are offering a window into animals’ everyday lives.

We need your help classifying images to whittle down the hundreds of thousands down to those that are the highest priority for biologists to review.

As you go through the images, you will see marked animals. You will not need to report your "read" of marked animals. Instead, we're hoping that you all can help us classify images so we know have those of the highest priority for biologists to review. Reading marks can be tricky and we have resources to help us enhance images and a reference collection to confirm sightings. The protocol that we have to stick to is quite specific so we wanted to save your time and use it wisely to classify the most important images and collect other information. You're efforts will help us tremendously! Please read on to learn why this project is important for figuring out why the endangered Steller sea lion continues to decline in the Aleutian Islands.

Check out this video to learn more!

Please see below and our Results and Education pages for more information about this project, other research projects, and Steller sea lions.

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Who are the people behind Steller Watch?

NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center researchers organized this project. NOAA Fisheries is a federal agency responsible for the stewardship of the nation’s ocean resources and their habitats. The Alaska Fisheries Science Center is a NOAA Fisheries organization that generates the information and analysis necessary to conserve and manage Alaska’s living marine resources.

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Why do we need your help?

We installed 20 remote cameras on five islands in the western Aleutian Islands. Sea lions are known to frequent these sites, especially during the summer breeding season.

The cameras take a picture every five to 20 minutes during daylight hours, year-round. That means we can collect up to 400,000 images a year! We need your help to classify the images so we know which of those are the highest priority for biologists to review.

Ultimately, we are most interested in finding marked Steller sea lions. Knowing when and where these sea lions are born and seeing them throughout their lifetime will allow us to estimate important information about the population such as movement patterns and life history rates like survival and natality.

Movement patterns are interesting to us because we can observe if sea lions born in the area are leaving and moving elsewhere, or if they stay in the region their entire life. Do males disperse differently than females? Are there any differences with age?

The life history rates we can estimate from marked sea lions inform us of trends for the greater region. Survival estimates inform us of the chances that pups in this region will survive to the next year and how that may vary depending on the region the animal lives, the age, and if it is a male or female. Natality, or birth rate, is estimated for females and tells us how often and how many pups females in the region will have during their lifetime. This sort of information is vital to figuring out why sea lions continue to decline in this area. If we see any of these indicators impacted we could narrow down the cause for decline.

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What do the markings mean?

We permanently mark individual sea lions with a unique code. Marks are applied to left sides only. Each mark begins with a letter or symbol which signifies where the sea lion was born and marked. Then one to three numbers, unique to the individual animal, will follow the character or symbol. Below you can see ~26, the “~” (tilde) sometimes looks like an “N.” The mark means this sea lion was born at Gillon Point on Agattu Island. Only a small number of marks of animals from Medny Island can have the 'M' at the end, after the number.

There are certain letters or symbols you are more likely to see. Below is a map of the more common characters you will see and where those animals with that symbol or letter were born. Sea lions with an “=” (equal) sign were captured and marked as juveniles or adults which means their birthplace is unknown.

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How do we mark the sea lions?

We use a method called hot branding. Scientists have used this method for almost a century because it is safe and effective, as multiple studies have shown (here, here, here, and here). Other methods were tested, like flipper tags, and considered (temporary marks with paint) but failed on Steller sea lions. Flipper tags routinely fell off the sea lions and temporary marks don't last as along as we would need.

We mark pups when they are approximately one month old. At that age, they weigh between 70 pounds and 110 pounds, and are three to four feet long. Each mark is small, just three inches tall. As the animal grows, the mark grows, which is why they appear larger on grown adults, especially adult males!

Each sea lion is handled as little as possible. The whole process takes about 12-15 minutes. The sea lion is sedated with gas anesthesia. Then the mark is applied. It takes two to four seconds to apply each character. After marking, the animal is carefully moved to a safe area where biologists watch animals until they are awake and mobile. Here you can see animals hanging out in the pup recovery area where biologists can keep a watchful eye.

The brief encounter has no long-term effects while the information we glean from the marked animals throughout their lives is invaluable. Without this method, we would not be able to estimate factors like pup and juvenile survival, which is critical to recovering the species.

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How we know there are no long-term impacts on the sea lions

We are certain that branding has no long-term impact. It's important to understand, this would not be a viable method for estimating important information about a population if there were negative impacts affecting animal behavior. Meanwhile, the information we collect is crucial as we seek to recover this endangered population.

There have been several studies assessing possible impacts of branding Steller sea lions (again: here, here, here, and here). The consensus is that branding has little impact on sea lion health immediately after branding and no long-term consequences.

One researcher likened the activity to a common injury such as a bite or minor infection. Sea lions with scars, especially males defending breeding territories, are common. The animals often recover from large open wounds from killer whale or shark attacks. Here you can see a young sea lion with large scars that have healed nicely (to the left of the dark round fungal patch). Again, the marks we place are just three inches long. Steller sea lions are resilient.

By measuring levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood, one study found that the animals were not under extreme stress, even immediately after the procedure. Another study found that pups stopped paying attention to the markings after three days.

We have also looked at how our presence at the sea lion site affects them. Turns out they resume normal behavior a few days after our visit. Any changes observed were no different than other natural variations in their behavior from non-human caused events.

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How many sea lions do we mark?

Between 2011 and 2016, about 7,200 pups were born in the western Aleutian Islands. In that same time period we marked 265 pups, a little less than four percent of this part of the population. In order to conduct research activities, we go through the important and extensive process of applying for research permits from an independent review office of NOAA Fisheries.

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All work was conducted under NMFS ESA/MMPA Permit Number 18528 & IUCUC Number A/NW2013-2