Four trips to Race Rocks in three days

All three first year Marine Science classes made it out to Race Rocks on Wednesday 10 October. We saw many, many, many California and Northern sea lions.

And most students were also fortunate enough to see humpback whales feeding off the south and west sides of Great Race Rock. (Terrible photos of humpbacks below followed by a decent photo of whale watching students!)

The newly minted Coastal Biodiversity CAS also had the opportunity to visit Race Rocks with Garry Fletcher on Friday afternoon.

During that visit we saw a necklaced sea lion and we came across a dead Northern sea lion.

We also had a reunion of two Year 38 students, Laas, the current Ecoguardian at Race Rocks, and Helen, who is back at Pearson College for a two week visit. Incidentally these were the two artists who painted my VW van!!

Wonderfully impressive experience overall!!

Mudflat Monday for Marine Science students

Heading into the mudflats

Today was one of the days that I look forward to every year – Mudflat Monday! Two of the three classes braved the challenging ecosystem that is the mudflats today (the third class went last Thursday, so actually they were the first class!).

Slogging through the mudflats

We found clams, worms and crabs…

Laura’s impression of a bent-nose clam, Macoma nasuta

Lugworm, Abarenicola pacifica

Inaki and a graceful rock crab, Metacarcinus gracilis

We really got our gumboots and hands dirty today! This truly is science you can sink your boots into!

Juan Daniel’s boots

Lara’s interpretive dance?

IB exam 2018 and a plankton swarm

Second year Marine Science students wrote the second of two papers this morning to complete their IB exam. It has been a wonderful two years – thank you!

At the same time the students were writing their exam, there was a swarm of plankton around the Pearson College dock:

I think that the zooplankton were here to wish the students well!

Many Dungeness crab megalopae have been hanging out around the dock for the past few days (helping the students revise?!).

To the Year 43 Marine Science students: I wish you all the best as you drift on out of Pedder Bay and I hope that the winds and currents are favourable so that you can drift back again some time!

Northern elephant seals at Race Rocks

During the first year field exam at Race Rocks on Friday 12 May (post to follow…), there were 11 northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) that provided both entertainment and answers to the students writing the exam.

Tamar making observations

Big guy on the grass

Interacting elephant seals

One of the questions on the field exam involved observing elephant seals and the seals seemed happy to oblige.

Over the course of the morning, many of the elephant seals made their way to the water.

Heading down to the water

Going down…

Going up…

Meeting on the slipway

On the jetty

Parade into the water

Once in the water, one elephant seal was frolicking in the bull kelp and blowing bubbles.

Some students even tried behaving like elephant seals:

Spectacular Swordfish Island

Abigail and Annie measuring dimensions

Erik measuring temperature and salinity

Matias and Erik measuring

Matilda and Millie observing

Matilda

D block marine scientists were very fortunate to get to Swordfish Island yesterday to do a tidepool study. In addition to measuring the dimensions of two tidepools, they compared temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen of high and low tidepools. Students also made species lists for both of the tidepools they were examining.

We did expand our exploration beyond tidepools because this is such a stunning place. Here are a few of the spectacular marine species:

New bull kelp in intertidal zone

Giant green anemone with barnacle molts

Striped sun star with commensal worm

Leather chitons and channeled dogwinkle with egg capsules

Six armed sea star

And two terrestrial species:

Camas

Succulents

So beautiful!

On the water – 20 Feb 2017

While out with divers at Prison Rocks this afternoon, we were treated to various spectacles, including a gull standing on the water (above) and Eskil doing his internal assessment work (below).

We also saw one tugboat, then a second tugboat come around William Head followed by a frigate, the HMCS Ottawa. The frigate was being escorted and assisted by the tugboats as she headed to the Navy dock in Pedder Bay. The Ottawa certainly dwarfed our Pearson College sailboats!

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Sea lion necropsy at Weir’s Beach

After learning from Ivonne yesterday that there was a dead sea lion at Weir’s Beach and after getting permission from DFO, first and second year Biology students participated in a necropsy of a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) this morning.

Above is how we found it initially yesterday (31 January 2017) – apparently the sea lion washed up on Weir’s Beach, headless, on 20 January.

We began the necropsy by opening up the abdominal cavity.

Opening the abdominal cavity

Diaphragm, liver and small intestine

We excised the liver, stomach and small intestine.

Inside of stomach with rugae

Small intestine

Several students worked on stretching out the small intestine then they measured it to be 51.7 m long!

We then moved into the thoracic cavity, after cutting through the blubber and thick, dark red pectoral muscles.

Measuring blubber thickness

Blubber and dark red pectoral muscle

The heart, right lung and and trachea were removed and examined by students.

Dina and Annie examine the trachea

We were blasted by sand and a bitterly cold wind throughout, but students remained engaged & interested. An amazing opportunity!

Sand blasted

Stalwart students

The photo below is my favourite – Emily is holding the mesentery in the wind.

See Flickr page for many more photos.

Dock diving

While it may not be their preferred dive site, second year divers immersed themselves in the seawater of Pedder Bay and went diving around the Pearson College dock on Friday 18 November and again on Monday 28 November. Below are Marie-Claude, Aurora and Maya, pretty happy after a decent dive.

Divers did a good service by collecting debris that has been accumulating under the dock for many years (see the previous generation of caf dishes!). Below are photos from 18 November and 28 November.

Garbage collected on 28 Nov.

Two generations of caf dishes

Garbage (and treasure!) collected on 18 Nov.

We released a crab from the plastic bottle (above, middle right of photo on left).  Ian collected two crabs (Cancer productus and Cancer gracilis) seen below in the photo on the left.

Ian and Maya inspect the haul

Ian in a bucket

Orcas!!

This morning my plan for second year marine scientists was to go to Race Rocks to look at marine mammals (sea lions & seals) and birds. My plan went out the window, however, when Kyle spotted orcas as we were underway. We were totally distracted by these magical creatures. We didn’t made it to Race Rocks but we had a wonderful and transformative adventure.

Aurora, Orca, Andras

Orca in the distance

Aurora, Eskil, Andras

Axl, Martin, Aurora

Stefan, Jill, Navo, Zoli

We saw two females with a calf and two bulls. Although I don’t have any good photos of the whales, I did get many photos of the backs of students’ heads!

Sea lions, seals and orcas, oh my!

First year marine scientists had a wonderful experience at Race Rocks on Friday 23 September. We went to explore this amazing ecosystem and to observe marine mammals and birds.

We brought Felix Butschek (yr 36, Austria) along:

More details to follow on his visit later…

We did see (and hear and smell!) many, many sea lions:

Observing a California sea lion

Damage done to sea lion by a cookie cutter shark

We were also lucky to observe five Northern elephant seals:

Northern elephant seal

Elephant seal parade

Elephant seals and the jetty

As an added bonus one group of students also saw orcas:

Spyhopping orca

Orca in the distance

Whale watching

Orcas followed us to the mouth of Pedder Bay

For more photos see Flickr album here. And for Anne’s summary of the day and some better orca photos, see the Race Rocks blog.