WEBVTT

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We are in South Vandenberg Air Force

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Base, not far from Space Launch

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Complex Six. The Air Force has been

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working close, both and under

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authorization from the National Marine

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Fisheries Service on elephant seal

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research for about four years. We've

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only had elephant seals here on

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Vandenberg Air Force Base, pupping or

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having babies for about four years

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since 2017. I started studying the

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population at Piedras Blancas in San

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Simeon, California, which is the

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largest mainland rookery for northern

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elephant seals in their entire range,

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and that population has not yet been

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formally studied until we started

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working with them in 2017 and then,

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more recently, we heard that a new

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rookery had been established here at

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Vandenberg Air Force Base, and we

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decided that we wanted to see what was

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going on with its new population,

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where the elephant seals were expanding

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their population to new sites. So

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we've been tagging the elephant seals

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with flipper tags, which is a

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permanent identification for the seals

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that allows them us to track their

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movements throughout their lifetime.

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And we color code the flipper tags

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based on the rookery where the seals

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were born and this allows us to track

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when they move from rookery to rookery .

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And when we tag wing puffs, if they're

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asleep, we can come up behind them and

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just tagged them really quickly. That

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way they're not as disturbed, and we

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can get it done fast. If they are

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awake, we do have to bag them. And

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what we do is we take a bag and we put

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themselves or us. And then we use beta

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restrained so they don't hurt

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time to make sure that the area on the

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flipper is clean. And then we put the

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tag in and the whole process takes

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about less than a minute.

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The Air Force is required by federal

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law called the Marine Mammal Protection

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Act to protect these species. And the

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best way to protect them is to

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understand their movements and behavior .