The spreadsheet contains detailed information (by nest) of the timing of certain events during the breeding season of southern giant petrels (SGPs). The information was taken from images obtained from automated cameras monitoring the colonies. The numbers are 'Days since 1 June', the date chosen to indicate the start of the breeding cycle. Nest numbers were kept constant between years. Only highly visible nests were chosen. For methods and definitions see: Otovic et al. (2018) Marine Ornithology 46: 129-138.

Taken from the report prepared by R Kenny: In this report our comparatively brief knowledge of the Elephant Seal at Macquarie Island (based only on one year's observations) have been augmented by abstracting notes from "The Natural History of the Elephant Seal" by L. Harrison Matthews Discovery Reports, vol. 1 p. 233. 1929., based on observations at South Georgia. The Elephant Seal herds at the two islands are comparable - at South Georgia the animals had been overfished almost to the point of extinction by 1885, but were then not hunted for many years, and by 1929 had "increased in numbers till at the present time they are probably as numerous as ever", and are now fished under Government regulation to prevent extermination; the Macquarie Island herd has a similar history.

The populations of fur seals on Australia's two subantarctic islands were exterminated by uncontrolled sealing in the 19th century. Only in the latter half of the 20th century have populations commenced recovering. This project provides key information on the status and trends of recovering fur seal populations in the Southern Ocean, including information on the distribution of foraging effort, food and energy requirements, oceanographic determinants of demographic performance, ecological interactions with commercial fisheries, the extent, trends, processes and implications of hybridisation at Macquarie Island, and the status and trends in numbers of the threatened subantarctic fur seal. This dataset represents ARGOS tracking data of fur seals from Macquarie Island during 1997-1999. The tracking data are comprised of 28 data profiles. Taken from the abstract of the referenced paper: Antarctic Arctocephalus gazella and subantarctic Arctocephalus tropicalis fur seals breed sympatrically at Macquarie Island. The two species have different lactation strategies, the former rearing its pup in 4 months and the latter taking 10 months. The diet and at-sea foraging behaviour of these sympatric species was compared during the austral summer period when their pup rearing period overlapped. The prey of the two fur seal species was very similar, with fish dominating the diet. Themyctophid, Electrona subaspera, was the main prey item (93.9%) in all months of the study. There were no major differences in the diving behaviour between species. Both species foraged north of the island parallel to the Macquarie Ridge. Foraging activity was concentrated at two sites: (i) within 30 km north of the island; and (ii) at 60 km north. Most locations for overnight foraging trips were within 10 km of the colonies. The different lactation strategies of A. gazella and A. tropicalis allowed for flexibility in foraging behaviour. At Macquarie Island, the local marine environmental conditions have resulted in similar foraging behaviour for both species.

This is a copy of a scanned document which contains a report, as well as tabulated data compiled by K. Brown on Sea Elephants (Elephant Seals) at Heard Island in 1951. The data are biological in nature, and deal with: Breeding Season 1951 Formation of the Harems Arrival of the Bulls Arrival of the Cows Birth of the Pups Lactation Moult Pup Mortality Fertilisation of the Cows Break up of the Harems Arrival of the Adolescents

Taken from the abstract of the referenced papers: Maternal attendance behaviour was studies in Antarctic (Arctocephalus gazella) and subantarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus tropicalis) which breed sympatrically at subantarctic Macquarie Island. Data on attendance were obtained using telemetric methods. Both species undertook two types of foraging trips: overnight foraging tips which were of less than 1 day duration and occurred exclusively overnight, and extended foraging trips which lasted longer than 1 day. The mean duration of overnight foraging trips was 0.43 and 0.39 days, while the duration of extended foraging trips was 3.6 and 3.8 days in A. gazella and A. tropicalis, respectively. The duration of overnight and extended foraging trips did not differ significantly between species. Two types of shore attendance bouts that differed in duration were also observed in these species. Short attendance bouts lasted less than 0.9 days, while long attendance bouts lasted longer than 0.9 days. Short attendance bouts lasted 0.4 and 0.5 days, while long attendance bouts lasted 1.6 and 1.7 days in A. gazella and A. tropicalis, respectively, and did not differ significantly between species. The most significant differences between the attendance behaviour of both species was in the percentage of foraging time allocated to overnight foraging trips (15% and 25% in A. gazella and A. tropicalis, respectively), and the percentage of time spent ashore (30% and 38% in A. gazella and A. tropicalis, respectively). The nearness of pelagic waters to Macquarie Island is considered to be the main reason that lactating females are able to undertake overnight foraging trips. These trips may be used by females as a means of optimising the costs of fasting and nursing ashore. Females may be able to save energy by only nursing pups when milk transfer efficiencies are high, and reduce the time and energy costs of fasting ashore when milk transfer efficiency is low. Of the female A. gazella that still carried transmitters at the end of lactation, 83% continued regular attendance for between 21 and 150 days post-lactation (when data collection ceased). Overwintering of A. gazella females at breeding sites has not been previously reported in other populations. Breeding colonies of the Antarctic fur seal Arctocephalus gazella on Heard Island (53.18S, 73.5E) are situated on the sheltered northern and eastern coasts on flat vegetated terrain near streams and pools. Pupping in the 1987/88 summer began on 21 November, with 90% of births in 26 d. The median birth date was 11 December. Pup counts at Heard Island made in seven breeding seasons from 1962/63 to 1987/88 show an exponential rate of increase of 21%, which may be inflated due to undercounting in early years. The total of 248 births in 1987/88 represents an exponential increase of 37% since the previous year, but pups may have been undercounted then. Based on the number of pups born, the breeding population is estimated at 870-1,120. During the breeding season, the largest number of animals ashore was 835. Many non-breeding fur seals began hauling out from early January and 15,000 animals were estimated to be ashore by late February, a far larger number than expected from the size of the breeding population. Both the breeding and non-breeding components of the population may be augmented by immigration. The source of immigrants may be undiscovered breeding colonies of this species in the northwestern sector of the Kerguelen Archipelago or the concentration at South Georgia. Further censuses are required at Heard Island to monitor the population growth.

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 419 See the link below for public details on this project. From the abstracts of some of the referenced papers: The population size and breeding success of Emperor Penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) at the Auster and Taylor Glacier colonies were estimated during the 1988 breeding season. At Auster a total of 10963 pairs produced about 6350 fledglings for a breeding success of 58%. At Taylor Glacier about 2900 pairs raised 1774 fledglings for a breeding success of 61%. Fledglings left Taylor Glacier over a period of 33 days at a mean mass of 10.56kg. The accuracy of the tritiated water (HTO) and sodium-22 (22Na) turnover methods as estimators of dietary water and sodium intake was evaluated in emperor penguins fed separate diets of squid and fish. Emperor penguins assimilated 76.2% and 81.8% of available energy in the squid and fish diets, respectively. Both isotopes had equilibrated with body water and exchangeable sodium pools by 2h after intramuscular injection. The tritium method yielded reliable results after blood isotope levels had declined by 35%. On average the tritium method underestimated water intake by 2.9%, with a range of -10.3% to +11.1%. The 22Na method underestimated Na intake on average by 15.9% with the errors among individuals ranging from -37.2% to -1.8%. Discrepancies with 22Na turnover were significantly greater with the squid diet than the fish diet. The results confirm the reliability of the tritium method as an estimator of food consumption by free-living emperor penguins (provided seawater and freshwater ingestion is known) and support the adoption of the 22Na method to derive an approximation of seawater of seawater intake by tritiated emperor penguin chicks and by tritiated adults on foraging trips of short duration. The diet composition of Emperor Penguin Aptenodytes forsteri chicks was examined at Auster and Taylor Glacier colonies, near Australia's Mawson station, Antarctica, between hatching in mid-winter and fledging in mid-summer by 'water-offloading' adults. Chicks at both colonies were fed a similar suite of prey species. Crustaceans occurred in 82% of stomach samples at Auster and 87% of stomachs at Taylor Glacier and were heavily digested; their contribution to food mass could not be quantified. Fish, primarily bentho-pelagic species, accounted for 52% by number and 55% by mass of chick diet at Auster, and squid formed the remainder. At Taylor Glacier the corresponding values were 27% by number and 31% by mass of fish and 73% by number and 69% by mass of squid. of the 33 species or taxa identified, the fish Trematous eulepidotus and the squid Psychroteuthis glacialis and Alluroteuthis antarcticus accounted for 64% and 74% of the diets by mass at Auster and Taylor Glacier, res pectively. The sizes of fish varied temporally but not in a linear manner from winter to summer. Adult penguins captured fish ranging in length from 60 mm (Pleuragramma antarcticum) to 250 mm (T. eulepidotus) and squid (P. glacialis) from 19 to 280 mm in mantle length. The length-frequency distribution of P. glacialis showed seasonal variation, with the size of squid increasing from winter to summer. The energy density of chick diet mix increased significantly prior to 'fledging'.

The objectives for this project were: The project aims to quantify the patterns of dispersal and survival of newly weaned southern elephant seal pups to provide information on position at sea and foraging behaviour of the pups once they leave Macquarie Island, and to examine how this is related to position at sea and foraging behaviour in the second year. This information will be used to test the hypothesis that first year survival is a consequence of the young animals exploiting different foraging grounds to adults, and that fishing activity on the Campbell Plateau may be a contributing factor. In addition, stable isotope analysis and fatty acid signature analysis will be used to examine differences in foraging behaviour from animals while they are at sea. The raw data from this project is added to the long term database described by the metadata records 'Macquarie Island Elephant Seal Populations 1950-1965', and 'Macquarie Island Elephant Seal Populations 1985 Onwards'. This database has been taken offline, however. A snapshot of the database was taken in January, 1995, and is linked at the provided URL. For access, contact the Australian Antarctic Data Centre. A number of papers have been produced from this project. Some of these papers are included in the reference section below. The data collected for the database is as follows: Seal Number Status (new or resight) Date Location Age Class Status (cow, beachmaster, pregnant cow, dead etc) Sex Weight Length Size Back Fat Flipper Body Water Time Depth Recorder