Elephant Seal Breeding and Population Data from Heard Island, 1951

A 1951 report documents the complete breeding cycle of Southern Elephant Seals at the remote Heard Island. K. Brown compiled detailed observations on harem formation, births, lactation, pup mortality, and population movements. This scanned document from the Australian Antarctic Data Centre provides a historical snapshot of pinniped biology.

Use Cases

• Analyze the timing of key life events like 'Arrival of the Bulls' and 'Birth of the Pups' to model breeding phenology.
• Investigate correlations between 'Pup Mortality' and other documented phases such as 'Lactation' or 'Moult'.
• Study population structure by examining data on the 'Formation of the Harems' and the subsequent 'Arrival of the Adolescents'.
• Reconstruct historical population estimates for 1951 using tabulated counts from the report's sections.

Strengths

• Provides a complete annual cycle of observations for a key breeding season.
• Original data compiled by a named researcher (K. Brown) for a specific location and year.
• Covers multiple interconnected biological phenomena from breeding to molt.

Limitations

• Data is from a single year (1951), limiting longitudinal analysis.
• The dataset is a scanned document, requiring manual extraction of any tabular data.
• Sample sizes and specific counts for events like pup mortality are unknown from the description.

Provenance

Source

Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AU_AADC), via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Field observations and data compilation by researcher K. Brown, presented in a scanned report.

Time Range

1951, specifically covering the breeding season.

Freshness

Historical dataset from 1951; no updates expected.

Geography

Heard Island, a sub-Antarctic territory of Australia.