Southern Elephant Seal Growth and Survival Data from the Southern Ocean

Macquarie Island, Marion Island, Heard Island, Mawson, and the Vestfold Hills are the primary locations for this data collection. The dataset is a compendium of histories for known-age Southern elephant seals, containing mark-recapture, weight, length, and survival data. It was compiled by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre, with a snapshot taken in January 2015.

Use Cases

• Modeling age-specific survival rates based on mark-recapture histories.
• Analyzing individual seal growth patterns based on repeated weight and length measurements.
• Comparing demographic trends between populations at Macquarie and Marion Islands.
• Assessing historical population changes using data from branded cohorts between 1950 and 1965.

Strengths

• Includes longitudinal data from over 1000 seals weighed annually at Macquarie Island between 1993 and 2003.
• Combines modern tagging data with historical records from branding campaigns dating back to 1949.
• Provides multi-location coverage across several Southern Ocean islands and Antarctic sites.

Limitations

• Last updated 2015-01-31 23:59:59.999000; freshness should be verified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AU_AADC), via nasa_earthdata.

Collection Method

Field observations including weighing, tagging, branding, and measuring seals during recapture events.

Time Range

Historical data from 1949-1965 and modern series from 1993-2003.

Freshness

Snapshot from January 2015.

Geography

Southern Ocean, focussing on Macquarie Island, Marion Island, Heard Island, Mawson, and the Vestfold Hills.