Seal Story

Near the end of the school day today, an email came to me from Steve.  He said:
"They have spotted a bear on the beach north of Ilisagvik college. I can pick both of you up in 5 minutes if you want to take a run out there and see if we can see it?"
My answer was a short one:  "I'm in!"

I called up Shoe at Ipalook Elementary school and left him a message.  There were 5 minutes left of the school day at the middle school.  Kids were finishing a writing project and turning it in to wrap up the day.  I stepped over to Molly, one of our student teachers and shared the email with her.  She cleared her early departure with her cooperating teacher, and we were off to fetch the other student teachers.  Excitement spread among them quickly, and we packed in the school day.  Meanwhile, Steve picked up Shoe at the elementary school and then pulled up for us.  We piled in the old Suburban with Steve and headed to the ocean front road.  More questions helped us to learn that one of Steve's friends is a whaling captain.  The whalers communicate with home on shore via VHF radio.  He had asked for a heads up of any interesting activity...and this looked like it.

It is about two miles north of Barrow that the road ends.  There is a spit of land called Point Barrow that is just that...about 40 meters wide and stretching out to separate the Chukchi Sea to the NorthWest from the Beaufort Sea to the North East. Map! Driving this short distance leads to the end of the road...a snowy circle and the frame of large sign.  Apparently a local sport is to shoot out the sign at the point...that must have said something about the end of the continent being near.  Actually there is a large post that indicates the end of the spit...visible in the distance.

We were seeking sight of a small polar bear said to be in this vicinity.  As quickly as they move, this was a gamble at best.  After several minutes of watching the horizon, we convinced ourselves that snow and ice were all there was to see.  Really.  In every direction.  Snow and ice to the horizon.  That and is was VERY cold!  The wind has a particular bite to it here...a few minutes without gloves is more than plenty.  Several photos later we headed back south along the road.

A few minutes in, we stopped to look again.  Steve and I stepped out in front of the Suburban as he suggested that taking a small slice of the view and slowly scanning it for movement seemed to be the best way to find a white bear on white snow.  A native Alaskan man coming towards us on a snow machine (that's snowmobile in greater MN!) stopped briefly.  He told us he had just seen a seal down the road on the ice and that he would show us where it was.  About a half mile down the road indeed there was a very small seal sitting a short distance out on the ice from shore.  It was very small...he figured maybe a week or two old.  It looked as it it might have surfaced through a small hole in the ice and been resting on the surface.  Apparently there is a strong current up the coast and the seals will come up for a rest.  Steve helped us to learn how to get relatively close to a seal.  The small size minimized our fear of the seal, though I bet it had some thoughts about us.  We moved downwind and Rachel and I slowly learned to 'belly crawl' for 20 feet or so to approach it closely.

Eventually we were close enough to observe that it looked to have some fresh scars on the sides of its belly and back.  YES, the others in our party were keeping a careful watch for bears!  No blood was visible, and we were less sure of any hole in the ice at this point. 

Notice the piece of snow on the small seal's back...a sign of the rest of the story.  Upon close approach, there was no path to the water.  This seal had been placed here by a human.  It was alive, but somewhat injured.  We quietly took several more photos before receding form it and moving around to the other side.  There was a path where the seal had slid just a few feet down the ice.

After all the confusion we could handle, and a bit of helpless feeling, we headed back to the south.  A stop into the wildlife conservation office at the college helped a lot.  They had recently picked up this seal in Barrow.  It looked like it had been picked up by a fox and tormented a bit.  Upon release to the ice, the seal turned up again.  So the folks from the conservation office explained that leaving the injured seal on the ice was the best and only option next to taking the seal all the way to a lead (opening) in the ice.  We did just that.  We left somewhat frustrated but knowing that our best efforts would lead only to nice photographs at this point.  So we'll have to settle for that!