Locations at sea of adult females of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Península Valdés, Chubut, Argentina

Study Extent

Records coverage the positions of females at sea during the foraging pelagic phase that includes: the Patagonian shelf and the Argentine Basin in the SW Atlantic Ocean area. Most of the records of each animal are one trip from and to Peninsula Valdes. Each location was provided by the Argos System (http://www.cls.fr) and the frequency depended of the behavior of elephant seals at sea and their time surface intervals.

Sampling

Satellite tags (SPOT5 and SPLASH, Wildlife Computers, Redmond, Washington, http://www.wildlifecomputers.com) were deployed on adult post-molt and post-breeding females of southern elephant seals, in Península Valdés, Argentina. Tags were configured to send information through Argos System as soon as the animals entered the water.

Quality Control

The behavior of elephant seals at sea and their short surface intervals precludes high accuracy with position fixes. An filter was applied to reject records that would require a travel rate greater than 2.8 m/s (10 km/h).

Method steps

1. Instruments (Wildlife Computers, Redmond, Washington; instrument description at: http://www.wildlifecomputers.com.) were glued directly on the fur of the head using a 10-min setting epoxy resin (Campagna et al., 1999). Anesthesia protocols to deploy and recover instruments were described in Campagna et al. (1995, 1998, 1999). Tags were configured to send information 24 h per day with repetition rates of 40±2 sec, as soon as the animals entered to the sea. Locations were received daily via e-mail; Argos provide the estimated accuracy of each location, however, a filter was applied to exclude locations that would require an unrealistic travel rate.

The resource includes adult females of a unique specie. Scientific Name: Mirounga leonina (Linnaeus, 1758) Common Name (s): Southern Elephant Seal, South Atlantic Elephant-seal, Southern Elephant-seal (English). Eléphant De Mer Austral, Eléphant De Mer Du Sud (French). Elefante Marino Del Sur (Spanish)

1. Mirounga leonina
   common name: Southern elephant seal rank: species

The geographic coverage includes the Patagonian shelf, from the edge of the Patagonian shelf and to the Argentine Basin in the SW Atlantic Ocean. Mixed subtropical-subpolar waters characterize different oceanographic regimes in terms of water masses, currents and productivity: 1) Open continental shelf waters of subantarctic origin, 2) Shelf break front a narrow transition region between subpolar (Malvinas/Falkland Current) and shelf waters, 3) Subtropical waters carried by the Brazil Current collide with the cold-fresh subpolar waters of the Malvinas Current and 4) Subpolar characterized by low salinity, cold temperatures and high concentrations of nutrients.