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British Columbia: International Accolades for Open Ocean Research Project |
| November 5, 2004 |
By Andy Torr and Jody Weir
 | Vance Mercer conducts a training exercise with Sitka, a female Steller sea lion, from a boat known as the 'Steller Shuttle.' The pair are involved in the world's first open-water study of declining Steller sea lions.
Photo: Gordon Hastie |
PORT MOODY - Upon passing by the sleepy Reed Point marina near Vancouver, the unsuspecting boater might be alarmed to see a Steller sea lion enthusiastically launch itself from the front door of a float house and into the open water.
Far from being an unorthodox family pet, however, the sea lion in question is actually contributing to the conservation of its own species. For the first time ever, these challenging animals are being successfully trained in open water - a significant achievement that hints at their critical role in an important research project.
It’s safe to say the work of the Steller Sea Lion Open Ocean Research Project is making waves. Recently, a poster on the project’s work with trained sea lions in an open-ocean setting received top prize at the International Marine Animal Training Association (IMATA) conference in Kolmarden, Sweden. The award underscored the unique nature of this project – it was the only open-ocean research project presented at the conference – and the speed with which the animals had been trained to consistently perform complex behaviours.
The award-winning poster was a collaborative effort by Vancouver Aquarium Animal Care Specialists Nigel Waller, Vance Mercer, Gwyneth Sheppard, Troy Neale and Billy Lasby. Mercer represented the project at the IMATA conference and was on hand to receive the award.
“To be recognized and respected by our peers in an international setting really helped to validate our work,” said Mercer. “We went into this project knowing we would have to invent highly specialized training techniques, and it was exciting to find out that the techniques we developed are not only effective as research tools but also surprisingly innovative in the world of marine mammal training.”
Mysterious Decline
The precipitous decline of Alaska’s Steller sea lion populations, which in some cases have plummeted as much as 85% in only 30 years, has spurred a vigorous scientific inquiry into the causes behind their mysterious and rapid disappearance.
A consortium of four Pacific Northwest universities, including the University of British Columbia (UBC), is currently overseeing a number of studies on wild and captive Stellers. Of particular interest to UBC researchers is the study of sea lion energetics, or how these enormous animals generate and expend metabolic energy.
Naturally, measuring responses to different dietary and exercise regimes is far more easily done on trained sea lions in an Aquarium setting than on untrained ones in the wild. But the types of experiments that can be done within an Aquarium are limited by its physical facilities. In order to ensure consistent results from sea lions in a wild setting, UBC set up the ‘Open Ocean’ project to use trained sea lions supervised by experts from the Vancouver Aquarium.
The study has not been without significant challenges, and the trainers who care for the sea lions frequently rely on their own ingenuity to overcome training obstacles. The first such obstacle was to ensure the study animals, which were raised at the Vancouver Aquarium, were comfortable with the unfamiliar sights and sounds of their new open-water surroundings. In addition, before any research could be done, they needed to learn how to swim around boats and jump on and off their transport vessel, the ‘Steller Shuttle.’
Importantly, since the animals are required to complete various tasks while out of sight of training staff and researchers for prolonged periods, the trainers had to first earn the trust of their charges.
Building Relationships
How do you get a sea lion to trust you? Currently, the Station is home to two female Steller sea lions: Sitka, who weights 210 kg, and Boni, who weighs 116 kg. Trusting these toothy animals – which can weigh hundreds of kilograms when fully grown - might be an intimidating prospect for the novice, but the experience and passion of Mercer and his colleagues have helped to create a bond of trust that most dog owners would envy. He spends eight hours a day with his charges, and when they’re not doing training sessions together, they’re socializing and strengthening their bond together.
“We raised these girls from pups in an Aquarium environment, and if we re-introduced them to the open water without first establishing a strong relationship, they probably wouldn’t come back every day,” said Mercer. “The open water is a big, scary place for them, and the key to everything is trust. If the animals don’t trust us, the project won’t work.”
Part of the Open Ocean project’s work is to examine the energetic cost of foraging, or how wild sea lions expend energy while they are diving and searching for food. For this study, the sea lions participate in daily training and diving sessions near the Station at Reed Point marina. During the trials, each sea lion spends 6 minutes breathing in a special respiratory dome at the water’s surface that measures the animal’s oxygen consumption while resting. The sea lion is then signalled to dive to a target light set at a predetermined depth and stay focused there until researchers turn off the light.
When the light is turned off, the sea lion is cued to return to the surface to breathe under the dome for another 10 minutes, during which time scientists can measure the amount of carbon dioxide that built up in the lungs during the dive. From this, they can calculate the amount of energy consumed during the dive.
According to Mercer, the trainers run 2-3 open ocean sessions a day. Some sessions are used for research purposes, while some simply serve to reinforce trained behaviours in the animals. Mercer says the sessions usually take place in the morning, to keep the animals focussed and minimize distractions from passing boat traffic.
It may seem like a lot of work is being done for the sake of a few numbers, but those numbers are invaluable for obtaining important new knowledge about a previously unknown aspect of Steller sea lion biology and behaviour. And the better we understand these trained animals, the better our chances of being able to conserve the dwindling populations of their wild counterparts.
Source: Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
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