Seal database of known-age animals from the Antarctic and subantarctic Southern Ocean

This database is a compendium of histories of known age seals (Weddell and Southern elephant) from observations across the Southern Ocean but focussed on Macquarie Island, Marion Island, Heard Island, Mawson and the Vestfold Hills.

At Macquarie Island 1000 seals were weighed per annum between 1993-2003 at birth and individually marked with two plastic flipper tags in the inter-digital webbing of their hind flippers. These tagged seals were weighed again at weaning, when length, girth, fat depth, and flipper measurements were made. Three weeks after weaning 2000 seals were permanently and individually marked by hot-iron branding. Recaptures and re-weighings of these known aged individuals were used to calculate growth and age-specific survival of the seals.

Similar data were collected from elephant seals between 1950 and 1965 when seals were individually marked by hot-iron branding. Mark-recapture data from these cohorts were used to assess the demography of the declining population. Length and mass data were also collected for these cohorts and were used, for the first time, to assess the growth of individual seals without killing them.

At Marion Island all the elephant seals have been individually marked with two plastic flipper tags in their rear flippers. Recaptures of these seals were used to compare survival at Marion and Macquarie Islands.

At Heard Island, seals were branded between 1949-1953. Seal length was measured in feet and inches. Recaptures of seals were made up until 1955, and growth and age-specific survival was calculated. Survival data from Heard Island were compared with concurrent data from Macquarie Island.

The database was held by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre, but was taken offline due to maintenance problems. A snapshot of the database was taken in June 2018 and stored in an access database.

This work was completed as part of ASAC project 90.

本数据库为南大洋全域观测所得的已知年龄海豹（威德尔海豹（Weddell seal）与南象海豹（Southern elephant seal））的历史资料汇编，研究重点覆盖麦夸里岛、马里恩岛、赫德岛、莫森站以及韦斯特福尔丘陵区域。

1993年至2003年间，麦夸里岛每年对1000头新生海豹进行体重测量，并在其后肢趾间蹼处佩戴两枚塑料鳍爪标记牌以实现个体识别。研究人员会在这些带标记海豹的断奶期再次进行体重测量，同时记录其体长、围长、脂肪厚度以及鳍肢尺寸数据。断奶三周后，研究人员通过热铁烙印的方式为2000头海豹完成永久性个体标记。对这些已知年龄的个体进行重捕与再次称重，以此计算海豹的生长情况以及特定年龄的存活率。

1950年至1965年间，研究人员通过热铁烙印的方式标记象海豹，同期收集了同类数据。基于该批次标记个体的重捕数据，研究人员对种群数量下滑的象海豹种群的种群统计学特征进行了评估。研究人员同时收集了该批次个体的体长与体重数据，首次实现了无需捕杀海豹即可评估个体生长情况的研究。

马里恩岛的所有象海豹均通过在后肢佩戴两枚塑料鳍爪标记牌实现个体识别，通过对这些标记海豹的重捕数据，研究人员对比了马里恩岛与麦夸里岛的海豹存活率差异。

1949年至1953年间，赫德岛的海豹接受了热铁烙印标记，其体长以英尺与英寸为单位进行测量。研究人员对标记海豹的重捕工作持续至1955年，并据此计算了海豹的生长情况与特定年龄存活率。随后将赫德岛的存活率数据与同期麦夸里岛的相关数据进行了对比分析。

本数据库原由澳大利亚南极数据中心（Australian Antarctic Data Centre）维护，后因维护问题下线。2018年6月，研究人员对该数据库进行了快照备份，并存储于Access数据库中。

本研究系南极科学咨询委员会（Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, ASAC）第90号项目的研究成果。