This project combines NOAA Fisheries experience with satellite telemetry - studies of movement and habitat use - with the specialized techniques of Kellys team for locating and capturing seals. NOAAs past experience with satellite tracking enabled us to develop a new flipper-attached satellite tag that allows us to track the seals for potentially more than a year, which is necessary to answer the question about breeding site fidelity. In the past we hadnt been able to do that, because the older satellite tags were glued to the seals hair and fell off during the annual molt, explained Boveng.

Jamberry sniffing a ringed seal lair in the Beaufort Sea ice. Photo: University of Alaska Southeast Kelly and Boveng track the movements of satellite-tagged adult seals between breeding seasons. They hope to track and identify forty seals between 2005 and 2006 in Peard Bay and Point Barrow, Alaska. In recent years, the group has tagged seals in Prudhoe Bay and Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, as well as Resolute Bay and Inuvik, Canada.