From Australian Oceans Data Network
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Subset of data from the TAGS database of known age seals - Weddell Seals

Created 17/11/2025

Updated 17/11/2025

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This database is a compendium of histories of known age seals (Weddell) from observations across the Southern Ocean but focussed on the Windmill Islands, Mawson and the Vestfold Hills. Although the following information pertains to Elephant Seals, it is assumed similar procedures were undertaken with the Weddell Seals between 1973 and 2006: 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. 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.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Subset of data from the TAGS database of known age seals - Weddell Seals
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/451a0721-02fb-4682-b4a9-bb708a10e8fb
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
metadata@aad.gov.au
Reference Period 22/01/1973 - 02/10/2006
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        62.867,
        -69.7
      ],
      [
        78.733,
        -69.7
      ],
      [
        78.733,
        -67.617
      ],
      [
        62.867,
        -67.617
      ],
      [
        62.867,
        -69.7
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "Subset of data from the TAGS database of known age seals - Weddell Seals". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/subset-of-data-from-the-tags-database-of-known-age-seals-weddell-seals1