I'm working on 2 research papers at the moment:

1. The effect of extreme weather events on early New Zealand sea lion pup mortality

I've found that cold and wet weather is linked to more pups dying at a young age ie. yes the weather can be too cold for them, especially when they're only 2 months old. Perhaps humans can help mitigate this with shelters, hmm... 🤔. This research is based on fieldwork in the sub-Antarctic Campbell Island.

2. Factors influencing southern elephant seal pups' survival

I'm using a 10+ year dataset of resightings of elephant seals that were tagged and tracked (for their maiden foraging trip) when they were pups. Unlike other mammals (eg. land elephants) southern elephant seals do not stay with/teach their young once they are weaned. Questions I'm trying to answer: where do pups go on their first foraging trip? Do they innately know where to forage? And based on where they went, did they survive?