Quantifying the impact of sea ice coverage on the welfare of grey seal pups
Grantee: Daire Carroll
Institutions: University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Grant amount: $151,000
Grant type: Fellowship
Focal species: Grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)
Conservation status: Least concern
Research location: Sweden
Project summary
This project will use historic necropsy assessment, including body condition indicators (size and blubber layer), cause of death, age, and parasite load, coupled with drone-based photogrammetry, to establish and validate welfare proxies. The project will subsequently establish and validate remote behavioral and body conditions in grey seals as a remote welfare assessment tool. The project will further seek to understand density-dependent welfare in relation to differences in environmental conditions by comparing cortisol levels from feces, behavior, and body condition of juvenile seals in land and ice breeding colonies at different seal densities. The combined information will be used to develop predictive models that can identify welfare risk factors and opportunities to mitigate them. Finally, the project will identify and propose opportunities to alleviate stress for juveniles during land breeding years to improve welfare. The project will demonstrate proof-of-concept for a combined population modeling and behavioral/health assessment approach that can be transferred to other species to understand risk factors for poor welfare and identify opportunities for correcting them.
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