Roaming seals use mobiles to call home

SITTING and waiting for the phone to ring is an occupational hazard for marine biologist Michelle Cronin.

Being out of coverage or not having enough credit on the phone are the usual excuses we have all had to put up with, but when you are expecting a call from a seal, the excuses are even more fishy.

Ms Cronin is leading a team of research scientists who are tracking seals from the Coastal and Marine Resource Centre at the Haulbowline Naval base in Cork by giving them mobile phones. She said the aim of the innovation research effort is to track harbour seals and help focus conservation efforts.

“The information is critical for the effective conservation of seals which are protected under Irish and European law.

“The National Parks and Wildlife Service are obliged to designate special conservation areas for the seals and in order to do so it is vital to know where the seals go to when they are at sea.”

The novel project uses global positioning system (GPS) and mobile phone equipment to tag harbour seals in waters off the south west coast and study their movements and behaviour.

The tags are programmed to make frequent calls to a base in Scotland and the information is relayed back to Ms Cronin via the internet.

There are many occupational hazards associated with the work including the anguish stirred up when the seals’ phones stop making calls.

“Sometimes the seals will swim offshore, outside of mobile phone range, and we may not hear from them for a while but when they come back into coverage all the information is then sent ashore in the data call.

“It is difficult not to worry when you don’t hear from a seal for more than a week but so far they’ve continued to call home once they are back in range.”

In the pilot phase of the project Ms Cronin had the added headache of making sure the seals had enough credit to stay in touch.

“All of the tags on the seals have contract bill phones, in the past we used ‘pay as you go’ SIM cards in the phones but making sure the seals credit was constantly topped up took up a lot of time.

Before I went on holidays I had to make sure there was plenty credit on each card.”

Ten seals were tagged last year but the weather has hampered efforts to add more seals to the study over winter.

In April the team will return to the tricky task of catching seals and attaching the tags.

From the middle of February school children and wildlife enthusiasts will be able to log onto www.sealtrack.ucc.ie and track their favourite seals and learn of their lifestyles.