Press Releases

Mar 20, 2000
Students Spend Spring Break Performing Unique Seal Census

Contact:
Darren Johnson
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Few college students would want to spend Spring Break in a place with no heat, electricity or running water, but eight undergrads and their teacher are doing just that next week as part of a rare research trip.

Southampton College Professor Sam Sadove and students from the Marine Science and Psychobiology departments will be joined by national researchers on tiny Great Gull Island, an uninhabited nature preserve just east of Plum Island.

They are in search of a quickly growing pod of seals. With Daryll Bonness, Director of Research at the Smithsonian, esteemed seal biologist Katherine Ono from the University of Maine and scientists from the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island (CRESLI), students will boat to the mile-wide island and break out survival gear for the week.

Three species of seals now make Gull Island home: Grey, Harp and Harbor. The animals haul out there, feed, mate and, Sadove believes, give birth on the island. Students will do a detailed census of the seals and observe their behavior. This will be the initial step of a long-term study, and Gull Island will become the southernmost seal research station in North America.

Sadove is a part-time Marine Biology professor and sits on the board of directors of CRESLI, which is based at Southampton College.