• Question: What is the most THRILLING discovery that you have ever made?

    Asked by anon-193451 to iainstaniland on 6 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Iain Staniland

      Iain Staniland answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      Wow, that made me think.
      I think my most thrilling discovery was finding out just how different male and female seal behave. Nobody had ever studied what male fur seals did when they are at sea as they are much bigger and more difficult to work on. I managed to put miniature electronic devices on some big male fur seals that were breeding on Bird Island where I do a lot of my work. It was really exciting to see where they went, as nobody knew.
      It turned out that they were able to dive much deeper than the females reaching the seabed around the island. The deepest dive was 350 m, that’s deeper than the Eiffel Tower is tall.

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