Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Jan 21/02) - A study on the ringed seals of the Western Arctic has found that they travel much further than previously thought.

Four juvenile seals tagged at Cape Perry north of Paulatuuq have been tracked to locations as far away as the Russian coast.

"It's pretty exciting," says biologist Lois Harwood with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Inuvik. "They were tagged in late September and by the last week of October, they were all in Russian waters."

Prior to this study, the only indication scientists had that the seals might travel so far was a single branded seal that later turned up in Siberia in the 1970s.

The seals that were tagged last fall were all between two and three years old. Harwood says the wanderlust shown by these particular juveniles is consistent with the behaviour of many other mammals that disperse far and wide to find new territory for feeding and mating.

The new data open up a whole range of other questions that still have to be answered, such as how long the animals stay in Russia, and whether they come back.

"It just shows how complex the structure of different populations and stocks must be," Harwood says.

Although the satellite transmitters are supposed to transmit for about 10 months, this batch of transmitters lasted less than five months.

Each transmitter costs about $10,000 to $12,000, and they're designed to stay on the animal from the fall to spring moults.

Harwood says she is disappointed the signals died so soon, but this year was better than 1999, when one tag went dead after just five days. Most of the other tags in previous years lasted through the spring season.

Next year, Harwood says the tagging will continue at Cape Perry and, in 2003, the project will likely move to Sachs Harbour. By the end of 2003, the study will be prepared for publication.

The seal-monitoring project is funded by Fisheries and Oceans, the Fisheries Joint Management Committee in Inuvik, Anderson Exploration and the World Wildlife Fund of Canada.