News! Our photo survey work shows that Des’s mum has been seen on Rona in previous breeding seasons. In fact, she’s been seen regularly since 2004. Our long-term studies allow us to pinpoint the ways that females can differ in their success during breeding seasons (for example: how many pups they produce, how big their pup gets before weaning, and whether their pup survives to weaning ). The way the different females behave can affect the outcomes of these different processes. The performance and behaviour of females are far from simple to predict. It is important to know for example if a mother that shows one type of behavioural pattern in a season is likely to maintain this or change gradually or abruptly. These individual differences are basic to producing predictive models that can inform decisions relating to the development of and regulations imposed on important industries, such as the fishing and energy industries.
So far we have neglected to inform you about our bacon. Before we came to Rona, we visited a large store that sold everything you could possibly imagine, in very large quantities. We thought packs of bacon would be a good plan. We bought 25 packets…(3 meat eaters, 6 weeks) . In fact they were packets of three. So, yes, we brought 75 packs of bacon with us. You might think, “so what? Bacon butties for every meal, great!”. However, the carnivores are so far failing to make much of a dent in our swine stash. It’ll have to be bacon, bacon, bacon for the next 10 days… I wonder how inventive we can be with recipes. By “we” I mean, “they”. I will stick to my imitation quorn chicken thank you very much.
Today for our picture we thought we’d show you a panoramic view of the main study area from the hillside where we have our hides- (on the right).