Harbor seals have been studied extensively all over the world and are therefore ideal candidates for exploring new dive analysis methods. My MS thesis at Western Washington University focused on analyzing the dive behavior of harbor seals in the San Juan Islands, Washington. The San Juan Islands are located at the convergence of 3 major basins within the Salish Sea making it a dynamic and variable environment for seals and other marine critters.

I was interested to see if seals using different haul-out locations also exhibited different dive behaviors. I initially used a common statistical approach, and then recently updated the methods using a Bayesian analysis that will hopefully be published in the peer-reviewed literature soon!