Steve Renner
[-Back to The Bold and the Beautiful-]

Steve Renner Photo by Marcy Lucas

On a three-and-a-half-acre island off the coast of Maine, Steve Renner spends weeks at a time recording the behavior of the inhabitants. He wants to know how the island's two sets of neighbors — longtime resident harbor seals and the relative newcomers, gray seals — get along.

It's quite a sight, says The University of Maine graduate student, who studies 1,200 seals on the tiny island, watching and recording their behavior — from their periods of sleep to acts of aggression — in such a remote, natural setting.

Mount Desert Rock, 15 miles off the Maine coast, is the site of a College of the Atlantic research station. With the college's cooperation, Renner uses the pristine location to conduct research on the interaction between the two seal species.

His findings will shed light on how the growth of the gray seal population in Maine waters is affecting the long-established colonies of harbor seals, and what implications the two resident species will have on marine resources management.

"I'm looking at direct interaction, including competition for particular ledges, and whether harbor seals behave differently with gray seals sharing the same haul-out ledge," says Renner, a native of Philadelphia, Pa.

Renner has spent several weeks during the past three summers on Mount Desert Rock. Using a camouflage blind, he conducts his population studies during the seals' peak haul-out periods. He uses both a scan survey to observe the seals and their activities, and videotaping of small groups of the marine mammals.

He not only records the behaviors exhibited, but the duration and stimuli of the activity. Renner also makes note of the age, gender, sex, size and coloration of the seals.

Unlike harbor seals that can weigh up to 250 pounds, adult gray seals can weigh up to 1,000 pounds. Both species pose problems for fisheries, Renner says.

"Harbor seals affect salmon fisheries. And seine fishermen say they avoid Mount Desert Rock because of gray seals. With gray seals more numerous," Renner notes, "there may be marine resources policy challenges."