By Elizabeth McHuron, Vertabrate Ecology Lab

This harbor seal was captured in San Francisco Bay as part of several students’ thesis projects.  One of these projects is looking at why harbor seals in San Francisco Bay are rusting (notice the red fur), and why some seals rust and others don’t.  Some of the samples collected for these projects include blood, hair, morphometric (body) measurements, and nasal/rectal swabs.  All seals involved receive two blue rear flipper tags and a PIT tag (microchip), so that they can be identified in the future.