Elephant Seal Movements: Modelling Migration*

Elephant seals migrate over vast areas of the eastern North Pacific Ocean between rookeries in Southern California and distant northern foraging areas. Several models of particle movement were evaluated and a model for great circle motion found to give reasonable results for the movement of an adult female. This model takes specific account of the fact that the movement is on the surface of a sphere and that the animal is apparently heading toward a particular destination. The parameters of the motion were estimated. Such a great circle path of migration may imply that these seals have the ability to assess their position with respect to some global or celestial cues, allowing them to continually adjust their ____________ *The work of DRB supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N0001494-1-0042 and the National Science Foundation Grant DMS-9625774. Elephant seal dive data were collected in previous studies with partial support of a contract to BSS from the Space and Missile Command, U.S. Department of the Air Force.