UPDATE: In July 2005, The Center received happy news: Artemis, now an adult, had been sited at Año Nuevo giving birth to a pup! By rehabilitating Artemis, The Center has contributed two-fold to the recovery of a threatened species.

Artemis’ story began at Año Nuevo on June 14th, 1999 when researchers from UC Santa Cruz noticed her mother had not returned for two days and contacted The Center. For ten months, volunteers and staff worked to ensure that Artemis received sufficient nutrition and gained survival skills for her release back to the wild.

A few days before release, Artemis was fitted with a radio transmitter and a satellite-linked time-depth recorder (SDR).The SDR was optimized to record depths and durations of dives, and to provide “at-sea” and “on-land” locations using the Service ARGOS Satellite system. Service Argos is a satellite-based location and data collection system. The Argos receivers are carried on board NOAA polar-orbiting environmental satellites ~850 km above the earth. Location and dive data received from Artemis' satellite tag via Service Argos was then e-mailed to The Center.

After Artemis was released in March of 2000, more than 300 transmissions were received during a three month period. Positional data indicated that Artemis was primarily traveling west of the island. Mean dive depths were 13.0, 14.2, and 11.6 meters for the months of April, May, and June, respectively, and her deepest dive was approximately 175 meters! On average, Artemis was diving for approximately 1 minute, although a few of her dives exceeded 9 minutes. The map below details Artemis’ movements during this period.