Creative Science on a Budget

Every day, the research technicians at the UBC Marine Mammal Energetics and Nutrition Laboratory face challenges that require MacGyver-like ingenuity to solve. When it comes to cutting-edge Steller sea lion and northern fur seal research, specialized equipment is rarely available off the shelf. Rebecca Barrick, Jody Danielson and Brandon Russell not only have to collect the data, they first have to design and build the custom equipment needed for this important research – all without breaking the bank.

One recent example is a new restraint cage was needed. When the northern fur seal pups were brought to the lab, the technicians realized they had a problem: the pups were one-tenth the size of the Steller sea lions at the lab. They needed a much smaller cage.

Researchers in the lab use these cages when a marine mammal needs to be anaesthetized for procedures such as blood sampling, ultrasounds, or temporarily attaching monitors to its fur. The cage keeps the animal safe during the procedure and recovery period so it cannot move around and hurt itself.

The restraint cage built for Steller sea lions (right) is too big for a little fur seal. The new restraint cage built by Brandon (left) is a much better fit for Kyoo.

The easy solution was to have a small custom cage built, but metal cages are not cheap. A new cage costs $12,000 … so Brandon decided to build one.

As a child, Brandon learned to make his own snowshoes using PVC pipes – the kind you might find in the plumbing under your kitchen sink. The same principles, he decided, could be applied to building a fur seal cage .

He built the new cage using ordinary material: PVC pipes for the bars of the cage, a PVC sheet for the base, and aluminum for the frame. After building a mold to make sure all the pipes would have the same shape, he poured heated sand into the pipes to make them flexible enough to conform to the mold. Once the pipes cooled down, the sand was reheated and reused for the next pipe. The restraint cage is now complete, and it only cost $500.

The fur seal cage is not the only innovation Brandon, Rebecca and Jody have designed. For example, they use a webcam to show the seal and sea lion research to a group of school children in Alaska. This works wonderfully on dark, rainy winter days. Unfortunately, the first time they tried it on a sunny day, the glare of the sunlight made it impossible to see anything. Their solution was to put sunglasses on the webcam.

And then there is the metabolic chamber, which measures how much energy the pups use under different conditions. With the simple addition of a hole for a garden hose and a valve to control water depth, the technicians easily turned it into a cold-water bath to measure how different water temperatures affect the energy needs of the fur seals.

The technicians can often be found in the local hardware store looking for inspiration and parts. “The reaction is quite amusing when the salesman asks us what we need a part for”, says Jody. “Fur seals and sea lions aren’t their usual customers”.










Faced with new challenges every day, Rebecca, Brandon and Jody have to rely on their ingenuity and creativity to ensure that important research is done. A technician’s job may not be glamorous, but as Rebecca points out, “There’s never a dull moment."

February 11, 2010