The story of Macca’s replica Stay, the plastic labrador which acts as a bit of a station mascot. Seals also return, with the circle of life displayed in pics.

The story of Macca’s replica Stay

Many readers will be familiar with the story of Antarctic mascot dog ‘Stay'. Stay is a Guide Dogs for the Blind donation dog which was first taken to Australian Antarctic stations in the early 1990s, when the last of the station husky sledge dogs were returned to Australia. This was done as something of an expeditioner protest against an unpopular decision at the time. Thus Stay was on hand to farewell the last of these great dogs which had rendered long and faithful service to Antarctic expeditioners.

Since then, Stay has assumed a life of her own, moving by often mysterious means from one station and Antarctic location to another, with an “official” history and a story book having been written about her Antarctic and subantarctic adventures.

Late last summer, Stay returned to Hobart from a sojourn at Mawson’s huts via the Akademik Shokalsky and Aurora Australis. Incoming expeditioners to Macquarie Island at that time were hopeful that Stay might have then been able to somehow find her way to join us at Macca. This would have been extremely appropriate, as we were about to farewell another group of hard working and faithful dogs which had also rendered sterling service, the Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project (MIPEP) rabbit hunting and rodent detecting dogs which had performed an amazing job in eradicating these pests at Macca over the preceding three years. For the second time in Antarctic history, Stay would have been on hand to farewell her brothers and sisters.
Alas it was not to be.

Stay has disappeared from circulation, apparently stolen by a person or persons unknown, and her fate and current whereabouts are not known. We decided in the interim, we needed to have a replacement Stay, albeit in only two dimensions. So we made a cardboard cutout Stay to take part in our midwinter celebrations and subsequent activities on Macca. Our replica Stay appeared in our winter station group photo in a story from last week, and she was apparently lifelike enough to induce many people to think we have had the real Stay here all along. We wish. Sadly, no, only a cardboard cut-out replica Stay. In order to dispel any further rumours to the contrary, here is the full and illustrated story of our Stay.

Dr Meg has contributed an explicitly detailed how-to guide for others who may wish to construct their own replica Stay, in the anticipation that there will shortly be a Stay at all the stations!

Macca photo gallery

The elephant seal breeding harems on our beaches are increasing exponentially in size at the moment, and many pups are arriving. Our keen photographers have been down to the nearest harem on west beach daily, to check on happenings.

Amidst all this new life, nature has taken its course and shown us death as well. A dead adult male seal appeared, perhaps dying of old age after one last attempt to make it back to his old stomping grounds one more time. This attracted the attention of the island’s giant petrel population, which act as the vultures in this ecosystem. This helps to fatten them up so they may look after their own chicks which will hatch shortly.

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