Archived News

In early 2011 the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP) research station on sub-Antarctic Marion Island was moved into a newly-completed building complex adjacent and to the north of the old base that had been continuously occupied since 1948.

In April 2013 we found an occupied nest containing a Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans chick within 100 m south of the now abandoned and little-visited buildings of the old station, at a locality where we have not seen the species breeding during the last two decades.

A Wandering Albatross chick close to the now-disused labs and acommodation blocks of the old base at Marion Island

Photograph by John Cooper

In a 2005 paper published in the journal Polar Biology on behavioural responses by Wandering Albatrosses to human disturbance, the authors stated “[i]n 1948 a permanent research station was established on the north-eastern side of Marion Island, which has been inhabited ever since. The numbers of Wandering Albatrosses breeding within 200 m of the station more than halved within the first two decades (late 1940s to mid-1960s) of human occupation and this reduction is thought to have been due to human disturbance.” (click here).

The old buildings are due to be removed over the next few years, and the site rehabilitated.  Time will then tell whether, in the continued absence of regular nearby human traffic, more Wanderers will re-occupy the breeding space they started to lose over 60 years ago.  It will also be interesting to see if human activity at the new station results in the displacement of albatrosses that, prior to 2011, bred nearby and to the north of the site.

Selected References:

de Villiers, M.S., Cooper, J., Carmichael, N., Glass, J.P., Liddle, G.M., McIvor, E., Micol, T. & Roberts, A. 2006.  Conservation management at Southern Ocean islands: towards the development of best-practice guidelines.  Polarforschung 75: 113-131.

de Villiers, M.S., Cooper, J. & Ryan, P.G. 2005.  Individual variability of behavioural responses by Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) to human disturbance.  Polar Biology 28: 255-260.

Wheeler, M., de Villiers, M.S. & Majiedt, P.A. 2009.  The effect of frequency and nature of pedestrian approaches on the behaviour of wandering albatrosses at sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Polar Biology 32: 197-205.

 John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer & Marienne de Villiers, 06 May 2013