---
title: "South African expedition sails south this week to undertake research on ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island"
---

# South African expedition sails south this week to undertake research on ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island

The *[S.A. Agulhas](http://www.sanap.org.za/sanap_agulhas.html )*, South Africa's Antarctic research and supply ship, sailed from Cape Town for [Marion Island](http://www.sanap.org.za/sanap_marion/sanap_marion.html) in the southern Indian Ocean on Tuesday this week to undertake the annual relief of the newly opened new meteorological/research base at Transvaal Cove.

 Among the many research groups aboard is one led by [Peter Ryan](http://www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za/docs/peter.html) of the University of Cape Town's [Percy FitzPatrick Institute](http://www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za/index.html).  Working in conjunction with personnel from the South African Government's [Department of Environmental Affairs](http://www.environment.gov.za/), a team of six will undertake research on a number of seabird species during the three weeks the ship is at the island, as summarized below for ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels:

 **Wandering Albatross** *Diomedea exulans*:  Blood samples will be collected from chicks in study colonies for sexing and paternity analyses,

 **Sooty albatrosses** *Phoebetria* spp.:  deploy PTTs (satellite transmitters),

 **Giant petrels** *Macronectes* spp.:  deploy PTTs (satellite transmitters), and

 **Grey Petrel** *Procellaria cinerea*:  retrieve and redeploy GPS loggers from incubating birds.

 In addition new field assistants who will be spending a year on the island will be introduced to the ornithological programme, which includes total "round-island" counts of all the surface-nesting albatross and giant petrel species, as well as continued monitoring in long-term demographic study colonies of colour-banded Wandering and Grey-headed *Thalassarche chrysostoma* Albatrosses and of Northern Giant Petrels *M. halli*.

 ![](https://acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Petrels/N/Northern_Giant_Petrel_by_Marienne_de_Villiers.jpg "Northern Giant Petrel on Marion Island.  Photograph by Marienne de Villiers")

 As in the last two years I am accompanying the relief, continuing with archaeological and historical research, which this year will include investigation of a sunken sealing vessel from the early 20th Century.  Visitors to this web site should thus expect intermittent breaks in the posting of daily news items while I travel south and while I'm in field huts away from the research station (and Internet) on the island.  Good to get a break sometimes!

 *John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 7 April 2011*