UW News interview with Dr. Kasim Rafiq and grad student Marie-Pier Poulin
Ever wonder what Abrahms Lab members Kasim and Marie-Pier do in the field? Read this University of Washington News piece and find out!
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Field Updates: Argentina, February 2026
Written by Dr. Katie Holt and Sofia Denkovski Finishing the season with a full house We had a full house when Katie Holt arrived at Punta Tombo on February 8th, but we fit everyone! For one week, Chloe, Sofia, Anna, Katie, Sonia de Berry, and Dee Boersma all stayed and worked under one roof. Katie’s arrival was just past the
Field Updates: Argentina, January 2026
Written on January 20, 2026 by Chloe Rabinowitz; edited by Kalyna Durbak Our field work crew has been here for a while! Sofia Denkovski, Anna Testorf, and Chloe Rabinowitz arrived in Punta Tombo on January 6th, followed by Dr. Dee Boersma on the 12th. We have been getting well acquainted with all our active research nests and have been progressing
Field updates: Argentina, November-December 2025
Written by Meredith Honig and Bryn Carter The austral spring field season at Punta Tombo in 2025 wrapped up on a high note as chicks continued to grow and more juveniles and non-breeding adults started showing up in larger numbers on the beaches. This would be the first time the juveniles and non-breeding adults were back from being at sea
Dr. Wagner’s latest entry in the Last Word on Nothing: Saint Rock
Be sure to check out Eric Wagner’s newest essay for The Last Word On Nothing called Saint Rock! Featured photo credit: Eric Wagner
Field updates: Argentina, October-November 2025
Written by Dr. Eric Wagner Starting the season – stake survey and tag hunting In late October, Dr. Eric Wagner and Abrahms graduate student Meredith Honig traveled to Argentina to start the 2025-2026 field season. After getting a provisional permit from the provincial authorities, they arrived at Punta Tombo on October 29. They then spent the next two days completing
Field updates: Botswana, August-October 2025
Written by Dr. Kasim Rafiq and graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin of the Abrahms LabAll research and photographs are done in compliance with IACUC-approved protocols, and have been permitted through the appropriate permits. Over the past few months, we have been busy collecting data on African carnivores at Dog Camp, the Botswana-based bush camp of our long-term collaborators Wild Entrust’s Botswana
Field Updates: Galápagos, Summer 2025
Dr. Dee Boersma, Dr. Sue Moore, and Dr. Caroline Cappello were in the Galápagos from July 25 – August 3 to survey the penguins on the islands. They were able to measure 36 of them—16 more than last year! Measuring penguins is an essential part of our project, which is maintaining continuity with our decades-long dataset on the species. Dr. Boersma began studying
Field updates: Botswana, June – July 2025
Post written by Marie-Pier Poulin Graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin scans for animal tracking collars in the Okavango Delta. Photo credit: Leigh West In mid-June, PhD candidate Leigh West, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Kasim Rafiq, and graduate student Marie-Pier Poulin arrived at Dog Camp, the Botswana-based bush camp of our long-term collaborators Wild Entrust’s Botswana Predator Conservation. Over the past month, we
Dr. Wagner’s latest essay featured in Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Dr. Wagner‘s newest essay, Coming into the colony, was published in the Encyclopedia of Puget Sound on July 17 2025. Here’s a snippet of the introduction: Gulls are perhaps our most familiar seabird. Pick a seashore or even an occasional landfill, and you are likely to see at least a few. But casual sightings don’t always paint a true picture
Field updates: Argentina, March 2025
Written by Dr. Eric Wagner Thanks once again to generous support from Zoo Augsburg, research scientist Dr. Eric Wagner and computer specialist Pearl Wellington traveled to Punta Tombo in early March for a couple of weeks to mark the end of the breeding season. Eric and Pearl went to deploy twenty geolocating time-depth recorder (GLD) tags to female and male
New essay by Eric Wagner: Behavioral Observation
Read Eric Wagner’s newest post for The Last Word called Behavioral Observation, where Eric tries to ground-truth accelerometry data to determine how often incubating penguins go down to the ocean to drink water, move, and possibly admire their interior decorating skills.
Field update: Argentina, December 2024 – January 2025
This field season is the first time we’ve been at Punta Tombo, Argentina persistently from October to March since before the pandemic! We’ve seen chicks hatch and watched them grow into chubby fledglings. Unfortunately many died in December with their bellies full; we suspect it was due to toxic algae, which could also be the cause of the 71 southern
Eric Wagner’s newest essay – “Snapshot: The Penguins at Twilight”
Be sure to check out Eric Wagner’s newest essay for The Last Word On Nothing, called “Snapshot: The Penguins at Twilight” ! Featured image photo credit: Eric Wagner
Field Updates: Botswana, summer 2024
Written by Dr. Kasim Rafiq In June 2024, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Kasim Rafiq and PhD candidate Leigh West from Dr. Briana Abrahms‘ lab returned to Wild Dog Camp in the Okavango Delta and were joined by Briana’s new PhD student Marie-Pier Poulin. The team successfully deployed six new tracking collars on African wild dogs, including in two brand new packs,