Dr. Eric Wagner, Dr. Esteban Frere, and Dr. Dee Boersma published an article on how changing oil tanker routes prevented Magellanic penguins from suffering chronic oil pollution. Read the abstract on the Marine Pollution Bulletin website.
Katie Holt and Dr. Dee Boersma published an article about an unprecedented, single-day, heat-related mortality event of Magellanic Penguins at Punta Tombo. Read about the after effects in the journal Ornithological Applications.
New Magellanic penguin study by Boersma Lab Read More »
The research, led by scientists at the Abrahms Lab and published in Nature Climate Change, reveals that a warming world is increasing human-wildlife conflicts. Read about the paper on the NSF site.
Abrahms Lab research featured on NSF site Read More »
Metadata Authors: Eric L. Wagner, Esteban Frere, P. Dee BoersmaJournal: Marine Pollution BulletinDOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.11 Summary Summary written by Sofia Denkovski Argentinian oil and effects on seabirds Surveys from 1982-1990 suggested more than 40,000 penguins died per year in Chubut and Santa Cruz from chronic oiling. This was hypothesized to be due to the colonies’ proximity to oil centers and shipping lanes. Why is oil so bad for birds? Oiled birds lose their ability to thermoregulate and can ingest the toxic oil. Penguins are especially vulnerable due to remote breeding sites and inability to fly. Changes after establishment of 1997 marine
After Assistant Professor of Biology and Boersma Endowed Chair Dr. Briana Abrahms and her team deployed GPS-audio wildlife tracking collars on African wild dogs and lions during the summer of 2022, Dr. Abrahms and Dr. Kasim Rafiq, a postdoc in the Abrahms Lab, have been working with industry collaborators to build AI models that detect behaviors (such as hunting) and hunger levels from the collar data. In the coming months, Kasim will travel to the Okavango Delta to work with our collaborators at Botswana Predator Conservation to deploy additional African wild dog and lion collars and collect the behavioral data – by
Updates from the field: Readying the 2023 season Read More »
Photo credit: Eric Wagner Thanks to the generous support of Zoo Augsburg in Germany, Dr. Ginger Rebstock and Dr. Eric Wagner were able to return to Punta Tombo for a couple of weeks in April. There, they put twenty satellite tags on penguins—ten females and ten males—that were about to start their post-breeding migration. From last year’s tagging effort, we know that females hug the coast more than males as they swim north, and pairs do not migrate together. Now we are trying to get a better sense of whether females and males use the same routes consistently from one
Field updates: Argentina, April 2023 Read More »
Eric Wagner was featured in a webinar series co-sponsored by NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Feiro Marine Life Center. In this talk, Eric discussed the ongoing research on the rhinoceros auklets of Destruction Island (and beyond), and talked about what these furtive birds can show us about the larger world in which they try to make their living. Watch the webinar on the NOAA website.
Eric Wagner featured in NOAA webinar Read More »
Authors: Sue E MooreJournal: ICES Journal of Marine ScienceDOI: 0.1093/icesjms/fsad030 I describe my path through a series of opportunities that provided stepping stones from childhood years in the landlocked US Midwest to a 45-year-long career focused on cetacean behaviour and ecology…
Chasing inter-species communication: what marine mammals are telling us about our oceans Read More »
Authors: Jennifer B Tennessen, Marla M Holt, Brianna M Wright, M Bradley Hanson, Candice K Emmons, Deborah A Giles, Jeffrey T Hogan, Sheila J Thornton, Volker B DeeckeJournal: Behavioral EcologyDOI: 10.1093/beheco/arad002Coverage: The Seattle Times, Skagit Valley Herald, Seattle King 5 News, KUOW Public Radio, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud”, Victoria Times Colonist, North Shore News
Divergent foraging strategies between populations of sympatric matrilineal killer whales Read More »
In January and February of 2023 Dr. Dee Boersma, along with PhD students Katie Holt (Boersma Lab) and Erik Johansson (Abrahms Lab), spent six weeks in Punta Tombo to set up the remote scales that weigh penguins on their way in and out of the breeding area, and followed 19 penguins using GPS tags. The three of them were also able to complete the annual colony-wide surveys at Punta Tombo and nearby Cabo Dos Bahias.
Field Updates: Argentina, Winter 2023 Read More »
