Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

NSIDC Guest Lecture

Monday March 19 2018 @ 3:00 pm
to 4:00 pm

March

19

Mon

2018

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Event Type
Meeting
Availability

Open to Public

Audience
  • CIRES employees
  • CU Boulder employees
  • General Public
  • NOAA employees
  • Science collaborators
  • Host
    NSIDC

    “Signy Island – an Antarctic Oasis” Stories and Images from the Penguin Highway by Alex Taylor, Polar Guide, British Antarctic Survey
     
     
    Description:    
     
    In the Antarctic summer, Signy Island is home to three different penguin species, fur seals, elephant seals and numerous nesting sea bird species. The accessible, ice-free landscape of this small oasis in the South Orkney Islands provides just the right conditions for Antarctic wildlife to breed and rest in an otherwise challenging environment. It also makes Signy an excellent location for field research and wildlife monitoring.
     
    Alex Taylor has worked as a polar guide in Antarctica for over 25 years; for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), as well as with film crews, in the tourism sector, and on research projects all over West Antarctica. Most recently, he has been working at the BAS’s Signy Research Station to combine his skills in the field with those as a drone pilot to conduct penguin surveys and map important habitat. This research is part of over forty years of wildlife monitoring at Signy Island, part of a long term effort to understand and manage the Southern Ocean fishery.
     
    In this presentation Alex will share stories, photographs, and video clips from his last three seasons working on research projects on Signy Island. The presentation will focus on the monitoring of the Signy penguin populations which follows their breeding season from beginning to end. Alex will also describe the development of new techniques in applying drone work to wildlife and environmental monitoring in difficult conditions.
     
     
    Refreshments to follow in CIRES Room 340