ANTÁRTICA: Scientists track gentoo penguins on South Georgia Island | British Antarctic Survey

 

Time to track down the trackers 🐧 Follow Camille and Jaimie as they head out to retrieve GPS and depth monitoring tags from gentoo penguins breeding near King Edward Point Research Station, on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. This was for project Synchronised Swimming 🏊 They are aiming to build one the most detailed pictures ever of how penguins and krill interact off South Georgia. This involves a rare combo of techniques: 🐧 individual penguin tracking 🚢 ship-based acoustic surveys 📍 at the same time and place While the penguins have been out foraging, FPV Pharos has been running dedicated ECHO surveys — using echosounders to map krill distribution and swarm structure across the northern shelf waters of South Georgia. Two full surveys in November and January captured where krill swarms are forming and how dense they are. Early data already shows that the penguins are consistently foraging in the same areas where the ship detected krill swarms 👍 That overlap means the team can build their unique view of predator–prey interaction. That's not just where penguins go, but how they move and dive in direct relation to krill density and swarm behaviour beneath the surface. The findings will help support management of the South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area, one of the largest and most important marine protected areas in the world. 🎥 Camille De Pasquale & Jaimie Cleeland