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Antarctic Site InventoryNews

The 2008-09 Field Season

Opus & The OceanitesWebsite

Heroes — Jean-BaptisteCharcot & Louis Gain

Contact Details

To all Oceanites supporters and friends —

I’m happy to report that our work continues at a very high level ofachievement, both on the science front with the Antarctic Site Inventoryproject, as well as on the education front with the Oceanites website andour upstart University Of Antarctica.

Our work continues because of the gracious and very generous assis-tance of so many of you, in the midst of these very difficult, economic times.Speaking for all of us in the Oceanites community, we are overwhelminglygrateful for your support.

Rest assured: For the Antarctic, for the penguins, to better understandthe vagaries and consequences of global warming — we will keep thegood fight going.

Another field season is underway, with the impetus of a new grantaward from the US National Science Foundation and the ongoing supportof both Lindblad Expeditions and the National Geographic Society, whosevessels, the National Geographic Endeavour and National GeographicExplorer, we utilize to gather data for the Antarctic Site Inventory. I alsowant to introduce you to Opus The Penguin and all the excitement that’shappening on the Oceanites website.

Thanks again. We’re looking forward to more successes and glad thatyou’re with us. Keep dreaming penguins!

With all best wishes,

Ron NaveenPresident, Oceanites, Inc.November 30, 2008

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Antarctic Site Inventory NewsThe Antarctic Site Inventory continues setting thepace with its Antarctic Peninsula monitoring program.These baseline data and associated analyses assist theAntarctic Treaty governments in fulfilling their respon-sibilities under the Antarctic Environmental Protocol.We continue to report our results each season atAntarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings and workclosely with the US National Science Foundation toensure a coordinated, Treaty-wide approach to moni-toring Peninsula sites.

In 14 seasons from November 1994 through February2008, the Inventory now has made 784 visits and col-lected data at 123 Antarctic Peninsula locations.During the recently concluded 2007-08 field season,the Inventory made 86 visits and col-lected data at 45 sites, including 11sites not previously visited byInventory researchers.

Our latest paper — Lynch, H.,Naveen, R., and Fagan, W., 2008,Censuses Of Penguins, Blue-eyedShags, and Southern Giant PetrelPopulations On The AntarcticPeninsula (in Marine Ornithology) —updates census results for Adéliepenguins, gentoo penguins, chin-strap penguins, blue-eyed shags,and southern giant petrels collectedby the Inventory through the 2006-2007 field season.

The paper officially describes thenew breeding population of gen-toos in the Yalour Islands, the south-ernmost-known breeding colony ofthis species, and documents thegentoos’range expansion and popu-lation increases throughout the Peninsula. Further, thepaper reports the continuing population decline ofPeninsula Adélies, and documents that all threepygoscelid penguins — Adélie, gentoo, and chinstrap— are breeding at Booth Island, the fifth known sitewhere they nest contiguously on the AntarcticPeninsula.

Very exciting news is a new, 5-year grant from the USNational Science Foundation’s Office Of PolarPrograms to Oceanites and our colleagues at theFagan Lab at the University Of Maryland, for ongoingdata collection and unique-to-Antarctica, hierarchicalBayseian statistical analyses of the 14-year-oldAntarctic Site Inventory database in concert withother long-term Peninsula datasets.

We are hoping these analyses will enable a more pre-cise understanding of how Peninsula biological andphysical processes may connect. Our goal is to char-acterize decadal scale changes in penguin and seabirdpopulations in the Peninsula and to discern howAntarctic species are changing in abundance, relativeabundance, and spatial distribution, and more impor-tantly, identifying factors specifically driving theselong-term changes.

Inventory results again were updated in anInformation Paper presented by the US at the 2008Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Kiev, TheUkraine. The Antarctic Treaty's Committee OnEnvironmental Protection (CEP) once more acknowl-

edged and specifically wel-comed the work of Oceanites inthese regards. We continue tobe honored that our work isgiven such prominent attention.

As noted in previous AnnualReports, the Inventory databaseis critical to ongoing efforts byTreaty nations to fulfill theirresponsibilities under theAntarctic Treaty, and is the cor-nerstone reference for thedevelopment of site visitationguidelines at key AntarcticPeninsula visitor locations.

The 2008-09 Field SeasonThe Antarctic Site Inventory's15th field season began in earlyNovember 2008. Once again,we are privileged to be workingwith Lindblad Expeditions andthe National Geographic

Society, and doing our shipboard surveys from theirexpedition ships, the National Geographic Endeavourand the new National Geographic Explorer.

Because the analyses under our new NSF grant focuson the Antarctic Peninsula as a whole, we have dis-continued our focused monitoring/camping effort atPetermann Island, but we’ll continue monitoringPetermann’s penguins from the ships.

The roster of researchers for the new season includes:Ron Naveen, Heather Lynch, Rosemary Dagit, StevenForrest, Ian Bullock, Megan McOsker, Iris Saxer, JohnCarlson, Michael Polito, Melissa Rider, Aileen Miller,Paula Casanovas, Thomas Mueller, Elise Larsen, andEvan Grant.

The educational Oceanites website —www.oceanites.org — continues to grow andexpand. We’re hoping the website will be the placeeveryone will access for up-to-date news aboutAntarctic science and the Antarctic Site Inventoryproject, and for a suite of educational presentationscovering a range of subjects.

Our goal is a virtual classroom that enables peoplefrom all countries — irrespective of age and lan-guage — to learn more about Antarctica.

And, to that end, we’re very excited that Opus, ourfave cartoon penguin, has officially migrated to ourwebsite, where he's become the Dean of our onlineUniversity Of Antarctica, as well as our officialAntarctic "spokes-penguin."

Many, many thanks to Berekeley Breathed, who cre-ated Opus, for sharing him with us.

Opus & The Oceanites Websiteby Ron Naveen

Courtesy of Berkeley Breathed, ©2005

The first course in the University, an Introduction To Penguins, with accompanying videos and quizzes, is nowposted. Enjoy, enjoy!

Importantly, we’d value all of you heading to the website and adding your email address information, so youmay receive email updates about the latest Antarctic news and science, and the latest educational courses inthe University Of Antarctica. We want to substantially increase our flock of modern-day "Antarcticists" — asthe great explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard defined the term, who will help conserve the great SeventhContinent for future generations.

Heroes — Jean-Baptiste Charcot & Louis GainPetermann Island, where the Antarctic Site Inventoryhad its monitoring field camp from 2003-08, is histori-cally prominent because the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot overwintered there in 1909 on hissecond Antarctic expedition aboard the vesselPourquoi Pas?

During that sojourn, Charcot’s lead biologist, LouisGain, became the first scientist to ring and censusAntarctic penguins — data that we’re using to analyzehow the Antarctic Peninsula has changed over the lastcentury.

Louis Gain’s penguin-ringing experiment atPetermann Island in 1909 launched the grand marchto understand penguin breeding biology and popula-tion dynamics. His results were the first to suggest thatadult penguins returned to the same location, seasonafter season, to breed.

2009 is the 100th anniversary of Charcot’s and Gain’sseminal work — and, again, please update your emailinformation on The Oceanites Website so we mayapprise you of various events commemoratingCharcot’s and Gain’s achievements.

Contact Information

Oceanites, Inc.P.O. Box 15259Chevy Chase, MD 20825 USA1-202-237-6262 oceanites.mail@verizon.net

Oceanites is a tax-exempt §501(c)(3) organiza-tion under US tax law, and contributions anddonations by US citizens are fully tax-deductible.

Photo credits:

All photos by Ron Naveen, ©2008 Oceanites, Inc.

Cover — Adélie penguin at Petermann Island.

p. 2 — Gentoo penguin chick at PetermannIsland.

p. 3 — Adélie penguin control colonies onPaulet Island.

p. 4 — Lenticular cloud over Baily Head,Deception Island, one of the Antarctic SiteInventory’s regular census sites.