Marc Better (left) and Tom Baker on the stern of the MSC Musica, January 2025
Back in January on the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 voyage Marc Better sponsored 50 hectares towards eradicating Marion Island’s albatross-killing mice. He is now recorded on the Honour Roll of the Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project in the Giant Petrel Category. In order to recognise his contribution, and to encourage others to make their own sponsorships, MFM News reached out to Marc to learn a little about him and to ask why he decided to make such a generous sponsorship in his name and that of his partner Tom Baker.
Marc writes that he lives in Ventura, California, USA, a coastal city about an hour northwest of Los Angeles, although he was birding in the High Arctic of Norway when first approached by MFM News. He describes himself as a semi-retired biochemist who has spent a career working in biotechnology companies. Marc is also an avid birder at home and on trips elsewhere around the globe, “including Antarctica in 2019 when I developed a sense for the seabirds of the Southern Ocean”.
He continues: “I visited South Africa for the World Orchid Conference in Johannesburg in 2014. Although I was there to attend the conference, see the orchids and be a general tourist around the country, I met some birders at the show who introduced me to BirdLife South Africa, for which I am now a Conservation League Donor. When the COVID pandemic began in 2020 and everyone worldwide was homebound, I began dialling in to the Conservation Conversations with BirdLife South Africa online seminars and found them incredibly interesting and a great learning opportunity about South African birds and their habitats and conservation issues. After seeing information about the first Marion Flock voyage in 2022 and the Mouse-Free Marion Project, I thought it would be great to join the second Flock to Marion in January this year.” He adds “The trip was awesome. Here we are today, and I’m a big supporter of the Project”.
Marc Better is somewhere among the crowd! All the birders gather around (and in) the pool on the MSC Musica during the Flock 2025 voyage, photograph by Cassie Carstens
Running the Sponsor a Hectare table aboard Flock 2025 was a fulfilling experience for all the MFM Project team members. Generous sponsorships by Marc Better and others added excitement to each day of the cruise. Thanks Marc!
John Cooper, News Correspondent, Mouse-Free Marion Project, 22 August 2025
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Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans in flight on the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 voyage, photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson
The Mouse-Free Marion Project is a registered non-profit company (No. 2020/922433/08) in South Africa, established to eradicate the invasive albatross-killing mice on Marion Island in the Southern Ocean. The project was initiated by BirdLife South Africa and the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. Upon successful completion, the project will restore the critical breeding habitat of over two million seabirds, many globally threatened, and improve the island’s resilience to a warming climate. For more information or to support the project please visit mousefreemarion.org.
