The Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project has entered into a collaboration with AR Gaiters, a small company based in George, in South Africa’s Western Cape.  Owner Lisa de Speville, when an adventure racer and ultrarunner, recognised the need for running and hiking gaiters to keep sand out of her shoes when trail running and competing in desert events such as the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge and the five-day Namib Desert Challenge.

Lisa de Speville wears colourful Mini AR Gaiters with trail shoes on the forest trails in George, Western Cape in September 2025. Her dog Rosy is an enthusiastic trail-running and hiking companion

With the help of her mother Liz as seamstress, she started making gaiters in the early 2000s for herself and for friends.  With her colourful gaiters attracting attention, the company was formed, and it now makes gaiters of different designs to suit the varying outdoor conditions in which they are used.  Lisa writes “Our AR Gaiters are available in a constantly changing range of colours and prints to suit your personality, apparel or team.  We also create customised fabric designs for events, teams and special occasions.  AR Gaiters are handmade.  On the production side, we are blessed to have Aletta and Elize, our amazing seamstresses, who, together with Liz, manufacture AR Gaiters to our high standards.”

Elizabeth “Liz” de Speville works with her daughter at AR Gaiters, handling design, production, some sewing / finishing off and packaging the finished products

MFM team member, Liezl Pretorius, got in touch with Lisa and the results are MFM Project Gaiters decorated with colourful albatrosses.  There are two designs, the Mini model designed for trail running and the Hiking model, designed to fit over above-ankle hiking boots to stop grass seeds getting embedded in hiking socks and sand entering the mouth and lacing area.

Seamstress Elize Bendle has been with AR Gaiters for four years. She “sews beautifully” according to Lisa and made all the MFM Gaiters

Aletta Maxhegwana, a “gem” according to Lisa, sews the Adventure and Bush Gaiters

AR Gaiters writes on its website “We are proud to support the Mouse-Free Marion Project’s fundraising initiatives through the sale of Mini and Hiking AR Gaiters in a customised Mouse-Free Marion design.  We will donate a portion from the sale of each pair of these Mini and Hiking AR Gaiters to this very important project”.  They add that this donation initiative is just one avenue that, together with hundreds of others, will help the Mouse-Free Marion Project to achieve its fundraising objectives to execute the project.

The Mouse-Free Marion Project AR Gaiters: Mini Model (top) and Hiking Model (bottom)

The MFM Project is most grateful for the support from Lisa and her team at AR Gaiters, not only for donating, but also for their help in raising awareness of the pressing need to eradicate Marion Island’s “killer” mice among a community that engages in outdoor activities such as trail running, hiking, orienteering and adventure racing.

The Mouse-Free Marion Project AR Gaiters are available to order online via the company website.  Order your pair soon!

John Cooper, News Correspondent, Mouse-Free Marion Project, 09 December 2025

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A Wandering Albatross on its mud and grass pedestal nest above Transvaal Cove on Marion Island, with the weather station’s first balloon hut soon after its erection in the background. Photograph by Allan Bryant Crawford, Officer-in-Charge of the First South African Expedition, February-August 1948, courtesy of Martin Crawford

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.