Above picture: Ten Mouse-Free Marion Cycling Team members, suitably feathered and medalled, got together after riding 109 km to celebrate; photograph from Jacques Scheepers
On 09 March this year 27 of us set off to cycle 109 km around South Africa’s Cape Peninsula as part of the 47th Edition of the Cape Town Cycle Tour, the world’s largest timed bike race. The aim of the MFM Cycling Team was to raise R 109 000 (R1000/km) in support of the “Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds – The Mouse-Free (MFM) Marion Project”. All of us successfully completed the tour in good spirits in our distinctive team jerseys and blue feathers.
“Done and dusted” The Kinghorn family travelled from Gauteng Province to ride the Cape Town Cycle Tour; photograph from John Kinghorn Jnr
Some of us were veterans of the Cape Town Cycle Tour (one of us was going for his 30th tour, I went for my 29th), some were novices setting off on their first event. For several it was the longest distance they have ever cycled on a single ride. A few of us had trained hard all summer and set off to achieve a “personal best”.
MFM Cycling Team members John Cooper, Eria Leppan, Katta Ludynia and Jeremy George on a last training ride one week before the Cape Town Cycle Tour; photograph from Jeremy George
Some of us cycled the tour in defiance of health issues. Two team members have been thankfully declared cancer free after tests and operations last year. A family group successfully shepherded a member who has been recovering from a serious illness on her first Cape Town Cycle Tour. What united a disparate group from different parts of South Africa (many of us only met each other for the first time at the tour start) was the shared determination to see the end of Marion Island’s albatross-killing mice.
Before and after the tour team members raised funds by requesting their relatives, friends and colleagues to donate through an online appeal which allowed for the setting of personal accounts with set targets. One of us donated a Rand for every kilometre cycled on social and training rides since September last year, bringing in R2880 over seven months. Online donations ranged from R50 to a most generous R10 000 from an anonymous donor. The very last donation received, and one special for me, was of R1200 from the G70 Overwintering Team on Gough Island in the South Atlantic (an island I know well from 18 visits), organized by Michelle Risi, a long-term supporter of the MFM Project. Individual accounts raised from R700 to an impressive R31 431; with several of us attaining or even exceeding our personal itargets.
At the end of formal fundraising on 31 March the MFM Cycling Team had raised R131 010 towards eradicating Marion Island’s mice, well over our original overall target. R25 000 of this amount came from “earmarked” hectares sponsored in the last two weeks of the appeal. The sum represents 131 sponsored hectares, adding the MFM Cycling Team to the 22 members who have sponsored 100 ha or more in the prestigious “Wanderer Club” on the MFM website’s Honour Roll. Chapeau to all the team members and all those who donated!
“Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds”. Arend de Beer pauses while on a Gauteng training ride; photograph by Leandri de Beer
The MFM Cycling Team is now taking a well-deserved break, but I expect it will reconvene for another spin around the Cape Peninsula on the 48th Cape Town Cycle Tour come 08 March 2026. Look out for us then in our distinctive blue cycling jerseys with a flying Wandering Albatross on the back!
Although active fund raising has ended for the time being, you can still help our determination by contributing to the cycling team’s online appeal at GivenGain.
John Cooper, News Correspondent (and MFM Cycling Team Leader), Mouse-Free Marion Project. 09 April 2025
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Marion Island’s invertebrates are also at risk to mice. The flightless moth Pringleophaga marioni by Chris Callaghan of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for the Mouse-Free Marion Project
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.
