Above Picture: A Sooty Albatross inspects a field biologist on Marion Island; photograph by Michelle Risi

The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project is working towards eradicating the island’s seabird-killing House Mice in 2024.  To increase awareness of the dangers the birds face, and the risks to Marion’s whole ecosystem from the mice, a poster series has been produced that depicts the four albatross and two giant petrel species that breed on Marion Island.

MFM News wrote to researchers who have spent a year or more on Marion Island, asking them to submit a portfolio of their best photos, from which 34 were selected.  The posters have been designed by Michelle Risi, who has spent over four years living on Marion and Gough Islands, conducting research on their breeding seabirds.

Sooty Albatrosses fly in unison, with Marion Island’s mouse-free neighbour, Prince Edward Island, on the horizon; photograph by Stefan Schoombie

The 34 posters are being released in batches in high resolution suitable for printing as posters (click here).  They are also being made available in a photo album one species at a time on the Mouse-Free Marion Facebook Page.  The two most recent poster releases, featured here, both depict Sooty Albatrosses.

With grateful thanks to the six overwintering Marion Island researchers who willingly contributed their evocative photographs: John Dickens, Sean Evans, Alexis Osborne, Michelle Risi, Janine Schoombie and Stefan Schoombie.  Thanks especially to Michelle for her contributions towards the project’s success.

John Cooper, Mouse-Free Marion Project News Correspondent, 17 May 2022

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.