Above picture:  Marion Island’s 81st Overwintering Team is marking World Albatross Day on 19 June 2024 by sponsoring a hectare and displaying their home-made banner

Funding for the Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project comes from a number of sources.  One of them is the Sponsor a Hectare initiative that aims to contribute to the cost of eradicating Marion’s albatross-attacking mice by crowd funding R 1000 (or USD 100) for every one of the island’s 30 000 hectares.  The number of sponsored hectares continues to steadily increase.  This month by the time of World Albatross Day on 19 June it reached a milestone, with donations resulting in over 8000 hectares being funded, representing 27% of the target of thirty million Rands.

Readers might be interested to know where all the sponsorships (now over 1700 of them) have been coming from.  The answer is from a very wide variety of individuals, groups and other sources all around the world – some of whom have been featured in the MFM Project’s communications and on this website.  Here are just four recent examples.

Marion Island’s 81st Overwintering Team

Over on Marion Island, the 19-strong overwintering team (the island’s 81st since occupation in 1947) pooled its resources to sponsor a hectare to mark World Albatross Day and its 2024 theme of “Marine Protected Areas – Safeguarding our Oceans”.  One member of the team, Monique van Bers, is the MFM Project’s current field assistant.  She will spend 13 months conducting essential research and monitoring on the island’s biota, including mice, that will inform and support a successful eradication come 2027.  The seabird researchers on the island, Vanessa Stephen (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology) and Rhiannon Gill (South African Polar Research Infrastructure) continue to monitor mouse impacts on seabirds and are providing unstinting support to the MFM Project’s fundraising in several important ways.

John and Alison Bradshaw in the Arctic’s Northwest Passage

John and Alison Bradshaw

Back in November 2021 South Africans John and Alison Bradshaw sponsored 100 hectares.  They increased their sponsorship to 300 hectares in February 2023.  They have now sponsored a further 200 hectares, bringing their overall total contribution to a magnificent half a million Rands.

John writes: “Alison and I are pleased to make a further donation to the important Mouse-Free Marion Project.  We have been lucky enough to visit both the Arctic and Antarctic regions and to share the concern about the damage caused by the alien mice on Marion Island.  Successful eradication of the mice will certainly have a positive effect on the seabird populations of the sub-Antarctic region.  We wish Dr Anton Wolfaardt and his team every success in their challenge ahead.”

Their 500-ha sponsorship places them at the very top of the Project’s Donor Honour Roll.  The MFM Project is hugely grateful for the support received from John and Alison.

Anton after completing his first Rhodes Trail Run in 2019; photograph by Leigh Wolfaardt

Anton’s Running Appeal

Back in South Africa MFM Project Manager, Anton Wolfaardt will be running a 52-km mountain trail race later this month, with the aim of sponsoring 55 ha through an online appeal.  Currently on 98% of target with 10 days to go, Anton is confident, with your support, that his appeal will be able to raise R 55 000 (or more!) for the project.

Tavis Dalton and Sean Evans with their just published book “MarionThroughTheLens”; photograph by John Cooper

ALSA book launch

The fourth example of a recent sponsorship is of five hectares from sales of the latest book about Marion, with photographs and text by two researchers who studied seals on the island a few years ago.  Published by and launched last week at Stellenbosch University by the Antarctic Legacy of South Africa project; a planned future news article will provide a review of the book.

 

At the book launch. From left: John Cooper, MFM News Correspondent, Ria Olivier, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, authors Tavis Dalton and Sean Evans, MFM International Patron Steven Chown FAA, Sue Tonin, MFM Assistant Project Manager, and Anton Wolfaardt, MFM Project Manager; photograph from Antarctic Legacy of South Africa

There are over a thousand stories like the four above that could be written up.  Add your own by sponsoring a hectare (or more) at https://mousefreemarion.org/donate/ and help us reach the next significant milestone of 10 000 hectares sponsored – and restore Marion Island to its former pristine glory.

With thanks to Ria Olivier, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa.

 

John Cooper, News Correspondent, Mouse-Free Marion Project, 20 June 2024.

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The albatrosses of Marion Island; artwork for the MFM Project by Namasri Niumim

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.