Above picture: Birders in their hundreds around the MSC Musica’s pool deck on return from Marion Island to celebrate a remarkable voyage; photograph by Cassie Carstens

In the last week of January, the cruise ship MSC Musica sailed south from Durban, South Africa, on a week-long voyage to encircle sub-Antarctic Marion and Prince Edward Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.  With more than 1900 excited birders aboard, Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 aimed to raise much-needed funds for BirdLife South Africa (BLSA) and its Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project, undertaken in partnership with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.  The project is working towards ridding Marion Island of its albatross- and petrel-killing mice.

Nine members of the MFM Project team go Flocking. Standing from left: Liezl Pretorius, Research and Reporting Officer; Keith Springer, Operations Manager; Sue Tonin, Assistant Project Manager; Beate Holscher, Research and Reporting Officer and Tarryn Havermann, Project Development Officer. Seated: John Cooper, News Correspondent, and Robyn Adams, Communications Officer and Project Assistant; photograph by Mark Anderson.
Absent: Anton Wolfaardt, Project Manager and Minky Shabalala, Admin and Finance Officer

Nine members of the MFM Project team were aboard the vessel (the 10th, Research Assistant Monique van Bers, was working on Marion Island at the time).  Their fund-raising activities centred on a silent and a live auction and, as on the previous Flock to Marion voyage in 2022, securing Sponsor a Hectare pledges.  In addition, individual team members gave lectures on the project, island eradications and aspects of the biology and history of Marion Island.  Two members, Keith Springer and Anton Wolfaardt,  acted as expert guides, identifying seabirds seen from the vessel for the many birders who thronged the observation decks.

Sponsor a Hectare pledges

Pledgers were encouraged to place stickers illustrated with albatrosses on maps of Marion Island as a symbolic gesture to mark their sponsored hectare.  Here, the third map (out of five eventually filled) is halfway to completion on day four; photograph by John Cooper

Staffing a table for 10 hours a day for six days in shifts, the MFM Project team received pledges for 3033 hectares, equivalent to R3 033 000.  This total exceeded the 2207 hectares pledged on the previous Flock to Marion voyage in 2022.  Many people pledged more than a single hectare, with pledges of five or ten hectares commonplace.  Six persons pledged a hundred hectares each, with the highest pledge received being 130 ha.  On the last day the enthusiasm to make a pledge was compelling.  At times people surrounding the table up to three deep, with pledge forms and pens passed over heads to outstretched hands – the three MFM Project members then on duty could hardly keep up!

Andrew Whysall holds the engraved binoculars he donated, the main prize in the Sponsor a Hectare raffle; photograph by John Cooper

Mentioning the Sponsor a Hectare scheme by MFM Project lecturers helped create interest, as did the donation of two pairs of Swarovski binoculars by Andrew Whysall of Whylo Distributors which went to two lucky raffle winners on the last evening.  One pair of limited-edition CL 10×30 binoculars had the name and coordinates of Marion Island’s highest peak, Mascarin, engraved on them, making them unique.  Andrew, who was aboard, and who had previously sponsored 50 ha, increased his own sponsorship to a generous total of 150 hectares.

Mouse-Free Marion’s Artist-in-Residence, Kitty Harvill, produces five paintings aboard

Artist-in-Residence, Kitty Harvill, works on her painting of an Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross, a species that breeds on Prince Edward Island; photograph by Christoph Hrdina

The MFM Project team was pleased to have Kitty Harvill, co-founder of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN), aboard the voyage as the project’s Artist-in-Residence.  During the voyage, Kitty produced acrylic paintings of the five albatrosses that breed at the Prince Edward Islands, based on the birds she observed and photographed from the ship.  Working in a public space each day, Kitty attracted much interest.  It is intended that her paintings, donated to the project, will be used as thank-you gifts for those who made the largest hectare pledges on each day.


Light-mantled Albatross, acrylic by Kitty Harvill painted onboard the MSC Musica, photograph by Christoph Hrdina

 

Silent Auction

One of the two tables that displayed items for the live and silent auctions; photograph by John Cooper

Efforts prior to the Flock to Marion voyage by MFM Project team members resulted in no less than 53 items being donated for onboard auctions, of which 11 were reserved for the last-night live auction.  Items included original artworks, prints, books and jewelry.  All the donated items were illustrated in printed catalogues that included descriptions and information about the donor artists.  After a slow start, interest in the silent auction increased at the display tables on the last two days of the voyage, with some items receiving multiple bids.  In the end, all items met reserve prices, raising a total of R285 658 towards the project’s funds.

Live Auction

Peter Harrison MBE cajoles the audience during the live auction; photograph by Mark Anderson

Eleven artworks and books were put up for live auction at a gala event in the ship’s main theatre on the last evening.  MFM Project Patron, Peter Harrison MBE was the auctioneer, assisted by BLSA CEO, Mark Anderson and Liezl Pretorius on the stage and John Cooper in the aisle acting as bid spotters.  Bidding was brisk in the near-packed theatre, resulting in the live auction raising exactly R 400 000, with the largest bid going for a week-long game-watching safari in two luxury lodges in Zambia.

The MFM Project and BLSA teams and the expert guides in their hi-vis vests gather on stage to receive a standing ovation from the packed theatre on the closing evening; photograph by Kurt Martin

In total, the hectare pledges and the two auctions raised a total of over 3.7 million Rands for the MFM Project, exceeding the total of three million Rands from pledges and other donations raised on the 2022 Flock voyage and from associated functions – a pleasing result for which all the generous passengers aboard must be thanked.

If this article has inspired you and you wish to support the MFM Project, kindly click here.

John Cooper, News Correspondent, Mouse-Free Marion Project, 12 February 2025

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Sooty Albatross photograph taken while on Flock to Marion AGAIN! Photograph: Trevor Hardaker

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.