South Pole 3. Antarctic Seabirds as Environmental Indicators

In this enlightening episode of South Pole, host Clark Marchese takes us above the icy landscapes of Antarctica for a closer look at its less-celebrated but equally fascinating avian residents—albatrosses and petrels. Join us as we explore the crucial roles these seabirds play in the Antarctic ecosystem and how their behaviors provide insights into climate change and environmental health.

Our guest, Dr. Richard Phillips, a seasoned seabird ecologist from the British Antarctic Survey, shares his extensive field experiences and discusses the major threats these birds face, from climate change to invasive species. Discover the innovative conservation efforts in place to protect these important species and learn why albatrosses and petrels are indispensable as bioindicators—giving us a clearer picture of our planet's health from their unique vantage point.

Tune in to grasp the significance of these winged guardians of the South and the scientific endeavors that help us protect them.

Episode Guest: Dr. Richard Phillips

Browse Dr. Phillip’s publications on Research Gate

Dr. Phillip’s projects at the BAS 

Giant Petrels: Heroes or Villains on YouTube

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted, produced, written, and edited by Clark Marchese 

Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong. 

Theme music by Nela Ruiz

Transcript:

[00:00:09.600] - Clark

Hello and welcome to South Pole, the podcast that explores all things Antarctica. I am your host, Clark Marchese. And today we are going up in the sky for an aerial view of the ice through the eyes of antarctic seabirds. Okay, albatrosses and petrels, that's what we're here to talk about today. Now picture a bird in Antarctica. It was a penguin, wasn't it? Well, there are lots of penguins, that's true, but they are not the only birds down there. And unlike penguins, albatrosses and petrels fly all around the southern Ocean and beyond. So they play a very important role in the antarctic ecosystem. Today we're going to learn what that role is, what monitoring these seabirds can tell us about climate change and other environmental concerns. And we're also going to learn what major threats are facing these winged creatures and what conservation efforts we can take to protect them. To tell us about all of this, I found an expert named Doctor Richard Phillips. Doctor Phillips is the leader of the high predators and conservation groups within the British Antarctic Survey. He is an honorary professor at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter and an honorary research fellow at the Department of zoology at the University of Cambridge.

[00:01:38.060] - Clark

So he has a lot to say about these antarctic seabirds. And with that, we should just get started. All right. Hello, Doctor Phillips, welcome to the show. The first question I have is if you could just introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your research.

[00:02:02.440] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Hi there. Nice to be on the show. So I'm Richard Phillips. I work for British Antarctic Survey and I'm a seabird ecologist. I am specializing in particular on studies on albatrosses and petrels and other flying seabirds. And I'm head of the Predators group at British Antarctic Survey and I'm the deputy science leader of the ecosystems program there.

[00:02:24.690] - Clark

Okay, it's lovely to have you one question that I'm asking everyone, and I'm sure you probably get asked this question a lot in your line of work, but have you ever been to Antarctica?

[00:02:33.930] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah, I've been to Antarctica many times, actually. I've been very fortunate in that respect. So I've been to South Georgia quite a few times and that's in. It's kind of a sub antarctic island in terms of the evafauna, but it's out of the antarctic polar front, so it's in antarctic waters. I spent time at Sydney island in the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula at Ronara, which is the third basque station. And there's also that's british antarctic subway stations at southwest Georgia and Sydney as well. And I've been in East Antarctica at the french station at Dumond Derville. Where else have I been in Antarctica? And I've also, most recently in January and February, I was in droning Maud Land, hosted by the Norwegians.

[00:03:22.420] - Clark

Okay, I'm excited to talk about some of the projects that took you down there. I do have one quick question, though, because I heard you mentioned South Georgia island, and I've heard of this island quite a few times since I started this podcast. So why is it that so much research is coming out of that place?

[00:03:39.860] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah, so it's one of the longest running research stations, really, in terms of the programs. Research programs on, well, seabirds and seals originally and for many years and more recently, and there's been a big expansion on the, of the work on cetaceans as well. That's Wales. The first two teams were there in 1958, actually, that was basically an american expedition through Bird island, working on wandering albatrosses and some then albatrosses as well, and done seals and then sort of annual monitoring, but not for the complete year from the 1960s. And then there's been people on station at Bird island year round since the early 1980s. So really we've benefited from this amazing history of monitoring. And because there's a research station there, there's people there, and year round there's also possible to get dedicated projects where just for a season or two, we focus in particular on a particular aspect of ecology or distribution or life history of whatever species you're interested in. So that's, that's the reason why there's so much massive wealth of research from there.

[00:04:49.050] - Clark

Okay, cool. Thanks for explaining that. Because it just keeps coming up as a hub of research, and it seems like, especially for your area of interest, which is seabirds. So albatrosses and petrels, other than penguins, would you say that these are the main bird groups in the antarctic ecosystem?

[00:05:05.500] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah, certainly. So essentially on kind of the sub antarctic islands south, the major bird groups are penguins and then albatrosses and petrels. Yes. There's a few species from other bird orders. You know, a small number of species is a species of cormorant, or there's a kind of a species complex of cormorants. There's a couple of species of skuas, one species of gull, one species of tern, for example. But there's more than 20 species of albatrosses or petrels. Some of these ones especially the small sized petrels. There's huge numbers of them.

[00:05:43.810] - Clark

Okay, you've taught me a second thing already today, which is I thought that an albatross was just one type of bird.

[00:05:49.960] - Dr. Richard Phillips

No, exactly. No. There's 22 recognized species of albatrosses, mostly in the southern Ocean, but there's also a tropical species, that's the waived albatross. And then there's three species in the north Pacific as well. But most albatrosses are in the southern Ocean.

[00:06:06.040] - Clark

Okay, so other than the ones that are in the tropics or the north Pacific, do they sort of stay in the southern Ocean and antarctic area, or are they migratory?

[00:06:17.220] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah, so most. Well, there's a few species of albatrosses and petrels that stay in the southern Ocean, but most of them go north to south antarctic waters in the wintertime. In the austral winter, despite the fact it's cold, some quite small species will still remain south of the polar front. And it really just depends on their particular habitat preference and foraging habits and diet and so on.

[00:06:42.000] - Clark

What can you tell me about the role they play in the ecosystem?

[00:06:45.640] - Dr. Richard Phillips

So they're major consumers, and it's quite possible that they consume as much prey as all the penguins put together as are consumed by these small petals. So they're actually, in many respects, just as important within the ecosystems. They play a whole load of different roles. I mean, the important ecosystem function, because of the amount of prey they consume, they actually deplete prey, especially closer into the landmasses, where the. Where they breed. So they have a big sort of influence on nutrient cycling. They also bring nutrients onto land as well, because they always have to come to land to breed, except for infra penguins, but all the other species have to come on to land to breed. And so in their guano, and then when they die on land and spilt food and sod is actually a major source of nutrient inputs. So, for example, around south Georgia and other sub antarctic islands, you can actually tell the areas where the burrowing petrels are breeding just because all the vegetation is really green, because they allow the tussock grass to flourish sooner and earlier. And you can actually detect that from space.

[00:07:54.800] - Clark

Okay, wow, that's super interesting from space. So I guess the point is that their trophic levels are not the only ecosystem function that they carry out. So, for example, we know predators are important to an ecosystem or a food chain by keeping populations in control, even preventing the spread of disease by feeding on sick animals or driving evolution. Also through selective pressure, et cetera. But it seems like their role in the food chain is not the only important function that these birds carry out in the Antarctic.

[00:08:24.830] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Exactly. They're also incredibly useful as indicators of what's happening in the wider ecosystem as well, good example being it's really challenging and really expensive and a lot of effort to go and sample in the open ocean. And you can only go where the ship goes, but actually you can use wide ranging seabirds as your biomonitors. So you can, you can take their diet samples at the colonies and that will get information on the relative abundance of different prey and the age classes of prey in the ocean. When there's a big pulse of young animals in the diet of a seabird, of the colony, you know that there's been a big pulse of recruitment of that species at sea. And they integrate pollutants as well, you know, because they go out and effectively, they are. Every, every bird is sampling the oceans, and if you can then sample them when they come back to the colony, it gives you a good idea of pollutants and so on.

[00:09:17.790] - Clark

Okay, so very important for the ecosystem and very useful for science and research. So then a general question. The albatrosses and the petrels, how are they doing?

[00:09:29.650] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Well, that's a good question. Most of the albatrosses are not doing well, in short, and the petrels, we know less about them because they're a bit harder to monitor. Well, the ones that nest in burrows are, and they also nest in very remote places. For some, the population is probably stable. There's a few populations we know are increasing after declines, probably caused by interactions with fisheries. And then for many, we don't know the population trends. And there's some species that we know are in decline as a result of changing environment as well.

[00:10:10.420] - Clark

Okay, we're going to get into why that is and some of these specific threats in more detail in just a bit. But first, I want to ask you about a chapter that you wrote called antarctic seabirds as indicators of climate change. Can you briefly explain how they can be bioindicators? Is that the word that you used?

[00:10:27.700] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yep. That's right. Yep.

[00:10:29.320] - Clark

Okay, so maybe we can go into the different ways in which these seabirds reveal information about the environment at large.

[00:10:35.470] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Okay, so that goes back to the premise that really they range over very large areas, and so effectively, they are sampling over a much bigger area than we could ever hope to do ourselves. Most of what we can learn about seabirds is something that we find out when they come back to the colony, we can sample them. You know, you can do at sea surveys to look at the distribution of birds just from sighted at sea, but really to get an understanding of the proper detail of their ecologies and life histories. You know, it's a lot easier when they're on land. Well, just as an example, at Bird island at South Georgia, and this, I can tell you a little bit about the monitoring programs we have there. And these are quite similar to those at other sites, but there we can mark the nests and we can bring the adults. And in doing that, from the return rates of the adults, we can get survival rates, we can get how often they breed, we can get the timing and breeding, and we can get how many chicks they fledge. Then if we also ring the chicks when they eventually return, we can understand juvenile survival rates as well.

[00:11:33.950] - Dr. Richard Phillips

So we can get all the different parameters that help you to understand population and demography and population trends. So that's the kind of on the population side of things. We can also collect diet samples so we know what they eat. And as I said, that tells you something about the availability and the abundance of the different types of prey at sea. And we can also pluck feathers from them and use stabilisotopes, which is a kind of a forensic way of understanding about their diet and distribution and trophic level, kind of a coarser scale. And we can track them, which is a lot of what I do, which is you put a gps device, tape it to the feathers on their back, and they go off on a foraging trip that can be from a few days to a few weeks. And then when they return to the colony, you retrieve the tracking device and download it. With a reasonably sized bird, you can put a big enough device that you can get a location effectively every ten or 15 minutes throughout a three or four week foraging trip. And then you can also put a different type of device, a smaller one that's light mounted and operates in a different way, but you can actually track them year round with that device.

[00:12:40.030] - Dr. Richard Phillips

That's a little logger or an archival logger that records light. And then from analyzing the time of sunset and sunrise, you can get approximate position throughout the entire non breeding season to the nearest couple of hundred kilometers or so. So you can basically track them year round.

[00:12:57.660] - Clark

Okay, so that's a lot of data collection. And then I assume changes in this data might reflect changes in environmental circumstances. So I'm curious, have you noticed any trends in the data that might be linked to environmental changes? Yeah.

[00:13:12.330] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Well, the best example of that is in actually a study in the Indian Ocean on wandering albatrosses, where the winds are strengthened and shifted forward. And notice that the wandering albatross distribution is also shifted forward as well. The foraging trips are shorter and the adults are heavier and breeding success is higher. So in this case, it's kind of an unusual example where the changing climate has actually benefited the species. So that's one of the best examples. Interestingly, we don't have particularly strong evidence for that in the Atlantic at south Georgia, where I work. But the way the climate is changing differs across different regions.

[00:13:55.640] - Clark

Okay, well, at least there's one species that's benefiting from a changing climate, but of course, there's other environmental concerns as well. Did I hear you mention that you can also track toxin levels?

[00:14:05.880] - Dr. Richard Phillips

You can indeed, yeah. And you can take, well, the simplest and the easiest way to track toxins is the toxins that go into feathers, because you can just pluck a feather or cut a feather from a living bird and then without doing any harm whatsoever. And the main pollutant you can measure in those is mercury, or you can take a blood sample. So it's kind of minimally invasive and you can look at a whole range of pollutants, including persistent organic pollutants, as well as mercury that are circulating in the blood at that time. Well, I also have access to birds that have died because of fisheries interactions. So if you can dissect them, and you might, you know, I mean, it's really unfortunate, but you might as well make the most of them for scientific purposes. But if you dissect them, you can actually sample liver, say, or muscle for pollutants, and that gives you a longer term indication of exposure over several months.

[00:14:57.680] - Clark

So you've actually written an entire article looking into mercury exposure. Can you tell me if we notice birds are being increasingly exposed to mercury, maybe where it's coming from, what effect it's having?

[00:15:09.870] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah. So this is a study on greyheaded ambulatory breed at South Georgia, which is, as I said, it's south of the polar front, but they feed predominantly at the polar front. So that's several hundred kilometers north of the colony. And by comparing mercury levels and feathers collected 2030 years ago with those collected in more recent years, we noticed there was a big increase in mercury, and it's now one of the albatrosses with the highest mercury levels. What we surmise has happened really is probably because of the use of mercury inartisanal gold mining in Brazil. So the mercury is used up in the, in the highlands in Brazil, and then it flows out through the Amazon and other waterways into the. Onto the continental shelf, and then there's a. There's a major ocean current, the Brazil current that comes south from. Through Brazil meets the northern flowing current from the Falkland Islands, and then basically the currents end up east and so far into the open ocean. And that transports the mercury all the way from Brazil throughout into the open ocean foraging areas of the gray headed albatrosses. And we think that's probably why. And there's been an increase in mercury in that particular species, in that particular region where it forages.

[00:16:30.240] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Wow.

[00:16:30.770] - Clark

This just goes back to the theme that's come up a couple of times on the show so far, which is that Antarctica is not so far away as we think it is, or that we're more connected than we realize.

[00:16:39.440] - Dr. Richard Phillips

The other possibility as well is that just to do with changing ocean conditions generally, that there's an increase in what you call methylation of mercury. So inorganic mercury is taken up by bacteria and it forms methylmercury, and that's more bioavailable. There's also the possibility that, as well as an alternative to the mercury coming in from the continental shelf, there's also been a change in the open ocean just as a result of changing climate. And either of those might have caused the increase in mercury. In the greyhound, in albatrosses, have we.

[00:17:12.980] - Clark

Noticed any impact on the species?

[00:17:15.170] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Well, yeah. So it's often quite hard to detect impacts of pollutants because generally they're a sublethal level. You get reduced breeding success or hormonal disruption, but you can't necessarily detect that because you rel ten to quite small sample sizes in terms of knowing all the mercury, the pollutant birds of a particular individual animal, but in this case, the males with higher mercury levels and lower breeding success.

[00:17:44.380] - Clark

Okay, just to check. My understanding is the reason why it's effective or efficient to measure these pollutants through looking at bird samples is because they're at the top of the food chain and therefore they bioaccumulate or biomagnify.

[00:17:57.210] - Dr. Richard Phillips

That's exactly right. If you measure, tried to measure mercury and seawater, it's in really low concentrations and all. So it's actually, this is a perfect use of seabirds as a bio indicator, and they accumulate much higher levels of mercury than you would even find in their prey. And also, if you wanted to sample nowhere mercury levels were and you were on a ship, you can go to one place in the ocean at one time, take one sample, whereas the birds, effectively, if you sample greyheaded albatrosses in south Georgia, you're learning about mercury concentrations over a big area, a big foraging area of hundreds kilometers square. So that's essentially, sieverts are really useful for that reason. They're great for monitoring pollutants.

[00:18:39.300] - Clark

Okay, so quick vocabulary lesson. Bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Now, these terms are associated with the consumption of materials, let's say. But most of the time we're talking about pollutants within organisms. Bioaccumulation refers to the accumulation of a pollutant in an organism that enters directly from the environment. So let's say there's mercury or could be microplastics in the ocean. A fish is swimming in the ocean, and over time, these pollutants build up inside of the fish. That's bioaccumulation. Now, biomagnification, on the other hand, is when the level of pollutants builds along each step of the food chain. So let's say these petrels or albatrosses are on the top of the antarctic food chain. In addition to the pollutants they consume from the environment, they also get all the pollutants that are consumed by everything that they have eaten. And everything that they have eaten has eaten. So that's why the levels are highest at the top of the food chain. Okay, so you also mentioned other organic pollutants. So other than mercury, are there any that are particularly concerning scientists at the moment?

[00:19:42.980] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah, well, the PFAS, so that's another family of organic pollutants used in fire retardants and pesticides and that sort of thing. So, yeah, they are increasing in the environment and as some get banned, but then they're replaced with other ones and we don't really know the impact. And some of these pollutants have really, in laboratory studies, really small concentrations of them, kind of quite serious effects on laboratory animals. And we have really no idea how that's changing ecosystems. As you said, what happens in species where they biomagnify to really high levels?

[00:20:24.120] - Clark

Yeah. So PFAS, which is per fluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, you might have heard them in the news, grouped into a category of forever chemicals. But if this is raising any eyebrows of concern from our listeners, we will have an episode all about organic pollutants in the Antarctic coming up in the next couple weeks. So make sure you are subscribed and stay tuned. Okay. You also wrote an article outlining the threats and conservation priorities for antarctic seabirds. Among those that are discussed are pathogens, climate change, plastics, bycatch and fisheries, even intentional hunting. Which of these would you say are the most imposing threats to antarctic seabirds right now? I know some people say it might not be the most effective strategy to rank the threats, but we know that they're all an issue. So maybe you can give us a rundown of some of them.

[00:21:14.740] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Well, I mean, up until the last two or three months, and the biggest emerging threat was avian influenza. So the high pathogenicity avian influenza MH, one strain that's reached South America last year and has now reached Antarctica and south Georgia. Particularly unfortunate is the species that's been probably the worst affected at South Georgia of the birds that is wandering albatrosses, just because it's killed a few dozen individuals. We found a few dozen individuals that have died on land, and that's a small breeding population anyway. So there's only. There's less than 1500 pairs that breed in the island group. So for the wandering albatross, it's, you know, and would. It potentially is catastrophic. But for other species, the consequences have not been as bad as we might predict thus far. You know, the problem being, or the issue being that in the northern hemisphere, the first summer, a particular range of species were affected, and then the following summer, some species that for which there had been very little impact would then died in huge numbers. So we don't really know whether next year situation might be much worse again.

[00:22:31.570] - Clark

Stay tuned for the next couple weeks for another episode all about the avian flu and how it got its way to Antarctica.

[00:22:38.670] - Dr. Richard Phillips

In terms of the threats that are certain, one of the biggest ones for antarctic species is actually during the non breeding season when they go north of the pole de front, and there they overlap with lots of different kinds of fisheries. So the big species, so the albatrosses and the big petrels, they're natural scavengers and so they're attracted to fishing vessels and there they interact with the fishing gear in different ways and they get injured and killed. And because fisheries are everywhere, you know, in the open ocean, unknown continental shells and birds are the natural magnets for the birds. Huge, huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds are killed annually in fisheries. And so for the populations of birds that particularly follow fisheries, and particularly if there's not a very big population size in the first place, mortality in fisheries is leading to the. To a decline, steep decline. And so that's, that's probably the main threat to the albatrosses. And large petrels. And then on some other islands, sub antarctic islands, this invasive species, and they're a major threat. Good example being invasive mouse, house mouse on Golf island in the south Atlantic. So that's adding a few other islands, the Marion island and a few other islands elsewhere, they're munching their way through albatross chicks and petrol chicks as well.

[00:24:02.510] - Dr. Richard Phillips

And so again, for the species that are susceptible, they're having catastrophic effects.

[00:24:08.520] - Clark

How did the mouses get there?

[00:24:10.650] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Accidental introduction, shipwrecks. In the olden days, you know, ships would have been full of rats and mice and they go to ground or stores are taken onto the island and then the mice escape or they had rodents or whatever, and then they just caused chaos actually. Also there was a long tradition of mcilahs releasing pigs on islands as well, so that they could return a few years later. And then theres plenty of them work to eat. And on a few islands, pigs have had catastrophic impacts on the local wildlife as well. And theres a big island in New Zealand and the New Zealand sub antarctic island. So this is Auckland island, where the main island has got loads of pigs on it. And the few remaining albatrosses breeding on the island are all on the really steep bit bits of cliff where above them there's a band of cliffs that stops the pigs getting access. And because pigs will eat, root everything out that they can, they'll eat the albatross chicken and then they'll eat their nest if it's a vegetation nest. Most of the other invisible species are accidental introductions.

[00:25:11.530] - Clark

So the article also outlined some conservation suggestions or priorities. How do you suggest we go about addressing some of these issues?

[00:25:19.710] - Dr. Richard Phillips

I mean, the good news is there are solutions to many of the threats. So, I mean, climate change is a big global problem. So that's, you know, well, you know what that's like. You require humanity to realize the impact they're going to have on the planet and to modify their behavior for their own benefit. But from these other threats, there's management measures that will have immediate benefits. Taking an invasive species as an example, it's practical with enough money and with spreading of poison base by helicopter to clear large islands entirely of invasive rodents. You just need a rodenticide that, you know, only kills the rodents and has minimal impact on other species on the island. But generally these islands never had any other mammal breeding on them. So it's not so hard, you know, you can identify a toxin that will kill the mice. Well, mice, rats, rabbits, and there's been some great success stories of where islands have been cleared of these invasive odds, including at South Georgia, where rats were cleared from a huge area. I mean, south Georgia is 200, 250 km long, and that was all cleared of all them rats and mice in a small area just from aerial poison beating.

[00:26:35.860] - Dr. Richard Phillips

So that works very well. I mean, you can do it, it costs you a few million pounds, you know, to clear a big island, but it's, you know, it's clearly practical and then that's it. You fix that problem because you just need good biosecurity after that, and you can prevent reintroductions or reinvasions rather relatively easily with good management control.

[00:26:58.920] - Clark

Ratatouille stands. I'm sorry you had to hear that. I don't love it either, but I am inclined to listen to what scientists tell us is necessary.

[00:27:06.920] - Dr. Richard Phillips

There are mitigation measures that work really well to reduce seabird bycatch in fisheries. So with long line fisheries, if the vessels set at night, when albatrosses are less active, if they use heavier line weighting, that sinks the baited hooks beyond the diving depths of the birds sooner. And if you use streamer lines that flap behind the vessels and discourage birds from coming into the areas where their long lines have been set, if you use all those three measures in turn, you can have a massive reduction in bycatch rates of seabirds, and the same thing on trawl vessels. If you don't discard when you're pulling the trawl, then you're not attracting birds to the vessel in the first place. And again, you can have streamer lines flapping over the trawl warps, which is what injures the birds when they fly into the cables. So you have these streamer lines there, and those methods are really effective and effectively if you have the whale, and which unfortunately requires monitoring, toughest, best practice conditions imposed on the vessels, and monitoring to make sure that they comply with those conditions. You can actually reduce bycatch rates to near negligible levels.

[00:28:11.760] - Dr. Richard Phillips

So solutions exist, and in some fisheries they have been very effective.

[00:28:16.340] - Clark

Okay, that's actually really encouraging. Oftentimes with the environment, we don't have such a clearly defined list of achievable action items. So yeah, that's good news. At least we know what we need to do. I have a question. Do you have a favorite antarctic bird?

[00:28:33.140] - Dr. Richard Phillips

That's a very hard question. You know, I've actually got a soft spot for giant petrels, northern giant petrel and southern giant petrel. Actually, they're a bit, they're not necessarily other people's favorite. They're a big scavenging seabird. You get a lot of birds. They're like, males are five or 6 kg. They effectively fight over carcasses of what the males do of dead seals on the beaches. So they have their, you know, their heads covered in blood and, and, but they're, they're great characters. You know, when you go and sit by their nests, you know, they'll kind of cackle away at you and then, and they go and wander at each other's nests and, and cackle and interact a lot. So actually, I bought a bit of a saucepot of a giant pettus, but I, you know, my former boss would have been shocked at my mentioning giant petrels ahead of albatrosses. But anyway, yeah, I like that.

[00:29:30.070] - Clark

Okay. I did a bit of youtubing, and I'll put a link in the episode description. I found a clip from seven worlds, one planet. It's one of those David Attenborough documentaries. The clip is called giant heroes or villains. So you'll have to check it out. Let me ask you now, what is your favorite thing about Antarctica.

[00:29:51.680] - Dr. Richard Phillips

My favorite thing about Antarctica, I like, well, I've used the word incredible for me now. The wildlife is incredible. The scenery is incredible. I love the way that you can go for a walk sometimes and you might be in a place that has, you know, never been visited before. And the piece on, you know, of them, you just out there in the wilderness and amazing wildlife and. Yeah, those are the things I like. But I know a nice, on a little on a base, you know, there's lots of like minded people. They're nice communities and at the research stations as well.

[00:30:28.640] - Clark

Yeah. A lot of people end up mentioning that community aspect of Antarctica, which I always like to hear. The last question is, where can people find you and follow your work?

[00:30:37.590] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Yeah. So there's a few project pages on the bridge, antarctic survey website. So you could just look up Siebert or albatross and the search function there. I mean, I've got my own webpage, but there's not necessarily that much information. I think the project pages are the way to go forward, and that gives a flavor of kind of active research or recently finished research.

[00:30:59.110] - Clark

Okay. I'll make sure to put some links to all of those resources in the episode description. And this is the part where I say thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for teaching us about antarctic seabirds and also for your very important research in this space.

[00:31:12.310] - Dr. Richard Phillips

Thank you very much. My pleasure.

[00:31:24.310] - Clark

Okay, a major thank you to doctor Richard Phillips. Albatrosses and petrels. Who knew they were so important? Well, they are just one of many species in the Antarctic that, despite not being as famous as penguins, are vital to the health of the polar region. Just wait until we get to krill. Although it seems like these birds are facing a lot of threats and basically all of them are human driven. So it's good to hear that at least some of them can be addressed effectively through direct intervention. But some of them, you'll learn later that the avian flu around the world is a problem largely due to irresponsible animal agriculture. And of course, climate change is also a big human problem that's going to take a lot of different solutions. So again, we are learning how connected we are to Antarctica and that our actions up here really do matter down there. I think that's all I have for you today. I hope you've enjoyed this first sciency episode of South Pole, and we'll do another one next week where we talked to a glaciologist all about ice sheets, ice shelves, icebergs, sea ice, and sea level rise.

[00:32:28.520] - Clark

Okay, talk to you soon. You've been listening to South Pole. You can find more information about this week's guest and links to their work in the episode description. Cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong, and the music you're listening to was done by Neela Ruiz. I am your host, Clark Marchese, and this episode was produced, written and engineered by me. So if you found it interesting, send it to someone you know. South Pole is part of a larger network of sciency podcasts called Pine Forest Media. We've got one on plastic, one on drinking water, and a couple new ones coming out soon. You can find more information about us in the episode description as well or on our website@pineforestpods.com, we are also on Instagram and TikTok at Pine Forest Media. And if you love the show and want to support science communication like this, a five star rating across platforms and a review on Apple Podcasts is one of the best things you can do to help us reach more people and for the entire network to grow. All right, thank you to all of you who have made it this far, and we'll talk soon.