King Edward Point
Fisheries Research Station
King Edward Point / Grytviken (British Antarctic Survey)
I was fortunate enough to be employed by the British Antarctic Survey as Base Commander (now called Station Leader) of the research station “King Edward Point”, on remote South Georgia Island. I was there for 14 months - a full year plus handover time with the next team. Just around the cove from the base, is the abandoned whaling station Grytviken, which was a centre of the industry until the middle of the 20th century. The island is in the sub-Antarctic region, in the Southern Ocean, about 4 days by ship ESE of the Falkland Islands.
Research Station Leader (Oct 2010 - Dec 2011)
South Georgia
Habitat Restoration Project
I was Deputy Project Director of a habitation restoration project between 2012 and 2016. The project planned and executed the removal of invasive rats and mice from the whole of South Georgia Island over a period of 10 years and 3 main phases of fieldwork, allowing the island and it's wildlife populations to recover from hundreds of years of damage from human-introduced rodents. The experimental Phase I took place whilst I was working at King Edward Point, and was based there. This early contact led to my being employed on the project for Phases 2 and 3 during which the bulk of the work was planned and completed, and to lead a monitoring expedition in between these, to assess progress and improve plans. The eradication method employed was to use helicopters to sow rodenticide cereal bait pellets across the habitable parts of the island, in such a way as to reach every rat whilst minimising the impacts on indigenous wildlife. For much more information on the project, go to the SGHT website here.
