Anicee Lombal – Australasian gannets, Victoria

For decades, people have wondered where seabirds are going to and coming from when they disappear from land. Seabird tracking is a technology that involves attaching small devices to individual seabirds that record and transmit information on where birds go and what they do while at sea, revealing feeding hotspots, overlap with offshore development and areas where seabirds are at greatest risk of interacting with fisheries.

In January 2016, I got involved in the research project of Marlenne Rodriguez (M.R., Ph.D. Candidate, Deakin University) focusing on the behavioural patterns and foraging strategies that make seabirds be successful breeders. We deployed a total of 40 GPS tracking devices as well as 20 Global Location Sensing (GLS) devices on Australasian gannets breeding in Victoria (Point Danger – Portland, the only colony of gannets that breeds on the mainland, and Pope’s Eye – Queenscliff), in order to investigate adaptation of this species to the marine environment.