1 Jan Seabirds Exped – Diego Garcia and Danger Is.

Download the full Diego Garcia report here: BIOT Seabird Research Expedition Report Diego Garcia January 2019 (PDF)

Download the full Danger Island report here: BIOT Seabird Research Expedition Report Danger Island January 2019 (PDF)

In January and February 2019, a team from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, as part of the Bertarelli Programme of Marine Science, visited BIOT, for the third year, to conduct research into the importance of the Marine Protected Area for seabirds. A team of 3 researchers spent 9 days ‘under canvas’ on island, where they deployed 15 sets of short-term tracking devices on breeding red-footed boobies (RFBs) and recovered 11 of these. These have provided the first ever high-resolution tracks and accelerometery data from breeding RFBs in BIOT. Preliminary results suggest that the majority of individuals do not leave the MPA while breeding although one breeding RFB did leave the MPA during a foraging trip.

In addition, long-term tracking devices were recovered from 13 breeding and non-breeding adults, providing new information about the movements of adult RFB during the non-breeding season.