Regina Eisert of Gateway Antarctica at Canterbury University is leading a team on the ice studying the impact of future change on top predators, including climate change and human exploitation of marine resources, and how best to negate the effects of human activities. This will develop knowledge and skills that will help protect Antarctic wildlife into the future.
A key objective of the research is to investigate the degree of dependence of Weddell seals and killer whales on toothfish as prey to allow rational, precautionary management of the NZ toothfish fishery in the Ross Sea.
For this coming Antarctic season, Dr Eisert and the team will be conducting several interconnected research projects:
1. Weddell seal dive behaviour during the post-breeding period using existing expertise in remote monitoring developed at Gateway Antarctica; 2. Determining seal diet from prey DNA isolated from seal scat; 3. Dart biopsy samples from killer whales in McMurdo Sound to determine their diet; 4. Seal foraging behaviour during the winter season by a combination of satellite-link data loggers and stable isotopes.