Our past research includes:

• preventing wildlife disturbance
• documenting marine debris; and
• assessing marine pollution through macroalgae fluorescence 

Wildlife disturbance

The number of people travelling to Antarctica is growing, with much of the recent increase in visitor numbers attributable to an expansion in commercial tourist activity. Since 1957/58, when commercial tourism in Antarctica began, more than 100,000 tourists are estimated to have visited the region: 70,000 of these have done so since 1990. All indications are that visitor numbers will continue to rise, perhaps to as high as 1.5 million tourists per season by the year 2010.

This growth in the industry, along with the continuing presence of people conducting scientific research and changing attitudes to the environment, bring into question how human activity should be managed to protect the Antarctic environment. Central to this is how to manage visitor interactions with wildlife. Most Antarctic visitors, whether they are paying tourists or members of national expeditions, seek interactions with breeding groups of seals and seabirds, often travelling to breeding localities by helicopter, over-snow vehicle or zodiac and then approaching the animals as close as permissible by foot.

Visits to breeding wildlife are presently controlled by various codes of conduct which reflect the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. These provisions outline, in relatively non-specific terms, ways of minimising disturbance to wildlife by suggesting practices such as not touching animals and keeping noise to a minimum during visits. Many commercial tour operators and Government agencies have transferred the intent of these general codes into more specific guidelines that prescribe actual distances that people and vehicles should maintain from breeding animals. However, very few of these guidelines have an empirical basis. Rather, they reflect either anecdotal observations of wildlife response or historical perceptions that Antarctic wildlife are not disturbed when visited by people. The current, limited information suggests that this is not necessarily the case and that human visitation can interfere with breeding animals, causing significant changes to behaviour, physiology, breeding success and even the stability of local populations.

Research to prevent harmful disturbance

Since 1992, the Australian Antarctic Division has been conducting research into the effects of human activity on Antarctic wildlife. The research has employed manipulative experiments to address specific management-oriented questions, such as what are the minimum distances pedestrians and vehicles should keep from breeding penguins, petrels and seals to ensure disturbance is minimised?

The use of manipulative experiments to address these issues is a new approach. Previous understanding of the effects of human activity on Antarctic wildlife has come from opportunistic observations. Although valuable in drawing attention to the likely effects of human activity on Antarctic wildlife, such accounts do not provide definitive information suitable for the development of management guidelines. By contrast, an experimental approach, in which the effects of a single variable are recorded while controlling for any confounding variables, can be used to identify specific cause and effect relationships, thus enabling precise management guidelines to be generated.

This has been achieved by conducting field-based experiments in which the disturbance stimuli that animals are exposed to are carefully controlled, while their responses are objectively quantified. Animal response has been assessed by quantifying the behavioural and heart rate responses of individuals, and from the reproductive success of entire breeding groups.

Practical application of this research

Information arising from this research is being used to develop the Australian Antarctic Division's (AAD) guidelines for managing human interactions with wildlife. This includes codes of conduct for pedestrian visits to wildlife breeding groups and guidelines for the use of helicopters around aggregations of animals. The major outcome of the research to date has been to increase the AAD's recommended distances for helicopters operating in the vicinity of breeding wildlife. This information has been fundamental to an over-all review of the AAD's handbook on helicopter guidelines, which now includes detailed maps showing concentrations of wildlife and the buffer zones necessary to ensure they are not disturbed. Results from this research are also being made available to commercial tour operators and other Treaty Nations.

While the research completed to date has addressed some important issues and has enabled a refinement of methodologies for quantifying the effects of human activity on Antarctic wildlife, much remains to be done.