Summary
The Southern Ocean Research Partnership (IWC-SORP) is a multi-lateral, non-lethal scientific research programme established in 2009 to improve the coordinated and cooperative delivery of science to the IWC. There are 13 Partners: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, and the United States. This paper reports on the continued progress of IWC?SORP and its seven Commission-endorsed research themes in 2022/23. Progress includes publication of ca. 43 peer-reviewed scientific papers, bringing the total number produced since the start of the initiative to ca. 291. Moreover, 208 IWC-SORP related papers have been submitted to the Scientific Committee, 22 of them this year. IWC-SORP has directly contributed to at least 19 PhD, 10 Masters and 8 honours theses and the work of at least 5 postdoctoral fellows. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all IWC-SORP projects but field and lab work have now resumed. Expeditions were conducted around the western Antarctic Peninsula, sub-Antarctic Marion Island and Prince Edwards Islands, the shelf waters from the South Orkney Islands/ Las islas Orcadas del Sur to the South Shetland Islands/ Las islas Shetland del Sur, the French Sub-Antarctic Territories, in the waters off South Africa, eastern and Western Australia, New Zealand, and around Península Valdés, Argentina. Southern right whale aerial surveys occurred inSouth Africa, Australia and Brazil. Images for photo-identification were collected; satellite tags deployed on killer whales, southern right and fin whales; biopsy samples collected from killer, southern right, fin, Antarctic minke and humpback whales; long-term acoustic moorings were deployed and hundreds of hours of cetacean acoustic recordings made and analysed.