Today is all about relationship building, and starting that conversation, and getting
the engagement, so if everybody's prepared to just have a little bit of flexibility around
our finishing time, I'd really like to be able to just progress with the Q&A. So I'll ask all
of the speakers from the last session to come up and start your thinking around questions.
You've got quite a diversity to choose from with Andy talking environmental stewardship,
Justine talking about Macquarie Island eradication, Charlton leading our Operations,
Jaimie talking about sustainable fisheries and Rob, if you have a question on sea ice.
Opening it up.
Stephen.
You can come and use this one Rob, if you like?
Off camera: I have a question.
I have a question for Justine. When you look at the seabird populations you've been monitoring,
do you have an idea of how close they are to pre-introduction levels? Of course a
difficult question because there might not have been sufficient monitoring,
but I would like to have your thoughts on that if you have anything?
Thanks, Steven, I have lots of thoughts on that and so do my
collaborators working on this project. So there's many people in that team
and one of the good things is we have these conversations.
One of these things we're asking is what are we tracking for, and what's recovery? And it's a
classic question beyond Macquarie Island and very pertinent in Australian landscapes.
We don't have any indication of what the population size was because when people
arrived they brought feral animals. But we do have an understanding of what we predict the carrying
capacity of the island to be, so we've done some really great work in habitat modeling. So Dr Jez
bird, who's part of this project, has actually quantified and mapped on the island potential
habitat for these seabirds. The other thing that we're doing, we're actually doing some work this
coming summer with SAEF. We were hoping to see if we can understand with peak cause,
and looking at isotope signatures throughout the landscape, where we might find past evidence of
birds, and get some kind of indication of density. But the ocean's abundant,
so we don't think the ocean's a limiting factor, yeah so we're trying to answer. Thanks.
Hi, question for Justine again. In terms of the eradication program that you spoke of,
and eradicating all the ferals in there,
it sounds like there were baits that were used for rabbits, rats, mice - and you mentioned
that there were impacts upon the birds of prey - how much did that impact the population size
of birds of prey down there, and how long has it taken to recover, if they have recovered at all?
Great, thanks Misty, great question. So about 500+ birds that we know of died through ingesting
poisoned rabbits. So they were birds that were found in the landscape. We don't know
how many died at sea, but we know how many were left on the island, and so we did look at the
skua population. And as I said initially breeding success was really impacted. There was less birds,
there was less chicks raised but actually over time, it's through natural population growth.
So it was in 2011 that we lost those birds from the population, and we're now 11 years on
and we are seeing the population is coming, looking quite stable and, not returned yet,
but it's on trend to do that. We've been doing models and understanding and the Tasmanian Parks
and Wildlife Service will continue to monitor the population. So for those birds it's looking okay
and there's also been some work by the Tasmanian State Government on the giant petrels and that
works published and out in the domain as well. It's uncomfortable to poison animals, and it
happens in every eradication project, but there are things that we've learned that could be done
to reduce that, given it's not comfortable. You could do supplementary feeding and things like
that, but actually again, it's sort of tracking for what's the end game
and you could see it as collateral damage. So the populations are looking stable and recovered now.
Sorry just to follow up on that, have there been any ideas on how we can go about eradicating a
species without using those levels of poisons in those sensitive areas? I understand that similar
effects are happening on Norfolk Island for example. Have we learned, have any suggestions
come out from your study, your research, on how we can do that in other similar environments?
Yeah, so the beauty of Macquarie Island is it has implications for so many globally,
for pest eradications. And Macquarie was the first multiple species of that scale
to ever been undertaken in the world and it still remains kind of the showcase story that's looked
upon. So for Lord Howe, Christmas Islander looking at it Goff Island was undertaken
whole range of islands they've looked to Macquarie and what was learned from Macquarie. There's
a whole science around eradication and pest eradication. In 15 years we might not be using
poisons for some species so there's a whole gene drive in mice genetic modification for sterile
mice but some landscapes really do preclude themselves from those types of interventions
and so for the loss of 500 birds with the logistic challenges from Macquarie Island
and an island that has so many threatened species it's actually you could say it's an
amazing success that so few birds died. And so the eradication science isn't new and sometimes you do
have to kill things and it's uncomfortable but the conservation outcomes are huge.
Thank you, a question for Charlton. Donna's presentation talked about unusual heavy
snowfall as a result of the warming. This season, and some of the future scenarios,
still postulate about high high levels of snow on the interior.
What would that do to your ability to get up to the Dome?
Becomes a lot slower. So there has been an awful lot of work by primarily by Tas and the team where
we have looked at the terrain and route analysis and also shared experiences with the US program
and the French program in their traverses, both to the pole and to other locations. And we have got
some good data on the effect of snow accumulation on vehicle performance and weights and we think
we've got a parameter that's going to support our operations but you can never say never. There can
be, you know, unforeseen events that really change the dynamic, so it might be a temporal thing that
causes a halt to the traverse. But the root data itself is as much as we've got is fairly robust
on our understanding of the the way we get up there. I think the bigger issue is actually,
the first time we go up there, is more proving the route is likely to be more challenging than
to subsequent weather. Just from the frequency of sastrugi and other characteristics of the snow.
I have a question actually for either Charlton or Andy. Both of you, Andy you talked about
an environmental impact, minimisation strategy, and Charlton you highlighted
the fuel intensive nature of our Antarctic Program. What is the Australian Antarctic
Program doing around energy efficiency and trying to reduce our carbon footprint?
I might just start a quick observation that the Antarctic Program, for a decade or more
has had a really good try at this. You know we're one of the first countries to put major
commercial wind turbines up in Antarctica, at Mawson station. And we've got a good solar
set up at Casey station. But they're add-ons to stations that weren't designed in a modern sense,
and I think the real transformation is going to come as we rebuild the stations in a completely
different methodology and approach. Where at the core of how they operate, it's based
around zero emissions, or as very as close as possible, so that's the step change. Andy?
Thanks for stealing my thunder Charlton. In the process of designing and looking at
feasibilities for new stations that energy efficiency is a really critical component,
and one of the really pleasing changes for me over the last few years, that I've seen
in the process that we're going through now around modernisation, is that we've embedded
environmental and sustainability principles at the ground level of our design for new
stations. So the images that Charlton showed in his presentation around the futuristic station,
energy efficiency and environmental footprint are embedded in those designs. And their fundamental
principles, that flow all the way through including in the construction, the materials,
the delivery and the operation of those stations. So you're right, it's the next stage for us,
but it's absolutely a priority for us in terms of how we modernise our stations.
There's a question at the back?
Peter Murphy from the noetic group.
Another one for Justine. That locally extinct parrot and I think it was a rail is there an
active consideration of a plan to reintroduce the associated subspecies back into Macquarie?
The quick answer is no, but there's researchers who are interested in
doing the research at the moment to answer, to be on the front foot, to answer should that happen.
There are people interested because it's a subspecies, there's multiple subspecies on
the neighbouring islands and so the candidates are there, and so we feel like we're doing some
work to define habitat available, and what this you know that the food is there and we've kind
of shown that it is so it's sort of now probably requires a bit more policy framing and discussions
with people involved particularly the State Government, because they are also custodians
or the managers, land managers, but there's certainly a lot of interest in the conversation.
Jonny?
Yeah I've got one for Andy. Andy would you be able to give us a sense of what's been done in,
sort of the shipping area, to prevent introduction of marine invasive species, particularly with the,
you know, the increase in shipping and all the extra ships coming in, and the Nuyina? I know that
you've been thinking about that lately and doing some work can you just give us a feel for that?
Hey, thanks Jonny, yeah it's been a long-held
I guess 'get out of jail' card for Antarctic operations that when you drive a ship through
sea ice it cleans the bottom of the hull, and therefore we've got nothing to worry about.
Most of us know that that's not the case and there's lots of nooks and crannies and Nuyina
is no different. In fact it's probably got more nooks and crannies than most.
So we've been looking at approaches to cleaning the hull. There's equipment that goes on the ship,
the ship actually comes with a whole cleaning machine, I can't remember what it's called now.
And that's about cleaning the hull prior to the season. We've just done a survey of the ship,
that's the Aiviq this year, and we're actually about to undertake our hull clean before it goes
to Macquarie Island. We're also going to look at the effectiveness of that cleaning and we may be
able to start looking at things like eDNA, which is possibly what Leonie was talking about as a way
of using that as a monitoring tool as well to understand which species are here and whether
those species can be detected through eDNA and eRNA in Antarctica and those locations. At the
moment it's very labour-intensive and it's quite expensive and it's basically divers doing hull
inspections. But we're really keen to incorporate that into our monitoring plans and continually
improve and evaluate how effective our systems are in reducing that bio fouling risk. Thanks Jonny.
Steven did you have a question? I think I saw you with your hand up?
Another one for for Andy, and that was a fantastic presentation on legacy contaminants and I wondered
the extent to which emerging contaminants are being monitored? Personal care product
contamination or flame retardants and so on. It's not really my area, but I was quite fascinated by
the fact that there have been some records of these products in the Antarctic recently?
Yes there's a recent publication, I think they said there's 350,000 chemicals in the environment
now that are synthetic and we all know from things like asbestos and pfas that these chemicals,
that have been invented to problem solve, end up being problems for us and future
generations. We have looked at pfas and we've done some monitoring around our stations.
At the moment there's not an enormous amount of work going on in that space,
but part of our site assessments will be a broader sweep in evaluation of the chemicals present. Some
of our water treatment systems and our effluent treatment systems could be really improved to
reduce that discharge into the environment as well, so things like microplastics and the like
can potentially be taken out of the system prior to it being released back into the environment.
Thanks Andy, and Nathan first.
This is a question for Rob, you heard how Charlton talked about all the great new logistics.
What would be your dream use of that logistics now that you've seen it?
Good question Nathan. Yes, it would be to establish a monitoring program that has a repeat
element in it. So to use all of those wonderful things that we saw from Charlton,
and also from Phil earlier, to really home in on across-the-board atmosphere, ice,
ocean, ice sheet, biology, bio-geochemistry etc. Throwing everything at it, but having moorings
that go up and down in the ice. Having long-term or long-range drones that go across and having the
ship to cut down, and the ship being equipped with long-term observing kind of systems. So having
this integrated package that would really use all of that. Fantastic! It really is a very exciting
time. I agree with everyone, and using that to the full, but integrating it, so that would be nice.
Sorry, could you talk about the FODS and what that
will do for sea ice research? The Forward Outboard Deployment System,
Yeah.So we've we've we're planning a number of systems on the ship, one of which is to have an
ice thickness measurement system that goes off the front, or off the side of the ship.
This is an electromagnetic induction system that measures actually the distance between the bottom
of the ice and the instrument itself. If you combine that with a laser and a snow thickness
radar then you can get a continuous measure of sea ice thickness, and snow cover thickness,
every time the ship goes across the sea ice zone. One thing I didn't measure mention is that
we know a lot about that with sea ice but what we don't know is that
and what the volume of sea ice is. And until we're able to do that the models
will continue to not perform very well. And it's also a really strong indicator of
response of sea ice it's a very, very sensitive to changing wind and ocean patterns and temperature
etc. So if we can measure and monitor thickness well then we can really make giant leaps as well.
Thanks Rob. We've got Keith and then we've got Drew.
Thanks for so many things. Surely that thing you're talking about can go on a drone to measure
sea ice thickness? That's got to be possible? The question I had was actually about rats,
and pregnant ones, but just wondering how you have confidence that you don't have
rats on your vessels and also if you've seen the biosecurity capra beetle test,
where they sort of vacuum up in shipping containers and look at the eDNA to see
if they've got capra beetle in? I don't know can you do it with a rat? Just as a thought.
Yeah sure, and Andy can follow up on this answer So we have a wonderful thing in Hobart that's
got four legs and is really cute and it's a rodent detection dog and it goes over the
vessel and the cargo every time pre-departure to Macquarie Island and many on most occasions
if the ship's not going by Antarctica the dog goes down too and this dog is obsessed
with rats like any good detection dog so that's an incredibly great
screening process. Rats are messy too, so unlike the Capra beetles, which are subtle, rats,
if they're there, can be easy to find if you look hard enough,
and the dogs are great at that, but Andy you might want to follow up?
Yeah, thanks Jazz. Yeah, the the rodent detector dog is extremely cute but not allowed to talk to
him when he's working. That's just one layer of defense so, like you know, the key for
us is having multiple layers of defense, so we have a really robust cargo biosecurity system,
which involves multiple checks and balances along the way. We also have a comprehensive baiting
program and bait stations in in all of our cargo that goes to Macquarie Island, and we even have
on-island response procedures as well. We even had an incident this year where a number of dirty bait
stations were detected, so our processes worked fortunately. They were old bait stations. There
was no evidence of any fresh rodent activity, so we learned from that, and we've got a new process
in place for the coming season where we'll buy new bait stations, and every bait station we know will
be clean when it goes in there. So it's about, you know, setting those multiple layers of defense up,
but also monitoring that and responding when you do have incidents and looking for improvement.
We're very fortunate compared to somewhere like Lord Howe Island because we know when there's a
ship going to Macquarie Island, and it's usually us, and and all our cargo and our personnel go
through that checking process before they get on the vessel, before they disembark as well.
Thanks Andy, I think I think through next yep quick thanks Nicole. Question for Charlton.
At Little Dome C, we know the European drilling program is only five kilometres away, and that's
a scientific cooperation about replicating the results and so on, but the Concordia station,
the European station, is 20 or 30km away. Is there any logistic cooperation built in, or you know,
what will be the logistics consequence of having that existing European station nearby? Apart from
sending out for pizza! It'd be much better Pizza I'm sure. We have a existing annual agreement with
the French Antarctic Program to share logistics. We do that through various means. With aircraft we
fly some of their expeditions into Antarctica. They move some of our people to and from
Macquarie Island occasionally. So there's a close cooperation broadly, at program to program level.
We have set up the traverse to be largely an independent capability,
because there's reasons we want to be able to take that traverse anywhere. But there's some
logical areas in which we have collaborated and looked for things like common routes for their
traverse versus ours before we even get there. Unfortunately that's not going to take place
initially as we set up this season, but we have looked at things like the grooming of ski-ways.
So for when aircraft go up we're sharing those sorts of capabilities, backup medical support,
so there's a there's a layer of collaboration. Behind some of our planning over the last couple
of years has been rightly or or wrongly slightly separate in the COVID environment.
Both countries have taken a fairly stringent view. To minimize the risk of disruption by each
programs, to limit the physical interactions where possible, and now as we're coming out
of that we're looking at opportunities to join back up again together. So yeah, basically in
some of those key logistical medical and I think also redundancy between each of the programs. So
should a traverse fail for the French there may be capacity to move things through air, by air,
to Wilkins that we could take up if the timing of the traverses are different. First year having a
crack at it this season. We'll see how it goes. Thanks. John I think we have a question online?
A question from me actually. Dave, sorry I had a question for Jaimie. So you mentioned in your
talk that illegal fishing's been driven down in our area. I was just wondering what caused
that? Like is it an army of cute sniffer dogs on rafts, sort of out there, or is it something else?
Well I think Dirk's probably best place to answer this in this room, but my understanding is,
the agreement between Australia and France on surveillance of
the Kerguelan Plateau had a huge effect on getting rid of those illegal boats. Okay,
there you go.
Fishing in Southern Ocean. Thanks there you go. Better documentation monitoring
excellent well thank you once again to all the speakers for this session Gin, sorry
last question, last question. Another one for Jaimie. Can you speak to the bycatch in the Hood
Island region? I know it's a really productive and amazing era for biodiversity. What kind of
bycatch are your fishermen pulling on board, and I guess, a little plant here is all the bycatch
alive not ancient I think is my point? Yeah, we have five bycatch managed species. So fish
and skates and rays and shark species, but I think what you're talking about is that we have actually
seen some fossils being pulled up on long lines at Heard Island, and these fossils are ancient beaked
whales, and we've sent them off to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and one of them is over 2
million years old. But one of them interestingly is 10,000 years old, and may actually be a
big whale species that exists in the Kerguelan Plateau. Right now we just don't know what it is.
But yeah, in terms of the the bycatch managed species, I've been working on a population
assessment for skates that's probably the largest biomass of bycatch that we see in the fishery,
and that's been a really interesting step into the fisheries world. We've come at it through
the CCAMLR bycatch management framework, so avoid, mitigate and limit. So where can we
avoid them through move-on rules. What gear can we change, we've got a bumpy troll net,
which I'll talk a bit about later, that seems to be catching less skate, and making sure our
bycatch limits are underpinned with best available data and science. So that's where we're at with
bycatch. Yeah, we are seeing some improvements, even just in the last couple of years.
Thanks once again to all of the speakers, including Dana who couldn't join the Q&A session,
but gave a really beautiful presentation. Thanks very much.