We have deployed satellite tracking devices on all our animals now (10 seals and 10 penguins), plus collected feathers, blood, whiskers, etc., for more information about the animals. ACA Permit 2025-010 🧪🌎🦑🦉

Here are the satellite tags attached to the penguins who will be carrying them for the next several months. Do you have a favorite?! Tell us! AMLR permit to LaRue 2025 🧪🌎🦉🦑

We captured 18 birds today and then we surveyed the colony for bird flu, which we thankfully saw no evidence of. Cape Crozier remains magical! 🌍🧪🦑🦉

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Hot off the press at Remote Sensing in Ecology & Conservation is Alexandra Strang’s latest paper! Alexandra discovered there’s a caveat in using imagery to detect change at Adélie penguin colonies: Small population change is undetectable 🧪🌎🦑🦉 zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

One of my favorite sights, Mount Erebus on Ross Island. Seeing it from this vantage point usually means we are in a training (survival, field training) and getting ready to go do some fun things. Cape Crozier, here we come! 🌎🇦🇶

K051 (my “event number”, the unique identifier for each science project) made it to Antarctica! Flew on a C17, only delayed by an hour, too. Thanks US Air Force and Antarctica NZ, now the fun begins. 🧪🦑🦊🦉🌎

This is SUCH an important point. Most people are worried about climate change: but most people feel helpless and think nothing’s being done (so why should they do anything?) This is why my weekly newsletter always includes good news on climate solutions as well as actions we can take!

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Green turtle rebounds, moving from ‘endangered’ to ‘least concern’

WOW! Our survey of scientists who stopped using Twitter and started using Bluesky is now the #1 most-shared on social media article in the history of the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology! Thanks for reading it, everyone! @sicbjournals.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/icb/... 🧪

New Zealand - Aotearoa folks and otherwise interested folks: The Auckland Council has an opening for a Climate Analyst careers.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/job/Central-...

A Weddell seal mom wearing a hat* and taking a snooze next to her wonderfully-fed pup. They will continue to chill here together until mid-December when the pups wean and mom heads to the ocean to forage and regain mass. *satellite tracking device AMLR permit to LaRue 2024 🧪🌎🦑🦊

Good question, I’m not sure… I know mammals can definitely get themselves into weird situations too… What do you all think? 🧪🌎🦉

This is what Adélie penguins attempting to nest on ice looks like. They aren’t supposed to do that. 🌎🧪🦑🦉 ACA 2019-006

Adelie penguins porpoise because it's efficient and it allows them to breathe while they are hurrying to wherever they are going which in this case was back to the colony at Paulet Island 🧪🌍🦑🦉

Cinematographer Sara Matasick and Producer Heather Cruickshank visited us at UC for a screening of National Geographic’s Secrets of the Penguins & a behind-the-scenes tour of the production. We celebrated Antarctic Season Opening, 25 years of Gateway Antarctica and of course… emperor penguins 🧪🌎🦉🦑

So much this!! Code is so valuable and literally the thing that creates your results. When you include it in your paper it can be such a valuable resource to everyone (plus earn you a couple more citations).

When most of us think of #whales and #dolphins, we imagine elegant blue whales, or striking orcas, but the whale and dolphin family (collectively called #cetaceans) contains over 90 living species; many of them unusual and some stranger than fiction. www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts...

New orca calf brings hope to endangered J pod near Vancouver Island 🦑🌎🧪

When I was on the ice w Nat Geo, we visited the emperor penguins at Atka Bay which is a colony that hops up onto the ice shelf rather than staying only on sea ice. This means that when chicks fledge they have a high-dive of a jump to reach the water. Which they do. With spectacular inelegance. 🧪🌍🦑🦉

Sir, I am not getting the cheese out just for you. I’m not making anything with cheese. Larry: … Me: *proceeds to get cheese out of the fridge just for him, which he ate proudly and then ran out of the kitchen as though he just got away with a crime*

Just posting this. Everyone knows why.

Jem Cresswell’s striking whale images – in pictures www.theguardian.com/environment/... 🦑🌎🧪

I think there are few things funnier than watching fat, fluffy, hungry Adelie penguin chicks chasing their parents for food 🧪🌍🦑🦉

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥 We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪 Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇 open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

Emperor penguins choose to live on sea ice, which is frozen ocean water, instead of being on land. And they’ve done this for millions of years. Incredible birds. 🧪🌎🦑🦉 Photo taken under NZ AMLR permit

Can't wait to get to the ice and see these beauties again... never gets old. Weddell seals are the southern-most marine mammal in the world and live more than 30 years! 🧪🌍🦑🦉🦊

There is still time to apply for our PhD position available at University of Canterbury! 🧪🌎🦑🦉🦊

Wow I've been off Bluesky for so long I forgot about the emojis If you're interested in a PhD about tracking Antarctic wildlife, consider joining my group... And, spread the word! 🧪🌍🦑🦉🦊

Join Mia Wege and me to study niche partitioning among three Antarctic mesopredators! Fully-funded PhD opportunity at U Canterbury, please email [email protected] if you're interested! Applications will be reviewed until filled.

What will happen to Antarctic research with the US pulling back? With all the rapid change it could have us heading backwards. So, someone needs to fill the void but we're seeing other Western nations busy with infrastructure not science. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

The Trump administration’s pressure on universities echoes past authoritarian efforts in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A comparative and international education expert explains: buff.ly/zSTmtwz By @isilova.bsky.social, Arizona State 🗃️ #highered #edusky

LOVE this quote of the day in @floragraham.bsky.social's newsletter: "If you tell me I can’t do something because of a terrible and irrational reason that’s based in hate, racism and sexism, I'm going to say: 'Okay, watch me.'" -- @sofishtication.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🌊 🦑

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Historical satellite imagery provides crucial insights, not only for penguin colonies but also for establishing realistic baselines to support conservation efforts and effective management across broad spatial scales. academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @drmichellelarue.bsky.social @theseabirdgroup.bsky.social

What an excellent piece of work, congratulations @michaelplanknz.bsky.social! 🧪

Yep, me too 🌎🧪🦉

Protect transgender scientists | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Encourage you to read the whole thread (better, the paper itself). This table of actions scientists can/should take under a government shifting into autocracy is a good representation of how I've felt my own work shift over the past six months.

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Make this go viral.

The most consequential Speaker in state history.

This is the page in the history book where future generations may ask, “Why didn’t more people speak up?" Don’t let this slide.

Want to join us? Watch "Ocean" at the same time and provide expert commentary? @katieocean.bsky.social @trevorabranch.bsky.social @ubcoceans.bsky.social @whoi.edu @oceana.bsky.social @coralreeffish.bsky.social @deepseadawn.bsky.social @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social @drmichellelarue.bsky.social

Check out our latest and greatest on Antarctic glacial melt and its impact on marine life, led by the awesome Jack Pan! Perfectly-timed publication, given that I'm currently in the Antarctic gathering more data on these things.....!! www.nature.com/articles/s43...

SHUT. IT. DOWN. A senator was dragged out of a press conference for standing up for his constituents and against fascism. Watch how your representatives and senators respond to their own colleague being treated like this. That'll show you how they'll react when it's *you* on the ground.

Sen. Alex Padilla, who was just forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, is the ranking member of Judiciary’s subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, which has “oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement responsibilities.”

Trump moves to slash NSF If the NSF budget were to be enacted as is, it “would spell the end of any pretence that the US leads the world in science and technology” www.nature.com/articles/d41...