Ardery Blizzards

(mid December 1998)
A premature end

Premature end of a unique Dutch long-term study in Antarctica

"ARDERY ISLAND IS OVER FOREVER"

Ardery Blizzard 11 - special issue -

Ardery Island, mid December 1998.

Two hours after he received the letter at Ardery Island, the Dutch biologist Jeroen Creuwels is sitting devastated outside his apple hut on the island. Zodiac inflatable rubber boats brought him the last news about shutting down the Ardery Island project. Upset by the news Jeroen is mumbling to his ever-listening Russian mate Stolichnaya (see picture): "Ardery is over, forever, incredible.... Idiots, bloody bureaucrats, waste of money.. can't believe it." Wisely his mate is not saying anything back. In vodka veritas.

Jeroen Creuwels has spent three seasons on Ardery Island and just has received the news from his supervisor in Holland that the long term research project on the ecology of petrels on Ardery Island is stopped after only three seasons. His supervisor Jan van Franeker, who visited Ardery four times since 1984, had to make a very hard and painful decision.

His long term research on fulmarine petrels on Ardery had to be stopped due to lack of support of the Dutch government for more personnel for Antarctic research. Other funding organisations like The Netherlands AntArtic Program (NAAP) and the Australian Antarctic Division already had promised to support the project for equipment, costs of new PhDstudent and logistics. The long term project was set up by Jan van Franeker as a series of consecutive PhD projects, and Jeroen was doing the first one.

Especially for Jan van Franeker who worked on this unique project for years and years, it was an extremely painful decision. Not only he lost his Ardery Island project, he also was told that his job at the Institute for Forestry and Nature Management in Holland is now only part-time for Antarctic research. This was a surprise as Jan just had applied for an extra person as the project generates much more data than expected. Also the bureaucracy work and the coordination and supervision of the fieldwork seemed to increase every year.

For Jeroen nothing changed too much as the season 1998/99 was his last season any way. . He knew there were dark clouds about the future of the Ardery research program, but he kept on hoping to be able to pass on his knowledge and experiences to the next PhD student.

Jeroen's main interest was studying the individual differences in the breeding biology of parents of Antarctic petrels and of Southern fulmars. For this purpose an artificial nest system (see picture) was developed by the Technical Department of the Institute of Forestry and Nature Research in Holland in close cooperation with Jan van Franeker. (More information about Jeroen's project and the artificial nest system can be found elsewhere on the Ardery Island Homepage)

"After three years I am starting to understand just a little bit about the ecology of petrels in Antarctica." "I think", he continues slowly and it looks like Jeroen is thinking, "monitoring their breeding success and understanding their individual behaviour is only useful if you do it each year, year after year, day after day. On Ardery there was a great opportunity not only to study populations, but also to follow the individuals that form the populations. Normally is is just a small proportion of the birds in the colony that is producing chicks that finally fly off."

Anna Beinssen from Hobart,Tasmania is Jeroen's field assistent this year. She added: "Such a shame.. there is so much bird research that can be done here. Trends in changes in behaviour will only be visible after many years. The set up on Ardery is ideal for a long term research. And speaking for myself I am very curious what my fulmars are doing next year: if they have a chick again, or if the couples stay together etc.

"We have the equipment, we have the knowledge how to run it in this extreme climate, we have the money for at least another two or three years, we have data of three seasons in a row... " Jeroen stops for a pull " and now we stop. I just can't believe it.. We need an extra person, for sure. Maybe the project has grown too much or maybe it was just too successful" Jeroen shakes his head. Even his mate Stolichnaya does not know what to say.

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