Jessica Montabaranom

Can African penguins be brought back from the brink? Better designed no-fishing zones could help A new court order seeks to protect African penguins, which are critically endangered.

Studying overlap with fisheries can help highlight important areas for protection 🐧 Check out my little article! After spending so long learning to write for scientific audiences, it was an interesting experience learning how to write for the public but I highly recommend!

The NERC Special Committee on Seals (SCOS) 2025 report is now live on the SMRU website: www.smru.st-andrews.ac.uk/files/2026/0....
Updated population trends analysis and advice to gov relating to management of UK seal populations 🦭📈📉

Temporal changes in the dietary niche of sympatric seals provides insight into the role of competition in population declines Competition theory suggests that interspecific prey competition can result in changes to the dietary niche, but obtaining timeseries of data from sympatric species experiencing temporal variation in ...

New publication led by SMRU's @izzylangley.bsky.social on competition between grey & harbour seals in Scotland using 20+ yrs of diet data. Many thanks to all who collected samples, and collaborators from the Lighthouse Field Station and Institute of Marine Research
#OA Paper: doi.org/10.1002/oik....

🦭 We have a new paper out! We developed an accessible framework for assessing the risk of collision between seals and operating tidal turbines.
⏭️ We found that most seal tracks moved near the turbine without collision.
Read it here: doi.org/10.1002/aqc....
@seamammalresearch.bsky.social

Our recent paper on grey and harbour seal transboundary distribution made the cover of @jappliedecology.bsky.social! 😀🦭Thanks to Dr Kelly Robinson of @seamammalresearch.bsky.social for the photo!
Check the paper here: doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Fishing, foraging, and the fight to save African penguins - read our latest Research Spotlight, featuring Jacqui Glencross. 🐧

https://ow.ly/arOT50XwQVG

#EverToExcel

🦭 Last week, I presented our recent work on evaluating the risk of seals colliding with tidal turbines at @seamammalresearch.bsky.social, at the @mastscot.bsky.social conference.

If you’re interested in hearing more, read the preprint here: shorturl.at/76VSb !

This is amazing! 🐧 So excited to see what you get up to over the next few years!

Intraguild predation in sympatric seals and the effect on a declining population This study examined the prevalence, spatial extent, and temporal trends of grey seal intraguild predation (IGP). We demonstrated the utility of integrating disparate datasets to address conservation ....

New study led by SMRU's @izzylangley.bsky.social in collaboration with @strandings.bsky.social: evidence for grey seal predation of grey seals, harbour seals and harbour porpoises across Scotland, at levels that could prevent recovery of depleted populations. tinyurl.com/4r3wka6a

🐬 Registration is now OPEN for the UKIRSC 2026 Marine Mammal Conference hosted @plymuni.bsky.social 🎓A FREE event bringing together students from across the UK & Ireland to share research, connect, and learn from leading marine mammal scientists. 👇Link below

#UKIRSC2026 #MarineMammals

4/ 🐋 Huge thank you to the whole crew and science officers for making it such a memorable experience and teaching us about marine mammals in the Hebrides and the anthropogenic threats they face 🛥️🥅🎣🐟

3/ 🐋 We had such a blast! We saw common dolphins (my first time seeing these!), minke whales (including Knobble who's been spotted 62 times since 2002!!), porpoises, seals and otters 🦦!

2/ 🐋 These data are provided to the Scottish Government to inform protection measures for minke whales, Risso’s dolphins, harbour porpoises, and basking sharks across Hebridean seas.

1/ 🐋I recently joined a trip onboard Silurian, the vessel HWDT (www.hwdt.org) use to conduct research on marine mammal species visiting or resident to the Hebrides ⛵

PhD student Emilie Stepien uses satellite tags, CATS Cams and drones to observe seal reactions to shipping in the Wadden sea 🇩🇰
Watch a pregnant seal reacting to a sea eagle caught on drone video 🦅🦭

@emstepien.bsky.social 🧪🌐

#Wildlife #WaddenSea #HarbourSeal #AnimalBehaviour #MarineEcology

Care about climate change, physiology, marine mammals and want to do something about it?
Exciting PhD opportunity funded by @mastscot.bsky.social to work with Andrew Brownlow, myself, @jlkershaw.bsky.social , Fiona Manson,
@strandings.bsky.social,
@naturescot.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/3aj4kft9

Why Spring Is Critical for Harp Seal Pups ❄️

Harp seal pups are weaned just 10-12 days after birth. By spring, they must adapt fast as sea ice melts. As the Arctic warms, ice breaks up earlier, threatening pup survival and disrupting the marine food web.

🔗 Learn more: tinyurl.com/yfw63d7c

Congratulations on your talk Katie!!🐬

Last call ⏳🚨

If you have any elasmobranch and killer whale interaction records we want to hear about it!

Please reach our team with the email below, would love to include them in our global review!

Linking ringed seal foraging behaviour to environmental variability - Movement Ecology Background Foraging rates directly influence animals’ energetic intake and expenditure and are thus linked to body condition and the ability to survive and reproduce. Further, understanding the underl...

New #OA paper in Movement Ecology using a combination of statistical models (HMMs & GAMMs) to understand environmental drivers of behaviour in Saimaa ringed seals. Very pleased to be invited to collaborate on this research! 🤓🦭 @seamammalresearch.bsky.social @uniuef.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/2uhxez5x

If you find mosquitoes in Scotland please report them for our Mosquito Scotland project @mosquitoscotland.bsky.social! @ukceh.bsky.social

Please share: (competitive) PhD funding in Strasbourg (France) to work on 🐧🔥:

Physiological and reproductive consequences of ‘warm’ environmental conditions on land in a sub-polar penguin species

Fieldwork in Crozet 🇹🇫 is forecasted (pending on HPAI situation)

amethis3.unistra.fr/amethis-clie...

🚀 Grateful to be featured for the second year in a row at the #WOSiSta Women in Ocean Science in St Andrews! 🌊 A great range of talks and advice nuggets from women at different career stages, recognise what has changed (and not changed) in the past couple of decades‼️

A graphic showing that 50.6% of research projects with "LGBT" search terms have been cancelled. 45.8% of grants with "transgender" in the search terms have been cancelled. 45.5% of research grants with "vaccine hesitancy" have been cancelled. 3.4% grants with "HIV" or "AIDS" have been cancelled.

The US National Institutes of Health has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields

Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV

It’s 9am TFT time here, and citizens are already gathering to protest Tariffs by the United States. Our plain clothes Officer Penguins are attempting to maintain calm, but unfortunately we keep losing them in the crowd.

A drone image taken of a humpback whale in coastal waters of Shetland

Can you spare a few minutes to share your thoughts on marine mammal protection in Scotland?🐳

Please fill in the survey most relevant to you (you are welcome to do both)
Scotland-wide: forms.office.com/e/xbkmFe4TxV Shetland: forms.office.com/e/ee9yBzJC35

More info: www.shetlandmarinemammals.com

Incredible work done by @chrismcknight.bsky.social @eva-mariab.bsky.social @jlkershaw.bsky.social & co 🦭🎉

Climate stripe of annual global glacier mass changes (gigatonnes) from 1976 to 2023. Data source: WGMS. Credit: C3S/ECMWF/WGMS.

On the first World Glacier Day the evidence is alarming:

🧊 2023 saw a record annual mass loss of global glaciers
🗻 The years with the largest global glacier mass loss have all occurred since 2019
🌊 Estimates indicate the 2023 mass loss contributed ~1.7 mm to global mean sea level rise
#glacier 🧪⚒️🌏

🚨 With federal funding dwindling, we’ve created a starter pack of funding bodies offering #grants for #research🔬

📣 Repost & 💙 to connect #researchers with #funding 💵 💶 💷

#ResearchFunding #NIH #ERC #AcademicSky #MedSky #AcademicChatter #ECRChat #NewPI #academia #science #StandWithScience #eloquenti

Take a moment to enjoy this beautiful southern right whale. Happy #worldwildlifeday

All research permitted by Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands permit 2024_039.
🧪🐙🐳🌊
#whale #MarineConservation #wildlife #conservation #photooftheday #science #marinemammal #nature