Honorary Research Associate

Ross Wanless BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD  (Cape Town) Fax: +27 86 545 4319 Email: rosswanless@gmail.com

Ross graduated with a BSc in Zoology from UCT in 1992. Since then he has worked as a Scientific Observer for South Africa's Patagonian Toothfish longline fishery observer programme. He has also worked as a Scientific Officer at the Avian Demography Unit, with John Cooper and BirdLife International's Seabird Conservation Programme. He created and maintained the project website (http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/stats/adu/seabirds/). Ross completed his BSc Honours at UCT in 1998 with distinction. He was then invited to join a small team that spent three months researching and monitoring seabirds and seals on the remote sub-Antarctic island of Bouvet in 1998/1999. In April 1999 he joined the Fitz for his Masters with Prof. Phil Hockey. Ross conducted a highly successful reintroduction of the flightless Aldabra Rail in the Seychelles and graduated in June 2002, again with distinction. He did an eight-month internship with the US-based Island Conservation in 2002/2003, working on several island restoration projects in the US and northwest Mexico. He then returned tot he Fitz, spending a full year on the remote Gough Island, researching the impacts that the introduced house mouse is having on the seabird community. This formed the basis of his PhD "The impacts of introduced mice on birds at Gough Island", under Prof. Peter Ryan. He graduated in December 2007, winning the medal for the best PhD thesis in the Science Faculty during 2007. His thesis took 3rd place in an international thesis competition run by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the Convention on Migratory Species.

Ross is now Seabird Division manager for BirdLife South Africa, as well as the Africa Coordinator for the Global Seabird Programme (BirdLife International). His work involves establishing marine Important Bird Areas throughout Africa and associated islands, managing the Albatross Task Force activities (to reduce seabird mortality in fisheries) in South Africa and Namibia, and strengthening seabird conservation measures and implementation in multi-lateral fisheries organisations, particularly the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and ICCAT in the Atlantic Ocean. In 2009 he secured funding for an initial 3-year research and conservation intervention for the African Penguin, and is also involved in several other national seabird conservation actions.

Ross was appointed an honorary research associate in August 2009. He is co-supervising Vivianne Barquete's PhD thesis with Peter Ryan. Ross is also co-supervising (with Peter) Tim Reid's postdoctoral work on marine Important Bird Areas. Support for research on African Penguins is in the form of funding for Lorien Pichegru and the Animal Demography Unit's Fitsum Gabresellasie. Ross regularly writes articles of ornithological interest for popular publications and is a contributing author for the new Robert’s Birds of Southern Africa. His research interests include conservation and ecology of island systems, seabird ecology, stable light isotope applications in conservation, and evolutionary biology.

Research programmes

Seabird Conservation

Current students

Doctoral

Viviane Barquete: Using stable isotopes as a tool to understand the trophic relationships of seabirds off southern Africa (Supervisors: Peter Ryan and Ross Wanless).

Dominic Rollinson: Reducing seabird bycatch from the longline fishing industry (Supervisors: Peter Ryan and Ross Wanless)

Conservation Biology Masters

Craig Harding: Tracking post-breeding African Penguins (Supervisors: Peter Ryan and Ross Wanless)

Recent peer-reviewed publications

2012

Pichegru, L., Ryan, P.G., Van Eeden, R., Reid, T., Grémillet, D. & Wanless, R. 2012. Industrial fishing, no-take zones and endangered penguins. Biological Conservation IP. IF 4.115

Wanless, R.M., Ratcliffe, N., Angel, A., Bowie, B.C., Cita, K., Hilton, G.M., Kritzinger, P., Ryan, P.G. & Slabber, M. 2012. Predation of Atlantic Petrel chicks by house mice on Gough Island. Animal Conservation IP.

2011

Hockey, P.A.R., Wanless, R.M. & von Brandis, R. 2011. Demographic resilience of territorial island birds to extinction: the flightless Aldabra Rail (Dryolimnas [cuvieri] aldabranus) as an example. Ostrich 82:1-9. IF 0.427

Tuck, G.N., Phillips, R.A., Small, C., Thomson, R.B., Klaer, N.L., Taylor, F., Wanless, R.M. & Arrizabalaga, H. 2011. An assessment of seabird-fishery interactions in the Atlantic Ocean. ICES Journal of Marine Science 68:1628-1637. IF 2.007

2010

Hockey, P.A.R., Wanless, R.M. & von Brandis, R. 2010. Demographic resilience of territorial island birds to extinction: the flightless Aldabra Rail (Dryolimnas [cuvieri] aldabranus) as an example. Ostrich 82:1-9. IF 0.338

Techow, N.M.S.M., O’Ryan, C., Phillips, R.A., Gales, R., Marin, M., Patterson-Fraser, D., Quintana, F., Ritz, M.S., Thompson, D.R., Wanless, R.M., Weimerskirch, H. & Ryan, P.G. 2010. Speciation and phylogeography of giant petrels Macronectes Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 54:472-487. IF 3.556

Wanless, R., Scott, S., Sauer, W.H.H., Andrew, T.G., Glass, J.P., Godfrey, B., Griffiths,C. & Yeld, E. 2010. Semi-submersible rigs: transporting marine ecosystems around the world. Biological Invasions 12:2573–2583. IF 3.074

Wanless, R.M., Cooper, J., Slabber, M.J. & Ryan, P.G. 2010. Risk assessment of birds foraging terrestrially at Marion and Gough Islands to primary and secondary poisoning by rodenticides. Wildlife Research 37:524-530. IF 1.5

Wilson, J.W., Wanless, R.M., Burle, M.-H., Angel, A., Kritzinger, P. & Stead, B. 2010. Breeding biology of Brown Noddies Anous stolidus at their southern-most breeding site, Gough Island, in comparison to other sites. Ardea 98: 242–246. IF 0.836