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The Guafo Island Project
The Guafo Island Project
Since 2007 I have been part of a multidisciplinary team that study the reproductive ecology, diet and diseases of South American fur seals at Guafo Island. We have also tried to promote this site as an important site for biodiversity conservation. My current project at the Island focus on the environmental and host factors that affect the dynamics of hookworm infection in the fur seal pups. Hookworm disease is the most important cause of mortality among pups and causes retarded growth and anemia in up to a third of the pups born each year.
Guafo Island is a privileged inhabited site at the Northern Chilean Patagonia that harbor an astonishing marine biodiversity.
A multidisciplinary team has been working at Guafo Island for many years in order to understand the ecology and diseases of fur seals. In the picture DVMs and biologists from the Marine Mammal Center help with the anesthesia of an adult female fur seal.
To understand hookworm dynamics we need to sample dead and alive pups. In the picture collecting the gastrointestinal parasites from a South American fur seal pup that died of hookworm disease
The captures of South American fur seal pups allow us to get blood and feces samples which are critical to evaluate the pup's health.
More info in our project website: http://www.guafoislandscience.com/
Watch this short documentary about our Guafo Island research project!!!
Invasive species at Guafo Island
Invasive species at Guafo Island
Through a couple of small grants we investigated the distribution, density and diseases of rats and cats at Guafo Island. Rattus rattus and feral cats are a major concern for the conservation of the Island biodiversity.
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