From Lord Howe to the South Pacific: 25 Years of Community-Powered Seabird Science
This guest blog is written by Dr. Jenn Lavers, seabird researcher at Adrift Lab, whose long-term work on Lord Howe Island is proudly supported by Living Ocean and Baillie Lodges’ Spirit of Mateship Program.
“It's been such a busy and productive few months at Adrift Lab, one barely knows where to begin!
In April and May, five members of our team made our annual 'pilgrimage' to Lord Howe Island in order to undertake monitoring and sample collection. This data underpins our long-term monitoring program, with 2025 being the 25th year that this research has been underway (for me, this year marked my 30th trip to the island which now feels like a second home).
2025 Adrift Lab Field Team (photo credit: Nat Whish-Wilson/Tasmanian Greens)
Even more remarkable: all of these trips, all of the research outputs and discoveries... well, they were possible because of Living Ocean supporters like YOU! Over the past 2+ decades, our plastics and seabird research on Lord Howe has been funded almost exclusively out of small grants (from not-for-profits) and philanthropy.
While this sometimes makes life difficult because we don't have the big budgets and flexibility that some labs do, at Adrift Lab, we choose to focus on a different aspect: as a result of being funded by the community, we are deeply embedded within community.
Some of the best evidence of this is reflected in our team: each year we are joined by fabulous folks who are non-scientists, but share our passion for conservation, discovery, and science communication.
In 2025, we were fortunate to be joined on Lord Howe Island by Senator Peter Whish-Wilson and his wife, Nat. While they were keen to watch what we do, they were far more than observers. Each day they woke with the rest of our team and were out checking beaches (for struggling seabirds) at 6AM, rain or shine. At 9PM they were still with us, out in the seabird colony in the darkness of night, counting birds and the bits of plastic they had mistakenly ingested.
While Lord Howe is easily one of the most spectacular places in Australia, joining the Adrift Lab team on the island is definitely not a holiday!
Since returning from Lord Howe in May, the team and I been hard at work, furiously analysing mountains of data and drafting papers. This is especially true for our insanely talented PhD student, Alix, who is due to submit her thesis in September(ish).
Adrift Lab scientists Jack & Alix with a blood sample (photo credit: Dr Jennifer Lavers/Adrift Lab)
In just the past few months we've published five papers (list below), with another seven currently 'in review' and due to be published soon!
In other exciting news, one of our long-time collaborators, the unbelievably talented Justin Gilligan, won Wildlife Photographer of The Year #WPY60 (Oceans: The Bigger Picture Category) for his image of plastics ingested by shearwaters on Lord Howe Island. This photo was recently presented to HRH King George III during the 2025 London Climate Action Week.
None of this would have been possible without the generous support and passion of the Living Ocean team, and our new partnership with Baillie Lodges. Funds generated through their Spirit of Mateship Program have ensured the 2026 field season can proceed as planned and we can't begin to explain how much this means to our current team, and future students.
In the next few weeks, I am heading off on expedition to the Pitcairn Islands in the remote South Pacific. Stay tuned for updates from the middle of the Big Blue, plenty of incredible seabirds, and more groundbreaking science discoveries.”
Recently published articles
de Jersey, A. M., Lavers, J. L., Bond, A. L., Wilson, R., Zosky, G. R., & Rivers-Auty, J. (2025). Seabirds in crisis: A proteomic exploration of multi-organ failure and cell lysis. Science Advances, 11(11), eads0834. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads0834
de Jersey, A. M., Bond, A. L., & Lavers, J. L. (2025). Strength in numbers: Combining small pockets of opportunistic sampling for Australian seabird plastic ingestion. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 214, 117757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.117757
Nugegoda, D., Raison, S., Miranda, A. F., Lu, J., Foord, C. S., Nzabanita, D., & Lavers, J. L. (2025). Exposure to mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls affects the thyroid function of an Australian seabird (Ardenna carneipes). Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 302, 118501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2025.118501
Lavers, J. L., Howell, N. R., Bond, A. L., Howard, D. L., de Jonge, M. D., Puskar, L., & Banati, R. B. (2025). Elemental analysis by neutron activation analysis and synchrotron x-ray fluorescence microscopy of ocean plastics ingested by pelagic seabirds. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 494, 138528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.138528
Charmantier, A., Lavers, J. L., & Austin, S. (2025). Disability in ecology and evolution. Trends in Ecology & Evolution.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2025.06.005