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Sarah Wanless

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English ornithologist and research ecologist

ProfessorSarah WanlessMBE FRSE
BornScarborough, England
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Aberdeen
Academic work
DisciplineMarine ecology
InstitutionsCentre for Ecology & Hydrology

Sarah Wanless MBE FRSE is a British animal ecologist. She is an expert on seabirds; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Education and career

Wanless was born in Scarborough, England and moved to Aberdeen, Scotland in 1969 for her undergraduate degree and then her PhD, which focused on northern gannets over three seasons on the island of Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde.

She worked at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, the Nature Conservancy Council and the British Antarctic Survey before joining the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) permanently in 1996 as a Higher Scientific Officer. She rose to Individual Merit Scientist and retired in 2016 but is still involved with research as Emeritus Fellow at CEH.

Research

In the 1980s, Wanless began one of the first radio-tracking studies into seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, which helped to identify the foraging areas and the dangers that seabirds face due to climate change, pollution, fishing and off-shore wind farms; much of this research was conducted on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. She was the first female visiting scientist to the British Antarctic Survey's research station on Bird Island in South Georgia, where she studied the diving behaviour of South Georgia shags for two southern summers. Wanless also studied gannets on Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire and researched the foraging of puffins outside of the breeding season.

Over her career, Wanless published 250 papers, her bird tracking data was contributed to the Global Seabird Tracking Database.

Honours and awards

Wanless was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to seabird ecology.

Bibliography

Wanless wrote The Puffin with Mike P. Harris, published in 2012 by Bloomsbury ISBN 978-1-4081-0867-3 a revised version of the original 1984 Poyser monograph.

References

  1. ^ "Sarah Wanless". www.saltiresociety.org.uk. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  2. ^ NERC UKRI (2010). "Individual Merit Promotion case studies and timelines". Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  3. ^ Williams, Simon (24 October 2018). "Pioneering CEH scientist named as an 'Outstanding Woman of Scotland'". Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  4. "Conference 2019 – British Naturalists' Association". Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  5. "Climate change also threatens the survival of seabirds". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  6. "Gannets facing wind farm risks". www.irishexaminer.com. 25 May 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  7. Birkhead, Tim (6 May 2012). "Do Birds Have Emotions?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  8. "How puffins catch food outside the breeding season". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  9. ^ "Sarah Wanless". Pacific Seabird Group. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  10. BirdLife International. "World's biggest seabird tracking database shows their incredible journeys". BirdLife. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  11. "No. 63918". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2022. p. N25.
  12. "Professor Sarah Wanless FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 5 July 2019. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  13. "Marsh Christian Trust – Marsh Award for Conservation Biology". www.marshchristiantrust.org. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  14. "Witherby Memorial Lectures | BTO - British Trust for Ornithology". www.bto.org. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  15. "Medals and awards". British Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  16. Linklater, Magnus. "Bird woman who saw the sea warm". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  17. British Naturalists' Association (May 2019). "Peter Scott Memorial Award" (PDF). Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  18. Bloomsbury.com. "The Puffin". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  19. Harris, Mike P.; Wanless, Sarah (21 November 2011). The Puffin (1 ed.). T & AD Poyser.
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