Profile

This is my page on the Institute of Zoology website: www.zsl.org/paddybrock 
And here’s the text of a recent newsletter on my work:

5am. San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands. Dawn is quick. Dogs, roosters and sea lions compete to fill the unusually cold air. A distant boat generator starts up. Then all other sound is drowned by approaching reggaeton (an unholy south-american take on nineties hard-house). The music is being played through the open windows of a Galapagos National Park pick-up; being played as if it were a gift, not only to the sleeping town, but to the world. We load the nets, tripod, kit boxes and coolers then set off for the beach. It’s Sunday so I know not to expect only sea lions. San Cristobal is exceptional as the sea lions breed and live here in the centre of the second largest town on the archipelago. Despite the National Park’s admirable clean up efforts, the beach may have acquired overnight: abandoned fishing boats, nylon, hooks and paint pots; a scattering of beer cans; plastic plates, cups, cutlery and bags; drunks sleeping and periodically vomiting on the beach; lovers still trying to find their way out of their clothes; or navy recruits fresh from the mainland, ploughing up the sand by sprinting back and forth. Worst of all, the navy conscripts exercise with their dogs in tow. These are brought to the islands on navy transports without any health checks or quarantine. As their 17 year old masters run up and down, the dogs prowl the beach, barking, digging, urinating, and startling sea lions out of sleep.
The Galapagos sea lion is classified as endangered for good reason. Although the evidence that their numbers are declining is suggestive at best, the risk of disease transfer from domestic animals is increasing rapidly. Dogs, cats and black rats are found increasingly on the beaches of the four inhabited islands and there have been numerous distemper outbreaks in the dogs of Santa Cruz (no reports of distemper on San Cristobal so far…). If high mortality among Galapagos sea lions due to disease were to coincide with a significant dip in their food supply caused by El Niño, numbers could crash dramatically.
I’m collecting data on immunity and growth of Galapagos sea lions for my PhD while helping the Park monitor for signs of infection. In addition to San Cristobal, we also work on Santa Fe, a small uninhabited island that is free of introduced mammals but popular with tourists. Sea lions from San Cristobal appear to have more active immune systems than those on on Santa Fe: they mount stronger inflammatory responses to a field challenge with a novel antigen and have higher titres of total immunoglobulin G. The next stage is to identify particular pathogens and asses the impact of immune responses on growth and survival.
This morning I’m relieved. With our ears still ringing we unpack the truck at the beach on San Cristobal to find only one tipsy couple in addition to the sea lions, and they are frolicking a respectful distance from the nearest animals. They ignore us and we them. The sea lions keep a suspicious eye on us all.

Here’s the text of a recent newsletter on my work which describes what I do in the field:

5am. San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands. Dawn is quick. Dogs, roosters and sea lions compete to fill the unusually cold air. A distant boat generator starts up. Then all other sound is drowned by approaching reggaeton (an unholy south-american take on nineties hard-house). The music is being played through the open windows of a Galapagos National Park pick-up; being played as if it were a gift, not only to the sleeping town, but to the world. We load the nets, tripod, kit boxes and coolers then set off for the beach. It’s Sunday so I know not to expect only sea lions. San Cristobal is exceptional as the sea lions breed and live here in the centre of the second largest town on the archipelago. Despite the National Park’s admirable clean up efforts, the beach may have acquired overnight: abandoned fishing boats, nylon, hooks and paint pots; a scattering of beer cans; plastic plates, cups, cutlery and bags; drunks sleeping and periodically vomiting on the beach; lovers still trying to find their way out of their clothes; or navy recruits fresh from the mainland, ploughing up the sand by sprinting back and forth. Worst of all, the navy conscripts exercise with their dogs in tow. These are brought to the islands on navy transports without any health checks or quarantine. As their 17 year old masters run up and down, the dogs prowl the beach, barking, digging, urinating, and startling sea lions out of sleep.
The Galapagos sea lion is classified as endangered for good reason. Although the evidence that their numbers are declining is suggestive at best, the risk of disease transfer from domestic animals is increasing rapidly. Dogs, cats and black rats are found increasingly on the beaches of the four inhabited islands and there have been numerous distemper outbreaks in the dogs of Santa Cruz (no reports of distemper on San Cristobal so far…). If high mortality among Galapagos sea lions due to disease were to coincide with a significant dip in their food supply caused by El Niño, numbers could crash dramatically.
I’m collecting data on immunity and growth of Galapagos sea lions for my PhD while helping the Park monitor for signs of infection. In addition to San Cristobal, we also work on Santa Fe, a small uninhabited island that is free of introduced mammals but popular with tourists. Sea lions from San Cristobal appear to have more active immune systems than those on on Santa Fe: they mount stronger inflammatory responses to a field challenge with a novel antigen and have higher titres of total immunoglobulin G. The next stage is to identify particular pathogens and asses the impact of immune responses on growth and survival.
This morning I’m relieved. With our ears still ringing we unpack the truck at the beach on San Cristobal to find only one tipsy couple in addition to the sea lions, and they are frolicking a respectful distance from the nearest animals. They ignore us and we them. The sea lions keep a suspicious eye on us all.