Developing a penguin tracking database to help determine their most important foraging areas

In late 2012 SCAR, BirdLife and BAS developed a successful proposal (to the UK Darwin Plus Fund) to build an integrated database that would facilitate the analysis of penguin tracking data. The database will have a web-based user interface that will allow data holders to submit data and attach a range of access levels; access may be granted only to the data holder, to a wider group, or to a general public domain. A penguin database (built along analogous lines and interoperable with the BirdLife Global Procellariiform Tracking Database) will allow spatial analyses to be undertaken that will help inform a variety of CCAMLR analyses, including work on the development of a variety of feedback management approaches for the krill fishery, and work on the spatial planning processes needed for identifying candidate CCAMLR MPAs.