SGHT Newsletter January 2024
Your support is underpinning the success of a variety of projects helping to conserve South Georgia, share its history and lessons, and keep the resurgent wildlife and ecosystem safe today. As the New Year gets underway, we find out about daily life for a South Georgia biosecurity dog through dog Hunter’s week-long diary, find out more about Hungry Humpbacks, see that the South Georgia Museum team have their hands full and ask you to make one more New Year’s resolution. 
A Week in the Life of Hunter the Biosecurity Dog
In our November newsletter we introduced you to Hunter the biosecurity dog. Since then, Hunter has kept a diary detailing a week in his working life.

In the diary we find out that Hunter would not recognise a rat if he saw one…but if he smelled one it would be a different story. We also read about a visit to the local school where he demonstrates just how quickly he can work by racing the students to find a rat in a box, and how everyone on a cruise ship wants to meet him because, as he says, he is so amazing!
You can find Hunter’s diary here. 
The Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands (GSGSSI) Biosecurity Dog Programme was developed following the successful SGHT/FOSGI rodent eradication project on South Georgia. With your support, the dog team has now grown to three dogs and two handlers. The team are based in the Falkland Islands and at this time of the year, with cruise ships, fishing vessels, research ships, yachts and patrol vessels heading across to South Georgia, the team is pretty busy conducting searches of all the vessels and cargo bound for the island. We hope you enjoy finding out more about the work the team does, brought to life through the eyes of Hunter the biosecurity dog.
New Year's Resolution - Facebook Birthday Fundraiser
We have an idea we’d like to put to you. An idea that we hope becomes one of your New Year’s resolutions. On your birthday in 2024, would you help us by hosting a Facebook birthday fundraiser in support of SGHT?
 
Will you take another generous step in your support of South Georgia by changing your birthday in 2024 from being about getting stuff to giving instead? By hosting a Facebook birthday fundraiser you will further SGHT’s cause and raise much needed funds to protect and preserve the island’s wildlife, environment and heritage into the future. 

It’s honestly as easy as 1, 2, 3 to set up a Facebook birthday fundraiser. Let us explain.
 
  • 1. You may be prompted by Facebook to host a birthday fundraiser – if so, follow the prompt and go to #2 below. No problem if you’re not prompted. Simply log into your Facebook account on Desktop and click “See more” on the left-hand side of the webpage. The option “Fundraisers” will then become visible in this left-hand list – we invite you to click on it.

  • 2. The next page will show you a lot of information about Facebook fundraising. Click the “Select nonprofit” button towards the top of the page. This will open a pop-up “Choose your nonprofit” box which is where you search for and select us - South Georgia Heritage Trust – to be the beneficiary of your Facebook birthday fundraiser.

  • 3. Once you select SGHT your Facebook birthday fundraiser will show a preview with content we’ve created for you. You can amend this if you wish. For example, you may want to adjust the amount you aim to raise for us, or create a new title for your fundraiser, or add some personal reasons about why you have decided to raise money for SGHT. There’s a cover photo already included, but you may have a photo of South Georgia you’d like to use instead. When you’re ready to make it live simply press “Create” and the fundraiser will be launched and shared with your network.

As easy as that.
 
By taking this generous step you will be helping us raise much-needed funds for projects like the ones in this newsletter, and you’ll be introducing SGHT to your network too, encouraging their support.
 
Facebook partners with the PayPal Giving Fund, so donations from your birthday fundraiser will seamlessly make their way to us.
 
Now, there’s only one thing left to say - thank you so much in advance for taking on another New Year’s resolution and committing to hosting a Facebook birthday fundraiser for SGHT in 2024.
 
Any questions, please email info@sght.org and we’ll help you set this up.
How Hungry Are All Those Humpbacks?
Detail of image of feeding Humpback Whales by John Gill. CC
In the last few years more and more Humpback Whales have been seen in the waters around South Georgia and we heard the wonderful news that Humpbacks have recovered to nearly the number that lived around South Georgia before the start of industrial whaling.

Humpbacks were one of the first species hunted by modern whalers at South Georgia so they had been almost entirely wiped out by the mid-1920s, a century ago. Thankfully whaling at South Georgia ended in the mid-1960s, but it has taken a very long time for the whale numbers to recover from such heavy exploitation.
Feeding Humpback Whale. British Antarctic Survey
Humpbacks are very large animals, 12 to 16 metres (39 to 52 feet) long and weighing around 35 tons. That is about one and a half buses long and twice the weight. Such large animals need a lot of food, and as most of you will know, their main food source is krill. Whales are the largest krill-predators at South Georgia, yet their impacts on krill stocks are poorly understood, as are the movements of the whales and how their food requirements may change throughout the year. 

The Hungry Humpback research team aims to answer some of the questions about how much krill the whales are eating and when. The main research team is deploying to South Georgia where they will join the drone team of two who have been filming whales offshore for the past couple of months.

Not only are you supporting this work that will help manage this important food source for whales, but one of the team heading down to South Georgia is Henry Slessor, a PhD student who you are supporting in his studies. You may remember him from a previous newsletter.
If you want to do a bit more and help us achieve more for South Georgia, its wildlife, environment and heritage, please donate right now
Heavy Lifting for the Museum Team
The ladies at the South Georgia Museum have been doing some heavy lifting this season! All the large and often weighty objects in the museum collection needed to be moved to a new storage area in what proved to be a meticulous and challenging project.

The Large Object Store houses all the big historical museum objects that are too large to fit in the normal Object Stores. It is important to maintain detailed records of any move of museum objects, so moving the store was a big project that required three days and meticulous record keeping. In the busiest season ever at the museum, the team had to wait for a rare period of consecutive days when no cruise ships were due to visit to undertake the store move.
The old store was an upstairs room in the old Slop Chest and the new stores were created upstairs in the main museum building. Lots of muscle was needed to help move the furniture, sledges and skis, life rings and all manner of other sizeable objects down one set of stairs, across the rough ground and up another set of stairs to the new stores. At the same time, the specialist shelving the objects are stored on also needed to be moved, so we were very grateful for the assistance of the GSGSSI Building team.

The whole process had to be carefully documented to ensure we knew exactly where all the historical objects were at every stage, so in the short video made of the move, you will see Curatorial Intern Helen Balfour with her lists and records directing the project. The video will also let you have a little peek at some of the objects not currently on display; what unexpected things will you see? You can watch the video here.
Sale: South Georgia Calendar
Did you get your calendar yet?
The stunning 2024 South Georgia Calendar is now on sale, price just £10 each!
This A4 size calendar is beautifully printed and of stunning quality. Each page will remind you of the amazing island of South Georgia and its wonderful wildlife and has plenty of space for your reminders and notes. Don’t miss out 
Ratsy and Goaty the Bike - What's In a Name?
Thanks to support given through the July online auction, the South Georgia Museum has a new bicycle and it has a rather unusual name!

The opportunity to name a museum bicycle was offered as a prize lot in the online fundraising auction for SGHT and UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Bicycles are an important method of transport for the on-island SGHT team to get around Grytviken and to King Edward Point, but with only rough tracks to cycle on, the older bicycles were no longer fit for use. Thanks to the auction a new bike was bought, and the winning bidders, who were born in the years of the Rat and the Goat, asked for the bike to be called ‘Ratsy and Goaty’. You can see the name on the photograph of the new bike with our very appreciative South Georgia Director Deirdre.
Don't Worry We'll Come Back Later!
We could not resist sharing this photo with you. The SGHT team on South Georgia sent it a couple of days ago.

This is the staff entrance to the South Georgia Museum. All the other doors were locked, so they had to wait until this chap decided to move on so they could get in to work. The morning commute from the staff house just around the corner may not be very long, but they sometimes we have to deal with some unusual traffic! 
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