Henri Weimerskirch

Long live albatrosses

Ornithologist since my teenage years, passionate about observing animals in nature, I have considered it fundamental, throughout my scientific career, to keep a naturalist vision in ecology. My current research theme can be summarized as follows: To observe, in order to understand, how climate variability and human activities influence marine ecosystems in order to conserve them. My research programs focus on studying the impact of global changes on marine ecosystems, using seabirds as bio-indicators. They are based on long-term demographic monitoring and telemetric monitoring of individual behaviour. They aim to describe the relationships between environmental variability and changes in population abundance and distribution in order to understand and predict the effect of global changes. The program places a strong emphasis on species conservation, especially seabirds threatened by the development of fisheries, such as albatrosses. My research is also interested in a comparative approach to the evolution of strategies for the acquisition of marine resources by birds in contrasting environments, as well as the ontogeny of these foraging behaviours and the consequences of senescence on research capacity.

Research Director – CNRS Silver Medal – Marine Predators Team henriw(at)cebc.cnrs.fr
Tel + 33 (0)5 49 09 78 15

ResearchGate

In 2018, Henri Weimerskirch (Head of the “Ecology of Marine Birds and Mammals” team at the CNRS laboratory in Chizé) returned to Kerguelen. In this video, he presents (in french) his research projects. A video funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV n 109).