A Marion Island sealer stalwart, Rudi van Aarde, sadly passed away on Friday 21 July 2023. As Sealer #5 in the MIMMP chronological hierarchy, Rudi spent 18 months on Marion Island from 1974/75 to 1975/76 (M31 & M32 teams) studying southern elephant seals (SES) together with Patrick Condy (Sealer #2) although his primary involvement was to study the population ecology of the introduced, feral domestic cat at the island.

Rudi van Aarde (bottom right) as part of the M31 overwintering team at Marion Island. Photo credit: ALSA

Rudi van Aarde (right) during the cat eradication era at Marion island

Upon completion of his MSc dissertation on the cats, he headed off to the French Kerguelen Islands for a few months in the spring/summer of 1977/78 to service a collaborative study on SES between the MRI and Terres Australes et Antarctiques Francaises (TAAF) with the endorsement of the South African Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SASCAR). Here he applied his Marion Island experience of SES research on the large SES population of the Courbet Peninsula, Iles Kerguelen. After he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Department of Zoology at UP (in 1986), he furthered his involvement in SANAP as a principal investigator for studies on the SES from 1986 to 2000 with Ian Wilkinson (Sealer #27) as his PhD student. He was also involved with research on the introduced house mice population of Marion Island. Centrally involved with the planning and execution of the feral house cat extermination programme which lasted from 1977-1993, he personally supervised the release of the first control measure, the morbillivirus feline panleucopaenia, on Marion Island in March 1977 from aboard the SAS Protea.

Over thirty years of conservation ecology research (primarily ecological restoration and African elephant research) followed. Our sincere condolences go to his family and friends. May he rest in peace.

Marthán N. Bester, 26/07/2023