<< Back to home

Help save black guillemots nestlings and allow George and the Friends of Cooper Island to continue this long-term research. Find out more.

Friends of Cooper Island
My Plastic-Free Life
Organic Mania
Big Green Purse

Help save black guillemot nestlings and allow us to continue our long-term research. Find out how.

For nearly 40 years Dr. George Divoky has traveled to remote Cooper Island in the Arctic. Braving the elements and the occasional polar bear, his mission is to study the Black Guillemots — research which is contributing to the understanding of climate change on wildlife in Arctic.

Audio Slide Show: Interview with George

Penelope, originally from the landlocked state of Utah, somehow found her way to the Pacific coast and the unlikely world of seabird research. Her interest in seabirds began during her yearlong stint as a janitor at McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

Penelope graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Environmental Science and Resource Management and she has worked for the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) project. During her time at COASST she also worked for the Friends of Cooper Island, seeing the numerical changes of the Arctic as she entered over 30 years of George Divoky’s data into Excel Spreadsheets.

In October of 2010 she made her way back to Antarctica, this time she left her mop and bucket behind, and worked as a Field Technician on a long-term penguin monitoring study. Currently she is working for Friends of Cooper Island and will, for the first time, be on Cooper Island putting in Polar Bear proof nest boxes and banding adult breeding birds.

Cooper Island Overview

The bird-watcher Who Saw the Future

Off site: Friends of Cooper Island

Off site: Polar-Palooza

Off site: Arctic Stories