Sarah Wanless is an animal ecologist in the UK and is an expert on

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s; she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is Honorary Professor at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Education and career

Wanless was born in

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

, England and moved to

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland in 1969 for her undergraduate degree and then her PhD, which focused on

northern gannet The northern gannet (''Morus bassanus'') is a seabird, the largest species of the gannet family, Sulidae. It is native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, breeding in Western Europe and Northeastern North America. It is the largest seabird in t ...

s over three seasons on the island of

Ailsa Craig Ailsa Craig (; sco, Ailsae Craig; gd, Creag Ealasaid) is an island of in the outer Firth of Clyde, west of mainland Scotland, upon which microgranite has long been quarried to make curling stones. The now-uninhabited island comprises the ...

in the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic ...

. She worked at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, the

Nature Conservancy Council The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) was a United Kingdom government agency responsible for designating and managing National Nature Reserves and other nature conservation areas in Great Britain between 1973 and 1991 (it did not cover Norther ...

and the British Antarctic Survey before joining the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) permanently in 1996 as a Higher Scientific Officer. She rose to Individual Merit Scientist and retired in 2016 but is still involved with research as Emeritus Fellow at CEH.

Research

In the 1980s, Wanless began one of the first radio-tracking studies into seabirds in the Northern Hemisphere, which helped to identify the foraging areas and the dangers that seabirds face due to climate change, pollution, fishing and off-shore wind farms; much of this research was conducted on the

Isle of May The Isle of May is located in the north of the outer Firth of Forth, approximately off the coast of mainland Scotland. It is about long and wide. The island is owned and managed by NatureScot as a national nature reserve. There are now no ...

in the Firth of Forth in Scotland. She was the first female visiting scientist to the British Antarctic Survey's research station on Bird Island in South Georgia, where she studied the diving behaviour of

South Georgia shag The South Georgia shag (''Leucocarbo georgianus''), also known as the South Georgia cormorant, is a marine cormorant native to South Georgia and a few other subantarctic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Taxonomy The South Georgia shag is one ...

s for two southern summers. Wanless also studied gannets on

Bempton Cliffs Bempton Cliffs is a section of precipitous coast at Bempton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is run by the RSPB as a nature reserve and is known for its breeding seabirds, including northern gannet, Atlantic puffin, razorbill, comm ...

in Yorkshire and researched the foraging of puffins outside of the breeding season. Over her career, Wanless published 250 papers, her bird tracking data was contributed to the Global Seabird Tracking Database.

Honours and awards

Wanless was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2023 New Year Honours The 2023 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to seabird ecology. * Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2006 * Awarded the

Marsh Award for Conservation Biology The Marsh Award for Conservation Biology, established 1991, is an award run in partnership between the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Marsh Charitable Trust that recognises an individual for his or her "contributions of fundamental sci ...

by the Zoological Society London and the Marsh Christian Trust in 2007 * Gave the British Trust for Ornithology's Witherby Memorial Lecture in 2012 * Awarded the

Godman-Salvin Medal The Godman-Salvin Medal is a medal of the British Ornithologists' Union awarded "to an individual as a signal honour for distinguished ornithological work." It was instituted in 1919 in the memory of Frederick DuCane Godman and Osbert Salvin. M ...

by the British Ornithological Union in 2015 * Named one of the Outstanding Women of Scotland in 2018 by the

Saltire Society The Saltire Society is a membership organisation which aims to promote the understanding of the culture and heritage of Scotland. Founded in 1936, the society was "set up to promote and celebrate the uniqueness of Scottish culture and Scotland’s ...

* Awarded the

Peter Scott Sir Peter Markham Scott, (14 September 1909 – 29 August 1989) was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer, broadcaster and sportsman. The only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, he took an interest i ...

Memorial Award by the British Naturalists' Association in 2019 * Received an honorary Professorship in the Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

and an honorary Professorship in the Department of Zoology at the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

* Given lifetime achievement awards from the U
Seabird Group
ref name="Saltire" /> and the

Pacific Seabird Group The Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) is an international professional ornithological society based in the US, dedicated to the study and conservation of Pacific seabirds and their environment. The objectives of the Pacific Seabird Group are exclusively ...

Bibliography

Wanless wrote ''The Puffin'' with Mike P. Harris, published in 2012 by Bloomsbury a revised version of the original 1984 Poyser monograph.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wanless, Sarah Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Women ornithologists English ornithologists Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Scarborough, North Yorkshire Women ecologists 21st-century British scientists 20th-century British scientists Members of the Order of the British Empire