Claire Pollock

Claire Pollock graduated from University College Cork in 1993, with Honours in Applied Ecology. Her thesis was on time budget analysis of moorhens wintering at Cork Lough.

After a year working as a marine observer on fishing vessels, monitoring cetacean by-catch levels, and conducting seabird and cetacean surveys, she started working as a marine surveyor for JNCC.

She carried out marine surveys around Ireland for 2 years before writing a report on the distribution of seabirds and cetaceans in the waters around Ireland in 1997.

In 1998, she became Atlantic Frontier team leader, coordinating marine surveys north and west of Scotland for the AFEN project. She also participated in surveys of breeding seabirds on remote Scottish islands, and was joint team leader on an expedition to census breeding seabirds on St. Kilda in 1999, as part of Seabird 2000.

After nearly two years travelling overseas Claire returned to Ireland in 2001 and with Colin Barton, set up Cork Ecology, an independent environmental consultancy based in Cork.

Colin Barton

Colin Barton holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology (Ecology) from the University of Aberdeen.

After graduating in 1992, he worked as a countryside ranger at a country park where he carried out wildfowl and wader (WEBS) counts, breeding and winter bird censuses (BTO) and vegetation surveys.

He started work with JNCC as a marine surveyor in 1993, gaining experience in marine surveys of seabirds and cetaceans, along with report writing and data analysis. He also participated in surveys of breeding seabirds, including a nationally important common gull colony.

He was a volunteer on the 1999 expedition to census breeding seabirds on St Kilda for Seabird 2000, and worked as a marine ecologist for an environmental consultancy in Aberdeen from 1998 to 1999, mostly in the offshore oil and gas sector, before travelling overseas with Claire in 2000 - 2001.