Marine debris washing up on beaches on Bird Island has been monitored since 1989 with over 9,000 items of debris recovered up until present day. In addition to the raw data, a summary of the data by year or by debris description is available. Occasions when no debris was found, or it was not possible to carry out a survey, are recorded in the metadata. This data is submitted to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) as part of their Marine Debris Programme.

Incidences of Antarctic Fur Seals entangled in man-made debris have been recorded since 2008 at Grytviken, South Georgia. The majority of entanglements have been Antarctic Fur Seals caught in plastic packaging bands, synthetic line and fishing nets. Where possible these are removed by scientists working at the research base. This data is collected as part of CCAMLR's Marine Debris Programme.

The presence of marine debris and other material from human activity within bird colonies on Bird Island has been recorded since 1992. Bird colonies on the Island are regulary monitored for the presence of debris as part of CCAMLR's Marine Debris Program. Debris can be found within the colonies, entangling the birds, or within diet samples. Where possible, all debris are removed. The date of survey, debris type and debris dimensions are recorded. This data is submitted to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) as part of their Marine Debris Programme.

This annotated dataset comprises locational data of beluga whales along the eastern shore of the Yugor Penisula and in the inner part of Baydaratskaya Bay in the southern Kara Sea (Russia) as detected from Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery on July 4th and 9th, 2016. Images were manually scanned and whales detected through the use of grids. Additional metadata includes information on image type and model, and whale distinctive characteristics (e.g., fluke or blow). This work supports the 'training' of machine learning algorithms for automatic detection of whales from satellite imagery. This study was possible thanks to imagery support from MAXAR Technologies/Digital Globe Foundation for the VHR images and core funding from British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, as part of the 'Wildlife from Space' project.

Marine mammal sightings in Ryder Bay, an inlet of northern Marguerite Bay on the Western Antarctic Peninsula, were collated for the period 1998 - 2023. The weekly maximum number recorded for each species are presented here, alongside the weekly maximum score for sea ice coverage. Observations of marine mammals and sea ice were undertaken as part of the Rothera Time Series (RaTS), a long-term year-round programme of oceanographic and biological sampling of the Antarctic marine environment. Whales and seals are an important component of the Southern Ocean pelagic fauna, but winter data are very sparse. Long series of observations such as this enable patterns of interannual variability and/or long-term change to be revealed. Presenting the marine mammal data alongside sea ice coverage data enables investigation of the relationship between the two variables. Sightings of eight species were collated; Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), common killer whale (Orcinus orca), Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella), leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx), Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii), crabeater seal (Lobodon carcinophaga), and Southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina). Data collection has been supported since 1997 by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through core funding supplied to the British Antarctic Survey. Since 2017, it has been supported by NERC award "National Capability - Polar Expertise Supporting UK Research" (NE/R016038/1).

This dataset comprises video and imagery captured around Rothera Point, Adelaide Island on the West Antarctic Peninsula between November 2023 and February 2024. The data was captured as part of a biodiversity survey on an area to the North of Rothera Research Station. Operations were conducted off small boats and allowed data to be collected in shallow waters between 10 m and 60 m water depth. The dataset includes: seabed imagery captured using a down-facing drop camera, video footage from a Boxfish Luna remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), timelapse imagery from a camera installed on the Rothera Research station watch tower and video and imagery of a sediment profiler experiment of the seabed. Data were collected by personnel at BAS, funded by the Antarctic Infrastructure Modernisation Project (AIMP) Runway Project.