Since 1998, station personnel have been recording the wildlife they've observed whilst living and working at Rothera Research Station, Antarctica, as part of the Rothera Time-Series (RaTS) project. Originally, this consisted of a daily count of animals seen recorded in a logbook. More recently, dedicated wildlife survey recording sheets have been made available. The handwritten raw data were then collated and input into a spreadsheet, creating a database of wildlife sightings. Funding source: These data have been collected by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) personnel as part of an on-going long-term monitoring programme supported by NERC core funding.

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).