Project observers are predominately individuals who have participated in the project either as an interviewee or through conversations and insights. At present there are 35 observers to Seals, Stigma and Survival and on January 26th, 2026 there was an opportunity to engage with them about the Year 1 progress of the project.
In advance of the meeting all observers were provided a draft copy of the Year 1 preliminary progress report to review. This was to give them advance insight into the project’s progress and prepare them and make available to them an opportunity to weigh in with their views on the report and anything that should be done to enable it to best reflect their experiences and contributions. In particular, we emphasized the preliminary findings portion of the report which reflects on interviewee insights from our fieldwork.
The meeting was structured in three parts. Reflecting the project aim of fostering network building amongst practitioners and researchers, Part 1 started with an chance for everyone present to introduce themselves and tell a little about their experience working on seal-related issues.
Part 2 was a presentation by project PI Danita Catherine Burke.
The Part 2 presentation gives an overview of Year 1 and project members insight into what we have accomplished and where we hope to go in the future.
Part 3 was the majority of the meeting. It was an opportunity for people to talk to each other, share their experiences with seal and sealing, question each other, recommend inclusions into the Year 1 report and discuss opportunity for collaboration.
As a number of observers and team members were unable to attend due to illness and scheduling conflicts but in total 13 people attended, with PI Burke and SI Jim Winter representing the project’s core team.
Many thanks to all the observers for participating in the meeting and providing feedback during it and afterward!
Below are copies of our Year 1 preliminary report available in English (with the executive summary available in Norwegian and Kalaallisut) and Kalaallisut (available with the support of Innovation South Greenland).
Seals, Stigma and Survival 