[3] Throughout the 1980s, Poncet worked in conjunction with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) mapping locations of colonies around South Georgia and the Willis Islands of elephant seals, macaroni penguins and mollymawks.
[10] In 1987, couple leased a sheep farm in the Falkland Islands[3] and continued to spend up to four summer months each year sailing and studying the wildlife in South Georgia.
[7] The brown rat population, originally arriving on the island aboard ships in the 19th century, had caused extreme losses in the petrel, pipit and prion bird colonies.
[15] It was the first such trial in South Georgia[7] and a similar project on the Falklands led Poncet in 2011 to the discovery of a new breeding ground of southern giant petrel in the Choiseul Sound.
[16] By 2015, the South Georgia Heritage Trust project had cleared the island of rodents,[7] with Poncet reporting the first pipit nest in Schlieper Bay of the eradication target area.
[14] As the GSGSSI is committed to performing a survey on the wandering albatross every ten years, Poncet partnered with Cheesemans’ Ecology Safaris in a public-private partnership in 2015 to offset costs of the census.
[19] In 1992, Poncet and her husband were awarded the Blue Water Medal for their years of cruising in the Antarctic and publication of a guidebook focused on preservation of the region.
[5] Poncet was awarded the Fuchs Medal from the British Antarctic Survey in 2010 for her wildlife and vegetation mapping and conservation management strategies of the southern polar region.