Over the last few years, efforts to eradicate introduced rodents and other mammalian invaders from seabird islands have moved up yet another notch, in terms of complexity, island size, numbers of species to eradicate and island remoteness. Current...
Last week South Africa's Antarctic research and supply ship, the m.v. S.A. Agulhas , sailed from Cape Town on the annual relief of the South African weather station on the UK's Gough Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. The ship...
The latest issue of the islandNet Newsletter (No. 7, August 2011) carries a number of interesting stories over 26 pages that deal with the eradication of alien species on seabird islands around the World, including at Australia's sub-Antarctic...
With the support of a Captain Simpson Scholarship from the Royal Naval Birdwatching Society I commenced a demographic study of Southern Giant Petrels on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, the species' most northerly breeding population in 2010 ( click...
Every year Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena chicks on Gough Island are attacked and killed by introduced House Mice Mus musculus during winter months when in their early downy stage. As a consequence, breeding success is too low to support the...
Unfortunately, H89 has died. Its body is to be brought to Cape Town for autopsy. ******************* Tshikana Rasehlomi, BirdLife International Albatross Task Force Instructor, reports via satellite ‘phone from a South African tuna longline vessel 100...
New Zealand's Department of Conservation announced last month that the linked islands of Motutapu and Rangitoto in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland are now considered clear of nine alien mammal species, including the House Mouse Mus musculus , following...
Geoff Tuck ( CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research , Hobart, Australia) and colleagues have analysed the deleterious effects of tuna fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean on the populations of four albatross species, publishing their findings in open access...
After another successful management/research expedition to Gough Island in the South Atlantic, the combined Royal Society for the Protection of Birds/FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town team returns to Cape Town, South Africa this week....
The Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross or Gony Diomedea dabbenena is endemic to the Tristan da Cunha island group in the South Atlantic, where it breeds on Gough and Inaccessible Islands, which together form a World Heritage Site. Practically the...
The 22nd Regular Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas ( ICCAT ) concluded on 19 November in Istanbul, Turkey ( click here for the press release). A key outcome from the meeting towards the improved conservation...
Bob Headland ( Scott Polar Research Institute , University of Cambridge, UK), writing in the journal Polar Record , has produced a descriptive historical account of the introduced mammals of southern high latitudes. The publication has a particular...
The papers and abstracts published in this proceedings volume are the outcome of an international conference on Island Invasives: Eradication and Management held at Tamaki Campus, University of Auckland , New Zealand from 8 to 12 February 2010. The...
In the past, from their first discovery, albatrosses have fallen victim to the stew pot or roasting fire, being generally considered good eating. Nowadays, however, it seems that the human consumption of albatrosses has died out as a habit - and no bad...
The Fifth Issue (December 2011) of the Henderson Island News brings the welcome information that the aerial bait drop in August last year to eradicate Polynesian Rats or Kiore Rattus exulans by the Henderson Island Restoration Project looks like it...
Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus exhibit marked sexual dimorphism. So much so that a study on Gough Island in the South Atlantic (the species' most northerly breeding population) found no overlap in culmen between males and females ( click...
The UK Environment Minister Richard Benyon announced funding of UK£250 000 towards a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ( RSPB ) project to eradicate the introduced "killer" House Mice Mus musculus mice on Gough Island at a meeting of the UK...
Over 15-16 March BirdLife South Africa and the University of Cape Town's Percy FitzPatrick Institute hosted a conference " Frontiers in South African Ornithology " in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. Four presentations were given that will be of interest...
The eradication of alien vertebrate species on oceanic islands is now an increasingly well-known and practiced conservation method. On islands around the world, in both hemispheres and in many seas and oceans, islands of successively increasing size...
The first Southern Ocean island from which the alien House Mouse Mus musculus has been eradicated was 700-ha Enderby Island in New Zealand's Auckland Island group. This 1993 effort was primarily directed at European Rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus . A...
