ACAP Small Grant 2024-07

Contemporary range-wide Grey-headed Albatross satellite tracking

Project Leader: Cristián G. Suazo, Albatross Task Force – Chile, BirdLife International

Co-investigators: Luis Adasme, Departamento Evaluacion de Pesquerías
Cristóbal Anguita, Universidad de Chile
Luis A. Cocas, & Marcelo García, Subsecretaría de Pesca y Acuicultura en Chile
Azwianewi Makhado, Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environmental Affairs
Peter Ryan, University of Cape Town
Makhudu Masotla, Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environmental Affairs
Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey
Olivia Rowley, Igor Debski, & Johannes Fischer,New Zealand Department of Conservation

Amount Awarded: AUD 113,600 (Partially supported by a Voluntary Contribution from New Zealand)

The Grey-headed Albatross is a circumpolar, highly migratory species that encounters a range of threats at at-sea (predominantly bycatch) as well as land-based threats at a few breeding sites. Consequently, the species is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and on Annex II of the CMS. Recent studies on South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)^[1] and Campbell Island, New Zealand, have shown ongoing and severe declines at these colonies (-76% since 1984 and -94% since 1945 respectively), indicating widespread impacts of a combination of bycatch, and changing climate and oceanography, as both island groups are free of invasive species. South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)¹ and Campbell Island hold ~13,400 (24% of world population) and ~4,700 breeding pairs (8%) breeding pairs, respectively, but other key Grey-headed Albatross breeding sites hold large populations as well, including, Islas Diego Ramírez (~18,400; 32%), Marion Island (~7,500; 13%), Crozet (~6,300; 11%), and Kerguelen (~6,500; 11%), some of which show relatively stable population trends.

Within the last two decades, tracking efforts of Grey-headed Albatrosses has been largely limited to short-term, high-resolution GPS logger deployments, and long-term, low-resolution GLS logger deployments at a select number of sites, including South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)¹, Marion Island, and Campbell Island (based on the BirdLife International Seabird Tracking Database). Most of these were collected prior to the public availability of high-resolution AIS data on movements of individual vessels from known flag states via Global Fishing Watch (GFW). Hence, more recent, high-resolution tracking data would allow us to identify the extent of fine-scale overlap (or absence thereof) of each Grey-headed Albatross population with different fishing fleets in areas under fisheries management by five ACAP parties (Chile, France, New Zealand, South Africa, and United Kingdom), as well as the high seas. This information would also enable us to link population trends to implicit bycatch risk, and ultimately, identify key fleets for targeted engagement to ensure the implementation of best-practice mitigation. Consequently, we jointly propose a contemporary, range-wide GPS-Argos tracking study of Grey-headed Albatrosses from all three ocean basins in which this species breeds.

Specifically, we here jointly apply for an ACAP small grant to obtain funds to:

• Support ACAP parties with limited resources for albatross species monitoring for island groups in which Grey-headed Albatrosses breed to organise field visits (e.g., a visit to Islas Diego Ramírez, Chile) and;

• Purchase novel satellite-tracking devices (Druid YAWL C2, which enable ~hourly GPS-level fixes to be transmitted through satellite at a lower cost than other transmitters), and funding of satellite transmission costs to support various existing long-term fieldwork programmes throughout the range of Grey-headed Albatrosses.

All tracking data will be directly transmitted to a bespoke platform that will be accessible to all collaborators. New Zealand is willing to provide leadership on analyses of fisheries overlap using data obtained from Global Fishing Watch in direct collaboration with all participants (e.g., The GFW-Chile Agreement). Overlap analyses will be conducted following established protocols (e.g., Joint SBWG12/PaCSWG8 Doc 7). After analyses, all tracking data will be uploaded to the BirdLife International Seabird Tracking Database.

The proposed research leverages support from existing, long-term fieldwork programmes, which in combination with funding from the ACAP Small Grant programme, could initiate one of the largest contemporary albatross tracking studies for one of the most threatened ACAP species and thus has the potential to provide significant advances in the knowledge required to reverse current declines.

^[1]A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur e Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.