Plastic items in the stomach of a Cory’s Shearwater.  The scale at the bottom shows a mm ruler with longer lines indicating cm scale.  Photograph by Jan Van Franeker, from the publication

Jan van Franeker (Wageningen Marine Research, Den Helder, the Netherlands) and colleagues have published open access in Marine Pollution Bulletin on plastic ingestion by Cory’s Calonectris borealis and Scopoli’s C. diomedea Shearwaters.  Plastic ingestion in Mediterranean waters was considerably higher than in the Atlantic area, reflecting the high level of litter pollution within the enclosed Mediterranean basin.  The size of ingested particles was very small and suggests that most litter is not picked up directly but rather appears to be ingested indirectly with their pelagic fish prey.  Recently fledged youngsters had significantly more plastic in the stomach than the post-fledgling age class.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Plastic ingestion by seabirds reflects plastic levels in their marine environment and therefore seabirds are monitored within the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive to track the distribution and trends of plastic pollution. We present plastic ingestion data from 529 individuals of two Calonectris species (C. borealis and C. diomedea) from corpses collected across the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, birds from the Mediterranean ingested more plastics than those from the Atlantic, and fledglings carried higher plastic loads than post-fledglings. In contrast to an earlier proposal to monitor and define plastic ingestion thresholds by the number of particles, we advocate a mass-based system. Plastic mass better reflects environmental contamination and biological harm than particle counts, which can be inflated by fragmentation and are less ecologically relevant than the actual volume ingested. Using the cleanest 10 % of individuals in the most polluted population as a reference, we suggest Threshold values of 0.0098 g for fledglings and 0.0041 g for post-fledglings. According to this definition, between 40 and 88 % of birds exceeded the Threshold, depending on the sampling location. This mass-based Threshold offers an ecologically meaningful metric, and we recommend this approach for plastic pollution monitoring in the northeast Atlantic and the Mediterranean.”

With thanks to Jan van Franeker

Reference:

Van Franeker, J.A., Soldaat, E., Bried, J., Gonzáles-Solís, J., Zino, F., Biscoito, M., Borg, J.J., Tossani, F., Parolini, M. & Kühn, S. 2026.  Plastic ingestion by Cory’s and Scopoli’s shearwaters (Calonectris spp.) from the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.  Marine Pollution Bulletin 223.  doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.119008.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 02 December 2025

 An Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross tends its chick on Gough Island, photograph by Michelle Risi

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) is pleased to announce that “Habitat Restoration” will be its theme for next year’s World Albatross Day (WAD2026), the seventh to be held, on 19 June 2026.

The WAD2026 theme will include such management activities as eradication or control of introduced plants and animals at breeding sites, provision of predator-proof fences, establishment of new breeding colonies by attraction techniques and translocations of eggs and chicks, candling and substituting infertile with fertile eggs, supplementary feeding and hydration of chicks, artificial incubation during hatching, and use of fly repellents and sprinkler systems to improve breeding success.

The 2026 theme follows on from the inaugural theme “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020, “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” in 2021, “Climate Change” in 2022, “Plastic Pollution” in 2023, Marine Protected Areas” in 2024 and “Effects of Disease” in 2025.

A Chatham Albatross stands over its chick on The Pyramid/Tarakoikoia, New Zealand, photograph by David Bowle

The Pyramid, Chatham Islands: sole breeding home of the Chatham Albatross, aerial photograph by David Boyle

Two new albatross species will be used to feature the theme for WAD2026, with posters, infographics, and artworks produced by members of Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature collective (ABUN).  They are the Endangered Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos, endemic to the Tristan da Cunha islands, part of the United Kingdom Overseas Territory of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic and the Vulnerable Chatham Albatross T. eremita, endemic to the Chatham Islands, New Zealand.

Gough Island, one of the four breeding localities of the Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross, aerial drone photograph by Chris Jones

With thanks to David Boyle, Chris Jones and Michelle Risi for photographs.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 01 December 2025

 Wisdom shows her well-known red colour band Z333, photograph by Jon Plissner, USFWS

UPDATE:

"This year’s return marks a slightly earlier arrival for Wisdom compared to recent seasons. Refuge staff are delighted to announce her mate has arrived on November 25!  He is banded as EX25 and does not [yet] have a name. Although Wisdom is not on our live camera, we are so excited to see a potential egg in the near future." {click here}.

Wisdom and her mate, EX25, find each other, photograph by Chris Forster, 25 November 2025

***************************************** 

At approximately 75 years old, Wisdom, the oldest known Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis, has been seen back on Midway Atoll this month as the 2025/26 breeding season gets underway.

“Biologists [Chandler Robbins] first banded Wisdom in 1956 on Midway, after she laid an egg, and Laysan albatross typically don’t breed before age 5.  In her extraordinary lifetime, she is estimated to have produced 50-60 eggs, with as many as 30 chicks fledged!  Her arrival this year is slightly earlier than usual, though her mate from last year has not yet been observed by refuge staff.  Last [2024/25] season, Wisdom successfully laid an egg.  Unfortunately, this chick did not fledge, as not all eggs will survive to fledging every year.”

Information from the Facebook page of the Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and here.

Read more about Wisdom in numerous articles posted to ACAP Latest News over the last decade or so.

You can now follow the 2025/26 breeding season for Laysan Albatrosses on Midway via a live “albicam”.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 25 November 2025

Swakopmund is a coastal town situated on the edge of the Namib Desert

The Fifteenth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC15) will be held from Monday 1 to Friday 5 June 2026, in Swakopmund, Namibia.

Meetings of the Population and Conservation Status Working Group and the Seabird Bycatch Working Group will precede AC15, PaCSWG9 on Monday 25 May, and SBWG13 from Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 May.  A joint SBWG13/PaCSWG9 meeting will be held on Tuesday 26 May to discuss cross-cutting issues.  A Heads of Delegation meeting will be convened on Sunday 31 May in the late afternoon/evening.

The deadlines for submission and distribution of meeting documents for AC15 and the Working Group meetings are:

23 January 2026  Draft agenda for AC15 (and Working Groups) distributed by the Secretariat
24 February 2026  Inclusion of new items in the meeting agendas
26 March 2026  Revised draft agendas for AC15, and Working Group meetings distributed
26 March 2026  Submission of AC15 Working Papers and Working Group Papers requiring translation (only the abstracts of WG papers will be translated, however, full documents are required by this deadline)
11 April 2026  Submission of AC15 Information Papers and Working Group Information Papers
25 April 2026  Meeting documents distributed in all working languages by the Secretariat (by publication on the ACAP website).

The draft agenda for AC15 as reviewed by AC14 is provided in Attachment 1.  Draft agendas for PaCSWG9, SBWG13, and the joint SBWG13/PaCSWG9 meeting will be provided by 23 January 2026.

The deadlines for submission of requests for Observer status to attend AC15 and the Working Group meetings are:

24 February 2026  Deadline for submission of written requests for observer status by international bodies and non-international bodies
26 March 2026  International bodies and non-international bodies advised if their request for observer status has been approved.

Information on the venue and accommodation will be provided in Meeting Circular No. 2.

ACAP Secretariat, 28 November 2025