Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge set to track ACAP-listed Black-footed Albatrosses and Pink-footed Shearwaters at sea

The aerial is visible on this Black-footed Albatross tagged on Laysan Island.  The satellite transmitter is taped to back feathers and is expected to fall off in c. three months

The USA-based environmental NGO, Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge has been busy fitting tracking devices to two ACAP-listed species in two hemispheres,  They are the Near Threatened Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes in the USA’s North-Western Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and on in the north and the Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus on Chile’s Juan Fernández Archipelago in the south.

Information from the Februaty 2024 Newsletter (subscribe here).

Black-footed Albatross - Laysan Island

Jessie Beck and Ilana Nimz  of Oikonos, along with members of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service  visited Laysan Island in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument last month for a single day and deployed 10 satellite transmitters and 20 archival Global Location Sensing (GLS) tags on adult Black-footed Albatrosses.  The study builds on “two decades of work to better understand albatross mortality in fisheries (termed bycatch) throughout the North Pacific.”  A separate team is on Kure Atoll, the most western island within the monument, deploying more tags on Black-footed Albatrosses.

North-Western Hawaiian Islands within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (solid line)

Pink-footed Shearwater - Santa Clara and Robinson Crusoe Islands

Recently, an Oikonos team visited Santa Clara and Robinson Crusoe Islands in the Juan Fernández Archipelago  to study Pink-footed Shearwaters. The team equipped 39 shearwaters with GLS tags and six with satellite transmitters.  This study is funded by Environment Canada and is a collaboration with the Department of Oceanography, Universidad de Concepción.  Studying aspects of the biology and conservation of the Pink-footed Shearwaters (including by tracking on migration) is a long-standing project of Oikonos.  News from the Oikonos Facebook page.

A Pink-footed Shearwater shows the aerial of its back-mounted satellite tracker, all photographs from Oikonos

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 07 March 2024