The latest issue, No. 16, December 2025, of the Quarterly Newsletter of the Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project , along with all previous issues, can be downloaded from the MFM website here.

In this issue:

Year in review: reflecting on 2025 and looking ahead to 2026 - by The MFM Project Team

Saving an island one step at a time - by Roelf Daling, MFM Field Assistant

The Mouse-Free Marion Project becomes a 1% for the Planet Environmental Partner - by John Cooper, MFM News Correspondent

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 16 December 2025

The latest ACAP Species Infographic released today, the 21st to be produced in the 31-species series, is for the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus (Least Concern).  It has been sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Division.  It is the fourth to be produced for an ACAP-listed petrel, following those for the Least Concern Northern Giant Petrel M. halli, the Near Threatened Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea and the Vulnerable White-chinned Petrel P. aequinoctialis.  The other 17 infographics are all for albatrosses.  It is also being produced in the official ACAP languages of French and Spanish, and in Portuguese, reflecting it is a regular visitor to Brazilian waters.  These versions are expected to be released soon.

“Bloody Beauty”.  A scavenging Southern Giant Petrel, artwork in pastels by Marion Schön of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for ACAP, after a photograph by Jaimie Cleeland

The ACAP Species Infographic series has been designed to help inform the public, including school learners, of the threats faced by albatrosses and petrels and what is being and can be done to combat them.  They serve to complement the more detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments, the concise and illustrated ACAP Species Summaries and the ACAP Photo Essay series.  English and Portuguese language versions of the infographics produced to date are available to download here.  French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under Infographies sur les espèces and Infographía sobres las especies.

The 21 infographics produced to date may be freely downloaded at a high resolution to allow for printing professionally in two poster sizes (approximately A2 and A3).  Please note they are only being made available for personal use or when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels – when ACAP will be pleased to receive a mention.  They should not be used for personal gain.

It is intended to produce two more ACAP Species Infographics in the first half of next year in support of World Albatross Day on 19 June (“WAD2026”) and its theme of Habitat Restoration.  They will be for 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.

The ACAP Species Infographics are all created by Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim from Bangkok.  Namo is a graduate of the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design.

With thanks to Jonathon Barrington, Karine Delord, Johannes Fischer and Richard Phillips for their help.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 15 December 2025

Laysan Albatross FV85 on Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund

A Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis with colour band FV85 was recently photographed incubating on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.  The band’s alphanumeric was not from a series known to be used on the island so it was assumed it had come from another breeding locality.

Photographer Hob Osterlund, Founder of the Kauaʻi Albatross Network, contacted the USA’s Bird Banding Laboratory with the bird’s details and heard back with a Certificate of Appreciation “in record time”.  It was metal and colour banded as a chick on 20 June 2009 on Tern Island, French Frigates Shoals in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, some 700 km from Kauai.

The mystery Laysan Albatross on Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund

What the albatross was up to and where between 2009 and 2025 is, and is likely to remain, unknown.

Information and photographs from the Facebook page of Hob Osterlund – with thanks.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 12 December 2025

Black Petrel chick by Maureen Bennetts of ABUN for ACAP, after a photograph by Biz Bell

The Live Ocean Foundation is working to help conserve the ACAP-listed and Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni, endemic to just two islands off New Zealand’s North Island.  With only around 5000 breeding pairs remaining, the Black Petrel is considered to be one of New Zealand’s most at-risk seabirds, facing threats from fishing bycatch, predation, light pollution and habitat loss.  The project wishes to raise funds for 20 GPS trackers to follow fledgling Black Petrels on their first migration and uncover why so few return.  

“This project aims to reverse the decline of the tākoketai black petrel population through tracking their migration, international collaboration, and advocacy.  By supporting long-term research, developing mitigation strategies, and building partnerships across the Pacific Flyway, Live Ocean and its partners aim to rebuild the population to enable future translocation into historic habitats.”

Biz Bell of Wildlife Management International writes “The ultimate goal is to chart a course for recovery and protection of this on the brink species, so that we might see their return to some former nesting sites right around the North Island.”

You can support the project by making a donation here.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 11 December 2025