Southern Giant Petrel breeding on the Frazier Islands, East Antarctica, photograph by Jeroen Creuwels

Colin Southwell (Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Diversity and Distributions on mapping seabird colonies in Antarctica, including of the ACAP-listed Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Aim

To map presence, absence and ignorance of Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy at the spatial resolution of ice-free habitat sites to identify knowledge gaps and inform management and conservation.

Location

East Antarctica between longitudes 30° E and 150° E.

Methods

We develop a unifying spatial and inferential framework to compile and interpret observations of Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy. The spatial framework allowed consistent geo-referencing of observations at the spatial resolution of habitat sites. The compilation included published papers and datasets, unpublished reports, research station logs and unpublished field notes. Where possible, observations and inferences were validated by the ‘experts’ who originally collected data. The inferential framework categorised levels of uncertainty for inferring occupancy and distinguished knowledge of occupancy from ignorance.

Results

After a century of observations, there are still knowledge gaps in seabird breeding occupancy along large sections of the East Antarctic coastline and across most of continental East Antarctica where breeding habitat is available. The spatial extent of knowledge and ignorance is strongly dependent on the level of certainty used to infer absence. Observations are clustered close to permanently occupied research stations, most of which are located on the coast, and biased in favour of species that are most emblematic of Antarctica or those with a less secure conservation status. The spatial and temporal coverage of observations in recent decades would be insufficient to effectively detect change in most species' breeding occupancy distributions across their range into the future.

Main Conclusions

Our compilation and mapping of occupancy data contributes to practical conservation measures to mitigate impacts of human activities including aviation and fisheries on seabirds in Antarctica, and serves as a foundation to strategically improve future environmental management and conservation. We urge future occupancy monitoring to explicitly report the location of search effort and potential absence in addition to presence and to aim to close spatial knowledge gaps.”

Read a popular article on the publication here.

Reference:

Colin Southwell, Louise Emmerson, Nat Kelly, Dale Maschette, John Arnould, Christophe Barbraud, Jeroen Creuwels, Robyn Delaney, Karine Delord, John Gibson, Ken Green, Mark Hindell, Harold Heatwole, Peter Hodum, Cindy L. Hull, Akiko Kato, Nobuo Kokubun, Anna Lashko, Gary Miller, Ian Norman, Frederique Olivier, Anant Pande, Graham Robertson, Marcus Salton, Akinori Takahashi, Jan van Franeker, Simon Ward, Barbara Wieneke & Eric J. Woehler  2025.  Mapping Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy from a century of observations to inform environmental management and conservation.  Diversity and Distributions 31(9).  e70066.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 02 January 2026

Laysan Albatrosses breed on a coastal bluff on Kauai – safe from predicted sea level rise, photograph by Hob Osterlund

By far the largest part of the global breeding population of the Laysan Albatross or mōlī Phoebastria immutabilis is to be found on the low-lying atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  In addition, smaller numbers breed on the inhabited Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Oahu, considered safe from sea level rise.  Information is to hand that the numbers breeding on Kauai this season are the highest known.

Hob Osterlund, Kaua’i Albatross Network writes on Facebook “good news for the Mōlī Class of 2026: this year on Kauaʻi we have a total of 458 nests, which is an all-time high for the years weʻve been counting [the previous high was 400].  Of course this number is tiny compared to the hundreds of thousands at Kuaihihelani (Midway Atoll), but we have three things albatross will need as Kuaihelani gets submerged by sea level rise: elevated bluffs, an absence of mongoose, and people who care”.

Laysan Albatrosses within Kauai’s Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge are also doing well, with a total of 194 occupied nests counted for the 2025/26 season, 40 more nests than in the previous season, according to the Facebook page of the Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges.  These birds are now protected from feral pigs and other pests by predator-proof fencing (click here).

Other news from Kauai is that the Kīlauea Point NWR participated in the annual Laysan Albatross egg swap with the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF).

“The project is led by a team of Biologists from PMRF, located on the west side of Kauaʻi, and supported by our partners at Pacific Rim Conservation, along with the Refuge Biologist and FWS volunteers.  “Due to the potential for airstrikes, mōlī in the PMRF colony are a risk to aircraft and to themselves.  Therefore, their biologists employ multiple approaches as they work to reduce the size of their colony, while making investments in the success of other nesting sites across Kauaʻi.  Through the project, fertile eggs are removed from the PMRF mōlī colony and transported to Kīlauea Point NWR where they replace non-viable eggs within our Refuge’s two colonies.  Through a process called “candling”, biologists can identify eggs that are non-viable – either because they were not fertilized or are damaged. They can then “swap” the eggs and our adoptive nesters will get to raise ex-PMRF chicks, which will imprint upon the safe colonies at Kīlauea Point NWR and eventually return to our hatching sites, rather than PMRF.” (from Wild Times of December 2025, the online newsletter of the Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges).

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 01 January 2026, updated 04 January 2026

A Black-footed Albatross pair on Kure Atoll, November 2025

The annual albatross nest count on Kure Atoll (Hōlanikū) in the Northwestern Pacific Islands for the 2025/26 breeding season has been completed, yielding a total of over 41 thousand occupied nests.  Species totals were 38 153 nests for the Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis and 3042 for the Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes.

A Laysan Albatross pair on Kure Atoll, November 2025

“Each nest represents new life and continued hope for these iconic seabirds!  Mahalo to everyone who helps protect Hōlanikū and the wildlife that call it home.”

Two Short-tailed Albatrosses seen on Kure Atoll, November-December 2025

At least three Short-tailed Albatrosses P. albatrus were spotted on Kure Atoll during November 2025.  All the posted photographs are of birds in non-adult plumage, although birds in adult plumage have been previously seen on the atoll.  From at least 2010 to 2018 a female-female pair (both banded as chicks on Torishima and of known age) laid infertile eggs on Kure Atoll.  Short-tailed Albatross decoys have been deployed on Kure in the hope of encouraging breeding.

Metal-banded hybrid Black-footed-Laysan Albatross, Kure Atoll, December 2025

Information and photographs from weekly reports from the field team on the Facebook page of the Kure Atoll Conservancy.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 31 December 2025

 Antipodean Albatross off North Cape, New Zealand, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Ho Fung Wong (Ocean Futures Research Cluster, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Queensland, Australia) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Biological Conservation on interactions between Endangered Antipodean Albatrosses Diomedea antipodensis satellite tracked from Antipodes Island and fishing vessels in the South Pacific Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Fisheries bycatch poses a major threat to marine predators and remains a global challenge to sustainable fisheries.  Conservation and management strategies can be informed by identifying zones of overlap between fishing effort and threatened, endangered or protected species, or existing bycatch hotspots.  However, few studies have incorporated ocean data and the age and sex classes of seabirds into these assessments.  Here, we examined the environmental conditions that drive fisheries interaction risk for the endangered Antipodean albatross (Diomedea antipodensis antipodensis).  Specifically, we assessed interaction risk by combining satellite-tracking data from 192 individuals across age and sex classes of all life stages with data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel-tracking program.  The integration of satellite-tracking and oceanographic data facilitated assessment of how physical ocean features — such as recurring thermal fronts, turbulent ocean mixing, and swirling eddies — shaped high-risk interaction zones.  Hotspots of interaction risk spanned from 25°S to 40°S and varied seasonally.  Overall, interaction risk was significantly higher during May–August and among juveniles.  Over broad climatological scales, the interaction risk was greatest where thermal fronts occur frequently.  At finer scales, interaction risk was intensified in association with aggregative Lagrangian Coherent Structures.  These findings suggest that Regional Fisheries Management Organisations could take immediate action, such as extending current bycatch mitigation measures to include fishing grounds between 25 and 30°S, to cover the hotspots for juvenile and female seasonally.  Incorporating measures of mesoscale ocean dynamics in delineating zones of interaction risk for species of conservation concern provides a potential step forward for dynamic threat management.”

Reference:

Fung Wong, H., Schoeman, D., Miller, P.I., Bentley, L., Halpin, L., Fischer, J.H., Debski, I., Bose, S., Elliott, G., Walker, K. & Scales, K.L. 2026.  Mesoscale ocean dynamics structure fisheries interaction risk for an endangered seabird.  Biological Conservation 313.  111574.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 30 December 2025