The Laysan Albatross chick with an oyster band around its upper mandible

Isabelle Beaudoin, a seabird biologist currently on Kure Atoll (Hōlanikū ) in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, writes a weekly blog on her observations and thoughts for the Facebook page of the Kure Atoll Conservancy.  Her latest article follows on from a recent report in ACAP Latest News describing how she saved a Laysan Albatross or mōlī Phoebastria imuutabilis chick by removing an ingested balloon.  Now she reports on another Laysan Albatross chick that had manged to get its beak entangled with an oyster band or ring.

Isabelle writes:

“Another bird had their lucky break this week.  When Tlell [colleague on Kure] was doing a duck check … she came upon a mōlī chick with a bright green oyster ring wrapped around its upper bill mandible.   These birds are attracted to bright-coloured objects and frequently pick up bright pieces of plastic on the ground to mouth them, sort of like a puppy does to investigate their world.  They often, for example, come up to my sandals and nibble the brightly coloured flagging tape I have on them to distinguish them as mine, and they will come up to nibble at bright yellow buckets that I put down for laundry.  These oyster rings are all over the ground on Hōlanikū, because albatross adults mistake them for food out at sea and bring them back to be fed to chicks.  The chicks then eventually either cough them up as a bolus, or they die, and the oyster ring stays on the ground for more chicks to pick up.  This chick had gotten the ring wedged around its bill, and Tlell was able to get it off the bird.”

In 2023 “Plastic Pollution” was ACAP‘s theme for World Albatross Day on 19 June. Bothe entangling with and ingestion of plastic items continue to be a problem for the world’s albatrosses.

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

Wandering Albatross in flight, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Yusuke Goto (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Japan) and colleagues have published online in the journal PNAS on comparing the flying strategies of Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans with the sailing strategies of racing yachts in the Southern Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The way goal-oriented birds adjust their travel direction and route in response to wind significantly affects their travel costs.  This is expected to be particularly pronounced in pelagic seabirds, which utilize a wind-dependent flight style called dynamic soaring.  Dynamic soaring seabirds in situations without a definite goal, e.g. searching for prey, are known to preferentially fly with crosswinds or quartering-tailwinds to increase the speed and search area, and reduce travel costs.  However, little is known about their reaction to wind when heading to a definite goal, such as homing.  Homing tracks of wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) vary from beelines to zigzags, which are similar to those of sailboats. Here, given that both albatrosses and sailboats travel slower in headwinds and tailwinds, we tested whether the time-minimizing strategies used by yacht racers can be compared to the locomotion patterns of wandering albatrosses.  We predicted that when the goal is located upwind or downwind, albatrosses should deviate their travel directions from the goal on the mesoscale and increase the number of turns on the macroscale.  Both hypotheses were supported by track data from albatrosses and racing yachts in the Southern Ocean confirming that albatrosses qualitatively employ the same strategy as yacht racers.  Nevertheless, albatrosses did not strictly minimize their travel time, likely making their flight robust against wind fluctuations to reduce flight costs.  Our study provides empirical evidence of tacking in albatrosses and demonstrates that man-made movement strategies provide a new perspective on the laws underlying wildlife movement.”

Reference:

Goto, Y., Weimerskirch, H., Fukaya, K., Yoda, K., Naruoko, M. & Sato, K. 2024.  Albatrosses employ orientation and routing strategies similar to yacht racers.  PNAS 121 No. 23 e231285112.

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

Sooty Albatross on Amsterdam Island, photograph by Dominique Filippi

Yves Cherel and Colette Trouvé (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) have published in the journal Deep–Sea Research I on the squid diets of Phoebetria albatrosses on two French islands in the southern Indian Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

Using a total of ~7000 accumulated beaks sorted from 92 food samples, the cephalopod diet of sooty albatross Phoebetria fusca was determined for the first time at the subtropical Amsterdam Island (3898 beaks from 53 food samples), and it was compared with prey eaten at the subantarctic Crozet Islands (3085 beaks from 39 samples).  At Amsterdam Island, sooty albatross fed on 42 cephalopod taxa that included the dominant Histioteuthis atlantica (34.7% by number of beaks) and juvenile Ommastrephes cylindraceus/Todarodes filippovae (10.1%). They preyed primarily upon cephalopods that have a wide latitudinal distribution (55.1%), with subtropical species ranking second (25.8%), and Southern Ocean endemics third (19.1%). By contrast, birds from Crozet Islands fed primarily on Southern Ocean endemics (80.7%), followed by subtropical species (14.8%), and taxa with a wide distribution (4.5%).  There, the main prey were adult Histioteuthis eltaninae (24.6%), Batoteuthis skolops (27.2%) and Galiteuthis glacialis (16.2%).  Sympatric sooty and light-mantled sooty P. palpebrata albatrosses from Crozet Islands segregated by feeding on different prey indicating different foraging grounds north and south of the archipelago, respectively.  Light-mantled sooty albatross fed almost exclusively on Southern Ocean endemics (98.2%), such as G. glacialis (44.4%), Psychroteuthis glacialis (21.4%), H. eltaninae (13.4%) and Moroteuthopsis longimana (10.2%).  Including cephalopod prey of sooty albatross to the previous investigations on teuthofauna from the southern Indian Ocean added southern subtropical species to Southern Ocean taxa.  Overall, teuthofauna of this vast oceanic zone hosts at least 71 cephalopod species, including two bathyteuthids, 56 oegopsids, two sepiolids, three cirrate and seven incirrate octopods, and the vampyroteuthid Vampyroteuthis infernalis.\

Reference:

Cherel, Y & Trouvé, C. 2024.  .Comparison of cephalopods eaten by sooty albatross Phoebetria fusca breeding in subtropical and subantarctic waters, and teuthofauna of the southern Indian Ocean.  Deep–Sea Research I 206 104262.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 14 April 2025

Personal note:  It has been three decades since I published (with the late Norbert Klages) on the squid diet of Phoebetria albatrosses!

Cooper, J. & Klages, N.T.W. 1995.  The diets and dietary segregation of sooty albatrosses (Phoebetria spp.) at subantarctic Marion Island.  Antarctic Science 7: 15-23.

(A) Map of Gough Island and relevant features, with an inset map of the 2 study areas (Gonydale and Hummocks) that were cloud-free in the satellite image.  (B) Satellite image (33 cm resolution downsampled to 30 cm resolution) showing GPS coordinates of Tristan albatross nests from ground surveys in 2018, and nests and presumed non-breeders observed in imagery. Three random examples from the satellite image shows an individual nesting Tristan albatross as light pixels in the centre of the panel (from the publication)

Marie Attard (British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK) and colleagues have published in access in the journal Endangered Species Research on attempting to monitor Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena using satellite imagery.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The Tristan albatross Diomedea dabbenena is a Critically Endangered species that breeds exclusively on remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Although the population continues to decline, regular on-the-ground monitoring of Tristan albatross populations is logistically challenging and costly. If this monitoring is reduced in the future, then alternative methods would be necessary to track long-term population trends.  Here, we assessed the viability of using 31 cm resolution satellite imagery to count Tristan albatrosses during the breeding season on Gough Island.  Counts of birds in a satellite image by 2 wildlife remote-sensing specialists were compared with GPS coordinates of active nests recorded in the field.  Birds were detected at 103 (67.8%) of the 152 active nests in the cloud-free regions of the satellite image.   Acquiring suitable imagery is challenging because upland nesting sites are prone to low-lying orographic cloud, with only 1 cloud-free image obtained across 8 seasons of archived and 1 yr of tasked imagery. Our research demonstrates that due to incomplete detection, and the limited availability of suitable imagery resulting from persistent cloud cover over the island, Tristan albatrosses cannot be reliably counted or monitored with available satellite imagery.  Differences in detection probability were not explained by nest attributes or bird plumage colouration. More commercial satellites in orbit may improve chances of obtaining cloud-free imagery across the island in the future, but until then, on-the-ground monitoring is required if we are to obtain accurate population counts and for the UK to meet its commitments to monitor this species.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips, Britih Antarctic Survey.

Reference:

Attard, M.R.G., Phillips, R.A., Oppel, S., Bowler, E. & Fretwell, P.T. 2025.  Feasibility of using very high-resolution satellite imagery to monitor Tristan albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena on Gough Island.  Endangered Species Research 56: 187-199.

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