A Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross family on Gough Island; artwork by Di Roberts from photographs by Tom McSherry & Michelle Risi

Today is Endangered Species Day, a campaign of the Endangered Species Coalition, a USA-based environmental NGO.  The coalition’s mission “is to stop the human-caused extinction of our nation’s at-risk species, to protect and restore their habitats, and to guide these fragile populations along the road to recovery”.

“Every year on the third Friday in May, thousands of people around the world participate in Endangered Species Day by celebrating, learning about, and taking action to protect threatened and endangered species.  Wildlife refuges, zoos, aquariums, gardens, schools, libraries, museums, community groups, nonprofits, and individuals hold special programs or events for people of all ages.  Due to the global coronavirus crisis, the programs organized for Endangered Species Day 2021 will primarily be online events, digital actions, and remote activities.”  2021 will be the 16th time the day has been marked.

Eleven of the 31 ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters have been categorized as either globally Critically Endangered or Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), nine of them being albatrosses.  The three Critically Endangered species are the Tristan Diomedea dabbenena and Waved Phoebastria irrorata Albatrosses and the Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus.

And tomorrow is World Biodiversity Day, known more formally as the International Day for Biological Diversity.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 May 2021

Southern Giant Petrel by Pat Latas, from a photograph by Michelle Risi

Júlia Victória Grohmann Finger (Laboratório de Ornitologia e Animais Marinhos, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, São Leopoldo, Brazil) and colleagues have published in the journal Polar Biology on two instances of cannibalism by male Southern Giant Petrels on the Antarctic Peninsula.

A male Southern Giant Petrel  feeds on a conspecific chick after removing it from its nest, from the publication

The short note’s abstract follows:

“Southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) are a scavenger and predatory species with highly opportunistic feeding habits. Although cannibalism is a likely behavior for a predatory and colonial species, there are no confirmed records of this behavior for giant petrels. In this study, we describe two cases of cannibalism in a population of southern giant petrels breeding at Harmony Point (62°18′S; 59°10′W), Nelson Island. In both cases, a male giant petrel preyed upon a nestling. Our records confirm that heterocannibalism is part of the behavior repertoire of male southern giant petrels.”

With thanks to Janine Dunlop, Niven Librarian, FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town.

Reference:

Grohmann Finger, J.V., Corá, D.H., Petry, M.V. & Krüger, L. 2021.  Cannibalism in southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) at Nelson Island, Maritime Antarctic Peninsula. Polar Biology doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02859-8. Scroll down on the reference to watch a short video of cannabalistic feeding.

*Raffish:  “unconventional and slightly disreputable, especially in an attractive way”.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 May 2021

Balearic Shearweater at sea, photograph by Pep Arcos

Maite Louzao (Marine Research, Basque Research and Technology Alliance, Pasaia, Spain) and colleagues have published open access in the electronic journal PeerJ on the at-sea movements of juvenile Balearic Shearwaters Puffinus mauretanicus (Critically Endangered).

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Increasing human activities have detrimental consequences on marine ecosystems and their impact can have cumulative effects. Within marine ecosystems, seabirds respond to ecosystem variability and face multiple human pressures, especially threatened species. In long-lived species, juveniles and immatures could represent up to 50% of the total population, but their migratory movements remain largely unknown. Here, we depict the migratory patterns of juvenile Balearic shearwaters Puffinus mauretanicus, the most threatened European seabird, using miniaturised satellite transmitters. At the end of the 2012 breeding season, five tagged juveniles left the breeding colonies of Eivissa Island (western Mediterranean) the first week of July. They moved westwards to reach the Atlantic Ocean between 3 and 13 days afterwards. Juveniles showed a two-phase migratory pattern: they first travelled slower close to the breeding colonies, and then moved towards their wintering areas in the Atlantic Ocean by rapid directional movements. Environmental cues (e.g.,marine productivity, water mass distribution, frontal systems) might have a prominent role in driving the migratory patterns of juvenile Balearic shearwaters, moving from warm and poor marine areas in the Mediterranean Sea to cooler and rich non-breeding grounds in the Atlantic Ocean. Based on observational findings, we observed certain spatial overlap of juvenile Balearic shearwaters with areas of high human impact, but the relationship between flying travel speed and both fishing effort and cumulative human impacts were not statistically significant. These results suggest that more research is needed to assess whether the movement patterns of migrating juveniles are affected by human activities. Therefore, understanding the at-sea spatial ecology of juveniles should be a priority for research and conservation due to the importance of this population component in long-lived species, as well as assessing their vulnerability to multiple anthropogenic pressures.”

Reference:

Louzao, M., Delord, K., García, D., Afán, I., Arcos, J.M. & Weimerskirch, H. 2021.  First days at sea: depicting migration patterns of juvenile seabirds in highly impacted seascapes. PeerJ 9: e11054 doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11054.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 May 2021

The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) is an inter-governmental organisation that is committed to the long-term conservation and sustainable use of the fishery resources of the South Pacific Ocean.  The Secretariat of the Commission for the SPRFMO is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand.  The SPRFMO Convention applies to the high seas of the South Pacific, covering about a fourth of the Earth's high-seas areas. Currently, the main commercial resources fished in the SPRFMO area are Pacific Jack Mackerel Trachurus symmetricus and Jumbo Flying or Humboldt Squid Dosidicus gigas in the south-east Pacific and, to a much lesser degree, deep-sea species often associated with seamounts in the south-west Pacific.

The SPRFMO Commission is now inviting applications for the position of Data Manager.  The appointee will be responsible for a wide range of data-related activities, including the design and efficient operation of fisheries data systems, data collection, quality checking, data storage, and facilitation of appropriate data access. The position involves some website administration and support for science (as necessary).

Area covered by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation

“This is a cool little Secretariat and everyone is desperately wanting to join us, so we suggest you submit your application sooner rather than later” (from the SPRFMO Facebook page).  Applications must be received by 29 June 2021.  Read more here on the post and application process.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 May 2021