Steeple Jason is the second largest island in the Jason Islands Group, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*.  The uninhabited island, a private nature reserve since 1970 that is owned by the Wildlife Conservation Society, supports breeding populations of two ACAP-listed species: Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris and Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus.  The island supports the largest colony of the former species in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*.

Back in November last year Falklands Conservation (BirdLife partner) travelled to Steeple Jason as part of the Falkland Islands Seabird Monitoring Programme (FISMP) to survey breeding albatrosses and penguins.  Equipped with a home-made World Albatross Day banner (and the novelty of a drone) the team obtained some great photos from the edge of an albatross colony.

From left: Sarah Crofts, Megan Tierney and Peter Wessels

The above two photos by drone: the albatrosses appear to take no notice

Sarah Crtofts works on the banner destined for Steeple Jason

Before the field trip Conservation Officer Sarah Crofts wrote to ACAP Latest News: “World Albatross Day brings awareness of the global conservation plight of these extraordinarily long-lived ocean navigators.  It also celebrates the efforts achieved by scientists, conservationists, governments and industry working together to sustain albatross populations into the future". 

Steeple Jason is the ninth albatross island to be part of the ‘WAD2020 Banner Challenge’, and the first for the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*.  More islands are expected to be added to the list, hopefully also including several in the northern Hemisphere.  If a few more islands are included it is intended to make a poster of the banner photos in time for World Albatross Day on 19 June that will be freely available for downloading.

With thanks to Sarah Crofts and Peter Wessels, Falklands Conservation and Megan Tierney, Joint Nature Conservation Committee.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 January 2019

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

ACAP is particularly pleased to be able to collaborate with ABUN (Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature) with its 30th Project that will lead to the creation of a World Albatross Day banner to help illustrate the conservation crisis that continues to be faced by the world’s 22 species of albatrosses.  The involvement of nature and wildlife artists in this way will enable the general public to become more aware of the problem and thus be able to lend their support to helping save these majestic birds.

Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature was founded by Brazilian-based Kitty Harvill and Christoph Hrdina in 2016.  ABUN is a collection of nature and wildlife artists, serving the conservation community with their images for use in promoting awareness.  “We range from beginners and hobby artists, children and adults to seasoned professionals, joined together by our love of nature and desire to be of service to that cause, the process of creating art and the respect for all artistic expressions produced in the group.”

Kitty writes enthusiastically on ABUN’s Facebook page on the first day of the new year: “ABUN #30 - WORLD ALBATROSS DAY is 'Live'.  With all 22 species we will be bringing you a species every few days to give you more information regarding details such as specific traits, range, etc.  Enjoy this wonderful project - let's UNITE to give ACAP some beautiful artwork to use in their celebration this 19 June for the FIRST World Albatross Day!!”

Artists wishing to contribute to ABUN #30 have until 29 February to submit their artwork for posting.  ACAP has supplied over 130 photographs featuring all 22 species to the ABUN album that artists can use as inspiration (although they may produce their art from other photos, or from direct observation or their imagination).  There is no limit to the number of paintings each artist may submit, although each artist will be limited to a maximum of four images on the World Albatross Day banner that ABUN will create for ACAP’s use after the project ends in two months’ time.  A bonus is that the artists give the right to ACAP to use the images of their paintings as educational and marketing material once they have been posted.

The thousand ABUN members are clearly an enthusiastic lot.  In less than 48 hours of launching the project, three of them have already submitted their artwork - as illustrated here along with the ACAP photos that inspired them.  Pleasing also to note is the friendly way they interact online encouraging each other.  ACAP’S Information Officer is looking forward to working with ABUN over the next two months – he expects to be kept busy!

 Oli Yates photographed this Black-browed Albatross on Beauchene Island (right) in the South Atlantic in November 2005; Arkansas-based Sue DuVall made the painting (left)

ABUN artist Lea Finke has painted this globally Endangered Grey-headed Albatross that was photographed on its pedestal nest on Marion Island by PhD student Stefan Schoombie

Read more about how ABUN works here.

Kitty Harvill has featured in ACAP Latest News before.  She is the illustrator of the children’s book on Wisdom, the female Laysan Albatross who is  the world’s oldest known bird (see ALN’s review), still going strong at an estimated 69 years of age.

With grateful thanks to Kitty Harvill, all the ABUN artists and to all the many photographers who have generously allowed their work to be used by ACAP in the service of albatross conservation. You may well get a painting by an ABUN artist to go with your photo!

This pencil drawing of a globally Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatross for ABUN#30 is by Georgia Feild from the USA

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 January 2020

A Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli was photographed off the coast of Washington, USA in the North Pacific on 8 December 2019 from the vessel Pacific Hustler while it was fishing for Black Cod or Sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria.  The bird can be identified specifically by the reddish tip to its bill.  Based on its rather uniform dark plumage it does not appear to be an adult.

Northern Giant Petrels breed on sub-Antarctic islands in the Southern Ocean with a circumpolar oceanic distribution recorded north to 25-28ºS, so the photographed bird was indeed a long way from home.

The Northern Giant Petrel along with Black-footed Albatrosses Phoebastria nigripes and dark-phase Arctic Fulmars Fulmarus glacialis, photograph by Zed Blue

Checking my home library it seems this may be the first definite trans-equatorial record of a Northern Giant Petrel (although a Southern Giant Petrel M. giganteus has been sighted north of the Equator in the Atlantic).

Information from the Western Washington Birders.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 January 2020

Over two summers from 2006 to 2008 I lived on Gough Island in the South Atlantic where – among other tasks – I and colleagues set up a long-term study colony of biennially breeding and Critically Endangered Tristan Albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena in a mountain valley known as Gonydale  The main purpose was to learn more about the birds’ breeding success and survival rate in the face of onslaughts by the island’s introduced House Mice Mus musculus that attack and cause the death of their downy chicks during the austral winters.

Mice attack a Tristan Albatross chick at night - it did not survive; photograph by Ross Wanless

In the decade since then successive teams of dedicated field biologists have continued every year to monitor the albatrosses that we first colour banded and staked, recording their less than natural breeding success and too often witnessing dead and dying chicks after nights of attacks by mice.  Such sights are hard to take, even for biologists used to watching predation and mortality in the field.  In 2017/18 Australian Kate Lawrence, veteran of two seasons of albatross research on Macquarie Island, was no exception, writing movingly of watching mice kill an Endangered Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos chick at night on Gough, saying as she watched it die that she felt: “incredibly sad and sick to my stomach”.

KIate recovers marker poles from failed Tristan Albatross nests due to mice during a heart-breaking survey in the Gonydale study colony on Gough Island, July 2018

Mouse attacks on Gough’s adult albatrosses have been reported on in the last two years (click here), making next year’s eradication attempt by the Gough Island Restoration Programme (GIRP) even more urgent – loss of breeding adults will cause species’ declines and possible local extinction faster than if only chicks are killed.  Kate returns to Gough Island this coming February on the New Zealand-registered expedition yacht Evohe as a GIRP Field Specialist.  She will be helping set up aviculture facilities, catching endemic and Critically Endangered Gough Finches Rowettia goughensis and Vulnerable Gough Moorhens Gallinula comeri (both considered at risk to non-target poisoning from the eradication exercise) and then helping with the husbandry of the captive birds.

Predation by mice on albatrosses on Gough, as well as on Marion and Midway Islands, was a compelling impetus for choosing the theme “Eradicating Island Pests” for next year’s inaugural World Albatross Day (WAD2020) on 19 June.

Before returning to Gough Island Kate has written to ACAP Latest News in support of WAD2020:

“I have been showing the baby to everyone and asking what they think it is and they always say a penguin!" was one response I got when I sent a photo of a Light-mantled Albatross [Phoebetria palpebrata] chick, alone and alert on its nest on Macquarie Island, to family and friends.  It reinforced to me how privileged I was to be working with such amazing creatures, species that many people do not get the chance to encounter in their lifetime.  World Albatross Day is an opportunity and a reminder to share our experiences far and wide, to highlight the conservation needs of these majestic birds and to spread the albatross love!”

With the love and commitment to help that biologists like Kate feel towards the world’s threatened albatrosses ACAP Latest News expects she and her GIRP colleagues will have a successful campaign on Gough in 2020.  I for one will be waiting anxiously to hear that the albatrosses I banded in Gonydale will be able to breed successfully at last.

Recording Tristan Albatross nest data on Gough, January 2018

Photographs of Kate Lawrence by Jaimie Cleeland

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 January 2020