On the Hawaiian island of Kauai the Save Our Shearwaters (SOS) team of the Kauai Humane Society has been supplementary feeding globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis chicks that are known or are thought to have lost a parent by death or injury for the last four years.  To date five single-parent chicks have received extra feeds, leading to four of them fledging.  Their individual stories follow.

At the beginning of April 2015 Cathy Granholm, albatross monitor for a golf course in the Princeville community on Kauai’s north shore, was made aware that one of the adults (band numbers K164/1517-86432) of a Laysan Albatross breeding pair had been “taken” (killed) as bycatch in a long-line fishery approximately six weeks previously. Following supplementary feeding the chick fledged in good condition.  This coming 2018/2019 breeding season will be the first that this bird might return to Kauai as a three-year-old.

In 2015 a breeding Laysan Albatross appeared to have collided with a fence that had been erected while the bird was at sea and its resulting injuries required treatment at the SOS facility. The parent was in care for 22 days and while the adult was recovering, supplemental feeds were given to its chick.  A reunion video showed that the adult did not fly out immediately on release but went over to the chick and spent some time with it before heading out to sea. Unfortunately a check on the chick a week later found it dead.  There was too much decomposition to determine the cause of death but it was found right next to an area of the fence in a spot where dogs on the other side could potentially have got through.

In the third case of supplementary feeding a breeding adult on a private property on the north shore was injured in early April 2016 during a tagging study and it later died while in rehabilitative care.  The chick successfully fledged between 8-12 July 2016.

The fourth case is of a chick banded H694 and known as Kiamanu that fledged over 13/14 July 2018.  Because the nest was under 24-hour watch by an “albicam” it was determined that the chick's male parent had not returned in quite some time.  On assessment the chick was severely underweight and behind in its growth.  It was fed every two to three days throughout the remainder of the chick-rearing period although closer to fledging the feeds were spaced farther apart. The camera operators were able to let the feeder Christa McLeod know when the surviving female parent was back and feeding the chick so she could time the feeds to not interfere with the remaining parent and risk regurgitation by a freshly fed chick

A second 2018 chick was on the Princeville property of Cathy Granholm who realized that the male was not returning prior to hatching. The female had incubated the egg for 46 days and then brooded the hatched chick for a further 10 days before finally succumbing to the needs of her body and left to feed herself at sea for the first time in 56 days.  Marilou Knight was the feeder for this chick which fledged on 2 July 2018, the fifth to do so since supplementary feeding of Laysan Albatross chicks by SOS commenced in 2015.

The birds were fed a fish slurry composed of several species of fish with additional oil and supplemental vitamins. Squid forms part of the slurry as well but it is not a major component.

Save Our Shearwater’s wildlife rehabilitation activities are conducted under permit and with the Hawaiian State’s and landowners’ permission.

Tracy Anderson, Save Our Shearwaters, Kauai Humane Society & John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 September 2018

The 2015 Princeville golf course chick, photograph by Tracy Anderson

A meal prepared for Kiamanu in 2018, photograph by Christa McLeod

Marilou Knight feeding a single-parent chick in 2018, photograph by Cindy Granholm

Christa McLeod with Kiamanu in 2018, photograph by Hob Osterlund

Eighty years ago on 22 September 1938, late in the afternoon, Lance Richdale watched the first Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi chick fledge from New Zealand’s Taiaroa Head.  Since that beginning in 1938 the colony had produced 500 chicks by 2007.

The Royal Albatross Centre paid tribute to Lance Richdale by hosting a talk by Neville Peat, author of Richdale’s bibliography, on the anniversary date last weekend.  Richdale in 1938 camped for extended periods beside the solitary egg and then the chick, which he nicknamed ‘Sprog’, observing and protecting it until it fledged. Without his dedicated efforts it is doubtful there would now be a royal albatross colony on the mainland of New Zealand’s South Island.

View the 59-minute video of Neville Peat’s lecture “Lance Richdale “Seabird Genius” Albatross Saviour”.

Listen to a radio interview with Otago Peninsula Trust marketing manager, Sophie Barker on the 80-year anniversary here.

Last week bells rang in nearby Dunedin to celebrate the first Northern Royal Albatross returning for the 2018/19 breeding season as the last two (named Biggles and Rocky) of the 2017/18 cohort of 13 chicks prepare to fledge for this biennially-breeding species (click here).  Keep up to date on the albatrosses’ comings and goings at Taiaroa Head on the Royal Albatross Centre Facebook page.

The Northern Royal Albatross or Toroa, endemic to New Zealand, has a national conservation status of Naturally Uncommon and a global status of Endangered.

With thanks to the Royal Albatross Centre.

Reference:

Peat, Neville 2011.  Seabird Genius.  The story of L.E. Richdale, the Royal Albatross, and the Yellow-eyed Penguin.  Dunedin: Otago University Press.  288 pp.  Paperback. ISBN 978 1 877578 11 3.  NZD 45.00. Read ACAP’s review here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 September 2018

PORTFOLIO: First successful breeding attempt, Taiaroa Head, 1938; photographs by Lance Richdale from the Royal Albatross Centre

BirdLife International’s Albatross Task Force (ATF) has released its latest annual progress report- covering highlights of the ATF’s activities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Namibia and South Africa, covering the period April 2017 to March 2018.

A summary circulated by the ATF follows:

“Last year culminated in all of our teams getting together for a workshop in Mar del Plata, Argentina, to share expertise in how to ensure the bycatch regulations we’ve fought so hard for actually work to save vulnerable seabirds. Argentina was the perfect location for these discussions, as in May, regulations requiring trawlers to use bird-scaring lines there came into force. The team have spent the past year working with industry to prepare them for these new rules by supplying bird-scaring lines to over half the fleet, and are now closely watching to see how effective the measures will be in reducing bycatch. In the coming year, we hope to demonstrate that similar regulations in Namibia have resulted in a major reduction since they came into force in 2015.

Twin bird-scaring lines keep Black-browed Albatrosses away from the warp cables behind a South African demersal hake trawler, photograph by Barry Watkins

In Chile, our new “seabird-safe” purse-seine nets - which can reduce seabird bycatch by 98% - were nominated for the Latin American Green Awards 2018, and our collaborative work with this fleet has resulted in excellent relations with national artisanal fishers’ confederation. The Brazilian team have worked closely with the authorities to ensure that seabird bycatch issues are well understood and that regulations are enforced in ports. In South Africa, our longest-standing ATF team, the demersal trawl fleet has maintained its clean slate of no birds caught – and the team stepped up engagement with two longline fleets to look at specially adapted bird-scaring lines for smaller vessels.

These achievements have been made possible due to the collaborative efforts between our in country partners, the RSPB and BirdLife International – as well as funding from the RSPB membership, external donors and generous individual donations. We are extremely thankful for the continued support we receive from you, without which we wouldn’t be able to keep up the fight to save the albatross.”

Click here to read more and to access the ATF annual review.

Additionally, Projeto Albatroz, a NGO that represents the Albatross Task Force in Brazil, has released its own annual report, written in Portuguese and entitled Amar o Mar for the period July 2017 to July 2018.  The document covers activities by the NGO in the fields of research, public policies, environmental education and communication.  Access it here.

With thanks to Nina da Rocha, Albatross Task Force Project Officer

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 September 2018

“Master Logray” (a pseudonym) has designed and built a model of a globally Vulnerable Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans in a flying position with outspread jointed wings and a hinged bill out of LEGO blocks.

The model has been submitted to the LEGO Ideas website in the hope of gaining enough online support so that it might be made commercially available as a set for purchase and building by enthusiasts (see here).

Read more here on the albatross build.

How did LEGO get started?  View a video to find out.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 September 2018