The Eleventh Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC11) will be held over 13-17 May 2019 in Florianópolis, Brazil.  The Ninth Meeting of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG), and Fifth Meeting of the Population and Conservation Status Working Group (PaCSWG) will precede AC11 at the same venue from 10 to 14 May.

The many Meeting Documents and Information Papers for the two working groups have now been posted to this website, from where they may be downloaded and consulted.  Note, however, that some documents are password-protected so only their abstracts are publicly available.  For convenience a meeting document lists all papers to be tabled by title and author(s) for each working group; draft agendas have also been posted.

Documents for the Advisory Committee meeting, in all three ACAP official languages of English, French and Spanish will be loaded to this site soon.

The ACAP-listed Spectacled Petrel Procellaria conspicillata visits Brazilian waters from its Inaccessible Island home

Brazil has previously hosted the Agreement; the Second Meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC2) was held in Brasilia in June 2006.  This year’s Advisory Committee and working group meetings follow on from AC10, held in Wellington, New Zealand in September 2017 and the Sixth Session of the Meeting of Parties (MoP6) held in South Africa’s Kruger National Park last year in May.  The Seventh Session (MoP7) is due to be held in 2021 in Australia – when ACAP will be 20 years old.

Florianópolis is the capital and second largest city of the State of Santa Catarina in the southern region of Brazil.  It is served by an international airport.  A coastal city situated on Santa Caterina Island with a humid subtropical climate, it has a population of roughly half a million.  The island is connected to the Brazilian mainland by bridges and is known for its many tourist beaches.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 April 2019

A total of 51 eggs (a record number, well up from the usual 30 or so) was laid by the globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi population breeding on the mainland at Taiaroa Head on New Zealand’s South Island this (2018/19) season. The high total is thought due to the large number of birds that failed in the previous season returning after a year, instead of missing the usual year if they had bred successfully.  In the 2017/18 season 33 eggs were laid but only 13 chicks fledged (39.4%) following a large number of embryo deaths in what was the hottest summer on record.  In 2016/17 23 birds fledged from 36 eggs laid (63.9%); equivalent figures for 2015/16 were 26/35 (74.3%).

Thirty-four of the 51 eggs hatched (66.7%).  Sophie Barker, Marketing Manager, Otago Peninsula Trust writes to ACAP Latest News: "we think one of the fertility issues might have been a becalming period (no wind) when the albatross should have been mating, as there is a short period when the egg is being formed for mating to be successful."

During hot, windless conditions fly strike has also been a problem that can kill hatching chicks: "issues with heat include a very nasty fly that lays live maggots (came over late last century from Australia) and with very little wind caused problems".  Insecticides have been used to address this. There are currently 29 surviving chicks in the colony (DNA testing of egg shell remnants has shown there are 19 female and 10 male chicks), all described to ALN by the Royal Albatross Centre as being “healthy”.  If all 29 chicks fledge successfully (giving a breeding success of 56.9%) this will also be a record; the previous highest number of fledglings in a previous season is 27.

An ongoing concern in the colony is rising temperatures causing increased levels of heat stress among the birds.  The mist irrigation system to cool down the birds has been improved as a consequence, with hand spraying at nests also being utilized during heat waves.  Predator control is continuing as in previous years, with an aspiration to protect the colony from feral cats and stoats with a pest-proof fence.  In the meantime 14 Stoats had been trapped within the colony by mid-March this year.

Once more the 24-hour live-streaming “Royalcam” has been set up facing an occupied nest.  This year’s camera chick is a female.  Watch her being fed and follow her growth to fledging here.

More hands-on management: the Royalcam chick from a previous season gets weighed in a laundry basket in front of the camera

Photograph from the Royal Albatross Centre

An interesting biological snippet comes from the Royal Albatross Centre’s Facebook page:  “It was so nice to see another albatross parent feeding our Royalcam chick the other day. This is unusual behaviour but has been seen in the past.”  Another piece of news describes a pair who abandoned their egg very early on leading to it being placed in an incubator to keep it alive.  The egg was then given to a foster pair which had an egg deemed infertile following candling, resulting in the chick “doing well at the foster nest”.  Hands-on management all round!

With thanks to Sophie Barker, Marketing Manager, Otago Peninsula Trust for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 April 2019

Erika Zollett (MRAG Americas, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA) and Yonsat Swimmer have published open access in the journal Endangered Species Research on practices to increase post-capture survival of seabirds and other marine life.

“Many of these fact sheets and practical information on seabird mitigation measures are contained in the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) bycatch mitigation fact sheets”.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Incidental capture of marine animals in fishing gear may cause immediate or delayed mortality due to injury. Increasing post-capture survival of these species is very important to reducing the widespread impacts of bycatch, particularly on protected and threatened populations. In this paper, we review recent literature on safe handling of sea turtles, cetaceans, seabirds, sharks, and billfish and summarize the most effective measures for improving survivability of these species after interactions with gillnet, pelagic longline, and purse seine gear. We also review the current tuna Regional Fishery Management Organization (tRFMO) measures on safe handling and release to identify gaps in implementation of safe handling practices. Strategies that increase post-capture survival of marine species can be grouped into 3 primary categories: reducing immediate mortality, minimizing injury that results in delayed mortality, and reducing stress that can lead to death. Routine training of fishermen on safe handling practices greatly improves the effectiveness of these measures. When bycatch does occur, the strategies to increase post-release survival become key for protecting vulnerable marine populations. This inventory highlights the great conservation value that can be provided by the tRFMOs by providing guidance and training on safe handling practices to increase post-release survival across taxa.”

Click here to access  ACAP's hook removal guides

Reference:

Zollett, E.A. & Swimmer, Y. 2019.  Safe handling practices to increase post-capture survival of cetaceans, sea turtles, seabirds, sharks, and billfish in tuna fisheries.  Endangered Species Research 38: 115-125.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 April 2019

The Pacific Seabird Group held its 46th Annual Meeting on the Hawaiian island of Kauai from 27 February to 3 March 2019.  A list by senior author and title follows of presentations made at the meeting that considered ACAP-listed species and also seabird bycatch.  Abstracts for each of these (and other) titles are given in the on-line abstract booklet.

A Laysan Albatross feeds its chick on Midway Atoll, photograph by Pete Leary

Colleen Bryan.  Potential to trace chemicals in Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) sibling eggs.

Marcus Collado.  Predator control on a navy installation: keeping the enemy at bay [Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis].

Melinda Conners.  Using life history to inform marine spatial planning for the protection of wide-ranging pelagic seabirds [Laysan Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed P. nigripes Albatrosses].

Tomohiro Deguchi.  Determinants of post-fledging survival in translocated albatross chicks [Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus].

Caroline Fox.  A spatial assessment of albatrosses, fisheries, and bycatch events in coastal British Columbia [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan Albatross P. immutabilis, Short-tailed Albatross P. albatrus].

Autumn-Lynn Harrison.  Bycatch of banded seabirds in the Pacific Ocean, 1945-2018  [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis].

Peter Hodum.  Living with seabirds in a complex landscape: Juan Fernández Islands, Chile [Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus].

Jason Jannot.  Cryptic seabird mortality on U.S. West Coast Pacific hake fishing vessels [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes].

Joseph Krieger.  Seabird bycatch and mitigation efforts in Alaska fisheries summary report: 2007 through 2017.

Caitlin Kroeger.  At-sea energetics of Campbell and Grey-headed Albatrosses in relation to southern ocean wind variability.

Verónica López.  Challenges and lessons learned in addressing human harvest of Pink-footed Shearwaters on Isla Mocha, Chile.

Edward Melvin.  Lessons from seabird conservation in Alaska longline fisheries.

Kaycee Morra.  Decadal and millennial-scale foraging habits of three Hawaiian seabirds: amino acid δ15N, δ13C, and δD analyses [Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis].

Jaime Ojeda.  Ancestral and contemporary biocultural interactions between albatrosses and human being in the sub-Antarctic region.

Jonathan Plissner.  Update on albatross population monitoring at Midway Atoll NWR.

Katherine Rubiano.  Protecting birds and pilots: Laysan Albatross management on a navy installation.

Matthew Saunter.  Adapting management priorities to buffer effects of climate change at Kure Atoll, Hawai‘i [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes].

Rodrigo Silva.  Solutions to protect storm-petrels between mining development, military exercises and an artificially illuminated landscape.  [Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus].

Cristián Suazo.  Seabird bycatch in purse seine fisheries: the case of the modified purse seine as a novel mitigation measure.

Roberta Swift.  The albatross demography program: an update.   [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis].

Leigh Torres.  Novel methods describe fine-scale albatross-fisheries interactions in the north Pacific.  [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan Albatross P. immutabilis, Short-tailed Albatross P. albatrus].

Eric A. VanderWerf.  Translocation of Hawaiian seabirds to high islands to mitigate the effects of climate change.  [Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan Albatross P. immutabilis]

William Walker.  Preliminary findings on the diet of Laysan Albatrosses, Phoebastria immutabilis, in the eastern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region.

 A large number of presentations was made on procellariiform species not listed by ACAP.  Consult the abstract booklet for these.

Reference:

[Karnovsky, N. & Bachman, D. (Eds)] 2019.  Pacific Seabird Group 46th Annual Meeting Kaua’i Beach Resort Lihue, Kaua’i, Hawai’i 27 February – 3 March 2019 Scientific Program Full Abstracts.  96 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 April 2019