Dunedin’s bells rang today to mark the first globally Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi to return for the spring breeding season at Taiaroa Head, New Zealand’s only mainland albatross colony (click here).

“As well as the traditional bells a “Welcome back” flag will fly outside the Mayors’ office and fans are setting bell chimes on their mobile phones to ring at 1 pm. Dunedin hosts the world’s only mainland Royal Albatross breeding colony which is a source of great pride and a symbol of the city – the Wildlife Capital of New Zealand”.

Because the Northern Royal Albatross has a long breeding season, overlap occurs with six of 13 chicks of the 2016/17 season still present, seven having fledged in the last few days. The first returning adult recorded for the 2018/19 breeding season is an 11-year old female LKW (colour banded Lime Black White) which arrived  two days ago on 16 September (read detailed account and see more photos of her arrival here).

Northern Royal Albatross LKW soon after touch down on Sunday; the bird behind is a 2017/18 chick soon to fledge

Photograph by Sharyn Broni, courtesy of the Royal Albatross Centre

“A bumper season is expected in 2018/19 as there were many failed nests due to extreme weather in 17/18.  September is an exciting time of year for us as we say farewell to the fledging chicks as they take their first flight out to sea and also welcome back the returning birds for the upcoming breeding season. There is always a bit of anticipation to see who is the first to return, who returns to breed, will there be any first time breeders and most exciting is finding out who returns for the first time since fledging many years prior.”

In 2018 the colony celebrates 80 years since the first albatross chick fledged on 22 September 1938.  In the 2017/18 season 148 colour-banded birds returned out of a total population of over 250, five as first time returners.  Eggs laid were 33, resulting in only 13 chicks being reared from 16 hatchlings – ascribed to an unusually hot summer, which put the birds under a great deal of stress.

In the 2016/17 season 151 albatrosses returned, a record 17 for the first time. There were 36 nests with eggs and 25 chicks hatched with 23 chicks fledging.

Information from the Royal Albatross Centre Facebook page.

Click here to access the “Royal cam” - a 24-hour live stream of an albatross nest at Taiaroa Head during the breeding season.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 September 2018

The 46th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group will be held on the Hawaiian island of Kauai at the Aqua Kaua’i Beach Resort from 28 February to 3 March next year with the theme “Seabirds in a Changing Pacific – Ensuring a Future, Fighting the Plastic”.  Registration and abstract submissions are now open (click here).  Other important dates can be found on the meeting’s website.

Three plenary speakers and titles of their addresses have been announced:

Tony Gaston:  Some Important and Unresolved Problems in Seabird Science

Helen James:  Museum Specimens of Seabirds as Ecological Archives

Mark Rauzon:  The Pacific Project - Secret Monitoring of Seabirds and Biowarfare Testing

Visit the conference website for more information.

Kauai supports populations of ACAP-listed and globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis, such as at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, with breeding underway at the time of the annual meeting.  The meeting's website lists excursions including “... a unique opportunity to fly to the seabird Islet of Lehua, normally off-limits, and see [the] site of an ambitious rat eradication project, as well as breeding seabirds" and "... a pelagic trip on a small boat, in the hope of spotting migrants and vagrants at sea".

Lehua Islet from the air

"Field trip option #5 - You will be taken by helicopter along the coast of Kauai and across the water to Lehua Islet. A rat eradication project is currently taking place on Lehua, which is already benefiting local populations of many seabird species that breed there. While some species are out at sea in late February, both Black-footed Albatross and Laysan Albatross are breeding at this time of year, and Black Noddies and [Brown and Red-footed] Boobies will also be present. Lehua is truly beautiful and is off-limits to the general public - you will not regret signing up for this special trip. With thanks to [the] State of Hawai'i Division of Forestry and Wildlife."

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 September 2018

The globally Vulnerable Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan has been having a good breeding season in the Maltese Islands, home to approximately 10% of the global population of this seabird species (equating to around 2000 breeding pairs), according to a recent report by the LIFE Arċipelagu Garnija team of BirdLife Malta.

“The rat control [for both Brown Rattus norvegicus and Black R. rattus Rats] was perhaps most successful on St. Paul’s Islands which saw the biggest transformation with the removal of rats from the islet.  Six of the eight nests being monitored were successful in that the chicks made it to fledgling compared to the one out of the nine nests monitored in 2017.”

However, light pollution remains a problem for Yelkouan Shearwaters on Malta, although eight of nine fledglings affected that were found by the public were successfully released out to sea.

A Yelkouan Shearwater in its breeding crevice, photograph by Jérôme Legrand

Watch a video describing the last breeding season.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 14 September 2018

It has been six months since New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic Antipodes Island was officially announced as being free of introduced House Mice Mus musculus following an eradication campaign and two seasons later follow-up monitoring by the Million Dollar Mouse team, removing a threat to the island's biota, including to it seven ACAP-listed albatross and petrel species.

Antipodes Island: now mouse free, photograph by Erica Sommer

“In the winter of 2016, a 13-strong eradication team arrived on the main Antipodes Island.  They used helicopters to spread cereal bait containing the rodent toxin brodifacoum from specialised under-slung bait-spreading buckets.  They covered the island in two separate applications.  In February 2018, two mice breeding seasons after the program was delivered, a monitoring team arrived to determine the project’s outcome.  They deployed 200 inked tracking tunnels and searched the island for three weeks with two rodent detection dogs from the Conservation Dogs Programme supported by Kiwibank and the Auckland City Council.  No mice were detected, confirming the Million Dollar Mouse campaign successfully eradicated mice from Antipodes Island in the New Zealand Subantarctic.”

You can now watch a 20-minute video describing the successful eradication.

An Antipodean Albatross pair: no longer at risk to mice on Antipodes Island, photograph by Erica Sommer

Read more about the Antipodes’ eradication effort here.

The conservation focus has now shifted to the next goal: achieving a completely mammal pest-free New Zealand sub-Antarctic with the Maukahuka – pest-free Auckland Island project that aims to free the island of its alien pigs, feral cats and mice.  Read about progress with eradication plans at Auckland Island here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 September 2018