The ACAP-listed Grey-headed Albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma has been listed as globally Endangered because of a decline since the 1970s of its largest breeding population, occurring at South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*.  A recent resurvey of a subset of colonies at the island indicates a decrease in numbers over the last decade of 5% a year.

Recent analyses of long-term records of banded birds found that annual survival rates of juveniles were lower than expected and highly variable.

Records from observers on fishing vessels have shown that immature birds are killed by pelagic longline fisheries in areas that are not used regularly by non-breeding adults.  In addition, circumstantial evidence suggests that because of the population decline there may have been a density-dependent increase in predation by giant petrels Macronectes spp. of juvenile Grey-headed Albatrosses, both as they fledge and in the few days immediately thereafter when they often rest on the sea close to the island.

In May 2018, 16 satellite tags (PTTs) were attached to Grey-headed Albatross chicks prior to their departure from Bird Island to map foraging areas of juveniles in order to determine the overlap with fisheries and to obtain data on juvenile survival.  The birds are being tracked in near real-time using the Argos system.

Click here to follow the birds’ at sea movements and distances travelled, with updates expected several times a day.

Fledgling Grey-headed Albatross, photograph by Marienne de Villiers

With thanks to Richard Phillips.

Selected literature:

Clay, T.A., Manica, A., Ryan, P.G., Silk, J.R.D., Croxall, J.P., Ireland, L. & Phillips, R.A. 2016.  Proximate drivers of spatial segregation in non-breeding albatrosses.  Scientific Reports 6: 29932.

Pardo, D., Forcada, J., Wood, A.G., Tuck, G.N., Ireland, L., Pradel, R., Croxall, J.P. & Phillips, R.A. 2017.  Additive effects of climate and fisheries drive catastrophic declines in multiple albatross species.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the Unites States of America 114: E10829-E10837.

Phillips, R.A., Gales, R., Baker, G.B., Double, M.C., Favero, M., Quintana, F., Tasker, M.L., Weimerskirch, H., Uhart, M. & Wolfaardt, A. 2016.  The conservation status and priorities for albatrosses and large petrels.   Biological Conservation 201: 169-183.

Poncet, S., Wolfaardt, A.C., Black, A., Browning, S., Lawton, K., Lee, J., Passfield, K., Strange, G. & Phillips, R.A. 2017.  Recent trends in numbers of wandering (Diomedea exulans), black-browed (Thalassarche melanophris) and grey-headed (T. chrysostoma) albatrosses breeding at South Georgia.  Polar Biology 40: 1347-1358.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 May 2018

*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.

Bo-Mi Kim (Unit of Polar Genomics, Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, South Korea) and colleagues are publishing in the journal Marine Genomics on a genetic study of the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The southern giant petrel is a large Procellariiform seabird of the southern oceans and has a circumpolar habitat. In this study, we generated the first high-quality de novo assembly of the blood transcriptome of the southern giant petrel (Macronectes giganteus) using the Illumina Miseq platform. A total of 28.7 million raw reads were obtained and assembled using the Oases assembly platform, resulting in 27,989 contigs with an N50 value of 1,044 bp. We performed functional gene annotations using Gene Ontology (GO), Eukaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses. As one of the top consumers in the southern oceans, M. giganteus feeds on carrion and carcasses, unlike most other Procellariiformes. However, geographical isolation is not an absolute defense against parasites or pathogens. We detected many genes that are critically involved in classic innate immunity. In terms of the GO terms analyzed, many genes were assigned to the subcategories of response to stimuli and immune system processes. These numbers were higher than those in the whole blood of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-injected greenfinches and blood lymphocytes of the Chinese goose but lower than those found in the whole blood of the cinereous vulture. This genomic information will be useful for checking the immune status of southern giant petrels without sacrifice, as the species is vulnerable.”

A Southern Giant Petrel broods its downy chick in Antarctica, photograph by Jeroen Creuwels

Reference:

Bo-Mi Kim, Do-Hwan Ahn, Jeong-Hoon Kim, Jin-Woo Jung, Jae-Sung Rhee & Hyun Park 2018.  De novo assembly and annotation of the blood transcriptome of the southern giant petrel Macronectes giganteus from the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica.  Marine Genomics doi.org/10.1016/j.margen.2018.05.003.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 May 2018

Susan Waugh (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications on foraging patterns of the ACAP-listed and globally Endangered Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Environmental and anthropogenic influences in the marine environment are primary drivers of behavior and demographic outcomes for marine birds. We examined factors influencing the foraging patterns of the Westland Petrel (Procellaria westlandica), a highly threatened, endemic petrel that inhabits subtropical water masses primarily in the Tasman Sea, with a poorly known at-sea distribution. Risk assessments place the species at moderate risk of population impacts from fisheries-related mortality. Studies in the 1990s indicated that trawl fisheries would have an important influence on the Westland Petrel's foraging behavior. We investigated the influence of climatic conditions, marine productivity, bathymetry, the core fishery zone, concurrent fishing activity, light conditions, sex, and breeding stage on Westland Petrel foraging patterns. We analyzed the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen from blood sampled during the incubation period and examined changes in isotopic niche width over a 6-yr period. We found that the Westland Petrel's foraging zone varied only slightly between years and that the location of intensively used areas was strongly influenced by bathymetric slope and latitude, and negatively influenced by chlorophyll-a. The core fishery zone had a secondary influence, suggesting that these petrels co-occur with fisheries, but are not dependent on waste for food. Trophic niche width was significantly wider during strong El Niño conditions, indicating that food type, rather than location, was most affected by climatic variation. Consistent use of one marine area across varying times and conditions increases the risk of adverse effects of climate or human-induced impacts on the species. However, marine spatial management tools become viable in these conditions. Further, with rapid increases in sea surface temperatures and extreme values recorded in the region in recent periods, changes to fisheries zones and distributions of natural prey of the species are likely to occur and may change the population's sustainability.”

Westlaand Petrel at sea, photograph by Raja Stephenson

Reference:

Waugh, S.M., Griffiths, J.W., Poupart, T.A., Filippi, D.P., Rogers, K. & Arnould, J.Y.P. 2018.  Environmental factors and fisheries influence the foraging patterns of a subtropical seabird, the Westland Petrel (Procellaria westlandica), in the Tasman Sea.  The Condor 120: 371-387.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 May 2018

Henri Weimerskirch (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques Chizé – Université de la Rochelle, Villiers en Bois, France) and colleagues have published in the journal Polar Biology on albatross numbers on Amsterdam, Crozet, Kerguelen and St Paul Islands.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Today albatrosses are threatened worldwide, especially by fishing activities, and many populations are currently in decline.  Albatrosses breeding at the French Southern Territories in the south-western Indian Ocean, on the Crozet, Kerguelen and Saint-Paul–Amsterdam island archipelagos, are monitored regularly. This monitoring has been based on a sample of species and sites, and there was a need for an assessment of the population trends for all species at each site. During the past 3 years most populations have been surveyed, allowing an assessment of the trends of albatrosses breeding at the archipelagos of the French Southern Territories over the past 40 years. Wandering Albatrosses show similar trends at all sites within the Crozet and Kerguelen archipelagos, with a recent recovery of colonies after strong declines in the 1970s. Amsterdam Albatrosses are increasing, albeit at lower rates during recent years. Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses show a global decline over the entire range. The trends among Black-browed and Grey-headed Albatrosses vary between colonies and archipelagos. Sooty Albatrosses have continuously decreased in numbers whereas Light-mantled Albatross numbers vary considerably between years, with an overall increase over the past 30 years. These results confirm that the French Southern Territories in the southwest Indian Ocean support a significant portion of the world populations of several albatross species. Several species appear to be steadily decreasing probably because of the impact of fisheries and disease outbreaks. The reasons for different trends among populations of the same species are not well understood and require further investigation.”

The crater of St Paul, with La Quille behind, photograph by Jerome Demaine

Reference:

Weimerskirch, H., Delord, K., Barbraud, C., Le Bouard· F., Ryan, P.G., Fretwell, P., Marteau, C. 2018.  Status and trends of albatrosses in the French Southern Territories, Western Indian Ocean.  Polar Biology  doi.org/10.1007/s0030 0-018-2335-0.

albatross bumbes on AmseJohn Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 May 2018