ACAP Latest News recently reported on the start of the 2017/2018 breeding season of closely managed Northern Royal Albatrosses Diomedea sanfordi at New Zealand’s Taiaroa Head with 32 nests occupied.  At one nest a live-streaming camera (the “Royal Cam”) has been set up for a third year (click here).

The latest news from New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) is that the colony is having a poor year. In what seems an unusual case, the Royal Cam female attacked its own one-month-old downy chick, which did not then survive. Hatching success has also been lower than average:

“This chick was one of only 16 to hatch this year, as Dunedin’s unusually hot summer has been putting the birds under a great deal of stress. While 29 fertile eggs were laid this year, only just over 50% of these eggs hatched, down from between 70 to 85% in previous years. As well as prolonged high temperatures and the tail end of cyclone Fehi, a lack of wind has been an issue for the nesting birds. Strong winds are vital for the birds to fly and without them albatross are eventually forced to abandon their nests. Weather conditions also increased the incidence of fly-strike after hatching with seven chicks being affected contributing to one mortality. As a result, there has been a high incidence of embryo death inside the egg and the albatross colony currently has only 14 chicks compared with 26 and 23 at the same time over the last two years respectively.”

"DOC rangers are continuing daily management of the remaining chicks  to ensure they have the best possible chance of surviving to fledge.  Management includes removal of any maggots, supplementary feeding for chicks and nesting birds, and using hand watering and an irrigation sprinkler system on the headland to help keep chicks and adult birds cool."

A Northern Royal Albatross stands over its hatchling at Taiaroa Head

Click here for more information

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 February 2018

The Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena is a globally Critical Endangered species that is at risk of extinction due to the combined effects of longline mortality and chick mortality leading to low breeding success on Gough Island, its main breeding site, caused by introduced House Mice Mus musculus. As a consequence a poison-bait drop on the island by helicopter is planned for next year to attempt to eradicate the mice.

Mice attack a Tristan Albatross chick at night on Gough Island, photograph by Ross Wanless

Researchers currently on the island have recently completed the annual whole-island count during the incubation stage of Tristan Albatross nests.  A total of 1446 occupied nests was counted in five days of surveying (click here).

A round-island count of post-downy chicks will be undertaken in September, so that annual production and breeding success for the biennially-breeding species may be estimated.

Read more about the planned mouse eradication project here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 February 2018

The Pacific Seabird Group’s 45th Annual Meeting will be held at the at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur in La Paz, Mexico over 21-24 February 2018.

Presentations on ACAP-listed species are listed below as extracted from the meeting’s abstract book, now online. Note only the first author cited is listed. More presentations may cover ACAP-listed species that were not named in the abstract texts. For co-authors, contact addresses and abstracts on fisheries bycatch and on other procellariform species, including many on gadfly petrels, shearwaters and storm petrels, please consult the abstract book.

Josh Adams: DIVING BEHAVIOR OF PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS (ARDENNA CREATOPUS) REARING CHICKS ON ISLA MOCHA, CHILE

Ryan Carle: CHILEAN PURSE-SEINE FISHERY OVERLAP AND RISK OF BYCATCH AMONG PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATERS ARDENNA CREATOPUS BREEDING ON ISLA MOCHA

Jane Dolliver: APPLYING CHANGE DETECTION AND MULTI-SPECTRAL IMAGE PROCESSING TOOLS TO CENSUS [sic] NESTING ALBATROSSES FROM SATELLITE IMAGERY

Julio Hernández-Montoya : LAYSAN ALBATROSS (PHOEBASTRIA IMMUTABILIS) ON GUADALUPE ISLAND, MEXICO: POPULATION STATUS, DISTRIBUTION, SOCIAL ATTRACTION AND ADVANCES TOWARDS THE ERADICATION OF FERAL CAT

Kathryn Huyvaert: FORTY YEARS AND COUNTING: UPDATE ON THE ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION OF THE CRITICALLY ENDANGERED WAVED ALBATROSS

Jason Jannot: CRYPTIC SEABIRD MORTALITY ON U.S. WEST COAST PACIFIC HAKE FISHING VESSELS [Black-footed Albatross]

Caitlin Kroeger: CORTICOSTERONE AS A BEHAVIORAL DRIVER AND NUTRIENT RESPONSE IN TWO SYMPATRIC ALBATROSSES

Verónica López: TOWARDS A PACIFIC MONITORING NETWORK FOR A HIGHLY MIGRATORY SPECIES, THE PINK-FOOTED SHEARWATER

Yutzil Lora-Cabrera: HABITAT SUITABILITY FOR LAYSAN ALBATROSS AND BLACK-VENTED SHEARWATER IN THE MEXICAN PACIFIC OCEAN

Daisuke Ochi: PREDICTING BYCATCH FOR BLACK-FOOTED AND LAYSAN ALBATROSSES BY JAPANESE LONGLINE FISHERIES WITH SPATIO-TEMPORAL OCEANOGRAPHIC FACTORS.

John Peschon: A SUMMARY OF ALBATROSS BAND RECOVERY DATA IN THE HAWAII DEEP AND SHALLOW SET LONGLINE FISHERIES

John Peschon: A SUMMARY OF SEABIRD INTERACTIONS IN THE HAWAII DEEP AND SHALLOW SET LONGLINE FISHERIES IN 2016 [Black-footed & Laysan Albatrosses]

Stacy Schuur: WHAT MIGHT YOU DISCOVER USING ARCHIVED SEABIRD EGGS [Phoebastria albatrosses]

Cristián Suazo: SEABIRD BYCATCH IN PURSE SEINE FISHERIES: STATUS OF KNOWLEDGE AND MITIGATION MEASURES [Pink-footed Shearwater & others]

Laura Todd: ADDRESSING SEABIRD BYCATCH IN THE PACIFIC COAST GROUNDFISH FISHERY: COLLABORATION LEADS TO FEASIBLE CONSERVATION MEASURES [Black-footed & Short-tailed Albatrosses]

Short-tailed Albatross, photograph by Hiroshi Hasegawa

Click here to view the list of sessions and symposia. A three-hour meeting of the North Pacific Albatross Working Group will be held during the annual meeting.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 February 2018

Susan Waugh (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand,) and colleagues published open access last year in the online journal PLoS ONE on globally Near Threatened Buller's Albatrosses Thalassarche bulleri feeding their chicks the remains of juvenile Sooty Shearwaters Ardenna grisea, also a globally Near Threatened species.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Albatrosses are flexible and adaptable predators, relying on live prey as well as carrion. Use of predictable food sources and reliance on human-produced resources are well-known trait in long-range feeders like albatrosses and petrels. Breeding Buller's albatrosses studied at Solander I. (Hautere), New Zealand fed their chicks the remains of sooty shearwater juveniles (tītī in Māori), which are harvested from nearby muttonbirding sites. Evidence of this food type was found at over 10% of nests examined, and 17±40% birds that were fitted with GPS loggers visited muttonbirding sites in this and previous studies. Muttonbirding is a traditional practice that has continued for centuries, with up to 120 tonnes of offal discharged to the sea annually during the present day harvest. It coincides with the energetically-demanding early chick period for the albatrosses. Our finding suggests that the offal may be an important, but overlooked element in the albatross diet. As an important supplementary food for the albatrosses it is likely to have contributed to the 3% per annum growth of their populations since the first comprehensive population surveys in 1969.”

Buller's Albatross, photograph by Paul Sagar

Read a popular account of the paper here.

Reference:

Waugh, S.M., Poupart, T.A., Miskelly, C.M., Stahl, J.-C. & Arnould, J.P.Y. 2017.  Human exploitation assisting a threatened species? The case of muttonbirders and Buller's albatross. PLoS ONE 12(4): e0175458.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 February 2018