ACAP Latest News

Read about recent developments and findings in procellariiform science and conservation relevant to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels in ACAP Latest News.

Contact the ACAP Communications Advisor if you wish to have your news featured.

A cleaned-up Macquarie Island leads to BirdLife Australia down-listing three of its four albatrosses

BirdLife Australia’s Threatened Species Committee has recognised an improved conservation outlook for eight of the 14 seabird species that breed on Macquarie Island following the success of the Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project (MIPEP) in eradicating rodents and rabbits (click here).

This has resulted in an improved threatened status being recommended for three of the four ACAP-listed albatrosses that breed on the island as follows:

Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris:  down-list to Least Concern from Endangered

Grey-headed Albatross T. chrysostoma:  down-list to Endangered from Critically Endangered

Light-mantled Sooty Albatross Phoebetria palpebrata:  down-list to Least Concern from Endangered

Note that these changes do not affect the species’ global threatened status which currently stay unchanged, nor the categories of threat listed for the species in Australia's  Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The domestic threatened conservation status of the fourth albatross species at Macquarie, the Wandering Diomedea exulans that only breeds in small numbers on the island, remains unchanged.

Grey-headed Albatrosses on Macquarie Island, photograph by Aleks Terauds

Read more here.

With thanks to Rachael Alderman, Stephen Garnett and Keith Springer for information

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 December 2016

Recovering Grey Petrel population at Macca gets tracked at sea

The Australian Antarctic Division has reported on research being conducted on the Near Threatened and ACAP-listed Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea on Macquarie Island, following the successful eradication of the island’s alien mammals (click here).  The island supports a small population of at least 94 breeding pairs.

An incubating Grey Petrel, photograph by Peter Ryan

The AAD’s (slightly edited) report follows:

Scientists on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island have used satellite tags to track the foraging behaviour of a threatened seabird, the Grey Petrel, for the first time.  Parks Wildlife Ranger, Marcus Salton, said researchers have been studying the birds on the island for the past 16 years but until now knew nothing about their at-sea foraging behaviour and habitat use.

“Over winter for the first time we attached small satellite transmitters to 10 adult Grey Petrels to track their movements over more than 100 days.  The results were astounding, showing the birds foraged over a very broad area.  Some flew as far as 3000 km east of Macquarie Island past New Zealand, while other birds foraged several thousand kilometres north-west near to Australia.”

“The tags also show the birds regularly return to their burrows on the island during the breeding season,” Mr Salton said.  “This at-sea foraging data will help identify key feeding grounds for Grey Petrels during their breeding season.

“With this information, we can better manage fisheries interactions with the birds and explore the potential impacts of changing ocean conditions on the health of [Macquarie’s] Grey Petrel population.”

For a similar report click here and here for some photos.

Read more about Macca’s Grey Petrels here.

With thanks to Keith Springer.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 December 2016

Costs of reproduction in annually-breeding Black-browed and biennially-breeding Grey-headed Albatrosses

Glenn Crossin (Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) and colleagues have published in the journal Antarctic Science on costs of reproduction in annually-breeding Black-browed Thalassarche melanophris and biennially breeding Grey-headed T. chrysostoma Albatrosses based on blood and feather corticosterone levels.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“We investigated the physiology of two closely related albatross species relative to their breeding strategy: black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) breed annually, while grey-headed albatrosses (T. chrysostoma) breed biennially.  From observations of breeding fate and blood samples collected at the end of breeding in one season and feather corticosterone levels (fCort) sampled at the beginning of the next breeding season, we found that in both species some post-breeding physiological parameters differed according to breeding outcome (successful, failed, deferred).  Correlations between post-breeding physiology and fCort, and links to future breeding decisions, were examined.  In black-browed albatrosses, post-breeding physiology and fCort were not significantly correlated, but fCort independently predicted breeding decision the next year, which we interpret as a possible migratory carry-over effect.  In grey-headed albatrosses, post-breeding triglyceride levels were negatively correlated with fCort, but only in females, which we interpret as a potential cost of reproduction.  However, this potential cost did not carry-over to future breeding in the grey-headed albatrosses.  None of the variables predicted future breeding decisions.  We suggest that biennial breeding in the grey-headed albatrosses may have evolved as a strategy to buffer against the apparent susceptibility of females to negative physiological costs of reproduction.  Future studies are needed to confirm this.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips 

Grey headed Albatross by Rowan Treblico

Grey-headed Albatrosses, photograph by Rowan Treblico

Reference:

Crossin, G.T., Phillips, R.A., Lattin, C.R., Romero, L.M., Bordeleau, X., Harris, C.M., Love, O.P. & Williams, T.D. 2016.  Costs of reproduction and carry-over effects in breeding albatrosses.  Antarctic Science doi.org/10.1017/S0954102016000560.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 5 December 2016

Should Australia’s Shy Albatross be uplisted from Near Threatened to Vulnerable?

BirdLife International’s Globally threatened Seabird Forum has been considering the case of the Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, endemic to Australia and currently listed as globally Near Threatened.  Its on-line report can be read here along with expert comment on the proposal to uplist it to Vulnerable.

The report concludes “Given the threats affecting the species, the ongoing declines in the 30% of the population during the last 10 years, and the projected future declines, this species appears to qualify for uplisting to Vulnerable under criterion A2bde+3bde+4bde.”

However, following the expert commentary it received BirdLife has decided to postpone a decision on this species and keep the discussion open until 2017, while leaving the current Red List category unchanged at Near Threatened in the 2016 update.

 Shy Albatross on Albatross Island by Drew Lee

Shy Albatross on Albatross Island, photograph by Drew Lee

Selected Literature:

Abbott, C.L., Double, M.C., Baker, G.B., Gales, R., Lashko, A., Robertson, C.J.R., & Ryan, P.G. 2006.  Molecular provenance analysis for shy and white-capped albatrosses killed by fisheries interactions in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Conservation Genetics 7: 531-542.

Alderman, R., Gales, R., Hobday, A.J. & Candy, S.G. 2010.  Post-fledging survival and dispersal of shy albatross from three breeding colonies in Tasmania.  Marine Ecology Progress Series 405:271-285.

Alderman, R.; Gales, R.; Tuck, G. N. & Lebreton, J. D. 2011.  Global population status of shy albatross and an assessment of colony-specific trends and drivers.  Wildlife Research 38: 672-686.

Baker, G.B., Double, M.C., Gales, R., Tuck, G.N., Abbott, C.L., Ryan, P.G., Petersen, S.L., Robertson, C.J.R., and Alderman, R. 2007.  A global assessment of the impact of fisheries-related mortality on shy and white-capped albatrosses: conservation implications.  Biological Conservation 137: 319-333.

Thomson, R.B., Alderman, R.L., Tuck, G.N., Hobday, A.J. 2015.  Effects of climate change and fisheries bycatch on Shy Albatross (Thalassarche cauta) in southern Australia.  PLoS ONE 10(6): e0127006. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127006.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 December 2016

Reduce trawler discards, increase longline mortality: a study with Mediterranean shearwaters

Andrea Soriano-Redondo (Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain) and colleagues have published on-line and open-access in the journal Scientific Reports on the likely effects of a trawler discard ban on increased longline mortality of Scopoli’s Shearwaters Calonectris diomedea in the Mediterranean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Fisheries provide an abundant and predictable food source for many pelagic seabirds through discards, but also pose a major threat to them through bycatch, threatening their populations worldwide.  The reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which intends to ban discards through the landing obligation of all catches, may force seabirds to seek alternative food sources, such as baited hooks from longlines, increasing bycatch rates.  To test this hypothesis we performed a combined analysis of seabird-fishery interactions using as a model Scopoli’s shearwaters Calonectris diomedea in the Mediterranean.  Tracking data showed that the probability of shearwaters attending longliners increased exponentially with a decreasing density of trawlers.  On-board observations and mortality events corroborated this result: the probability of birds attending longliners increased 4% per each trawler leaving the longliner proximity and bird mortality increased tenfold when trawlers were not operating.  Therefore, the implementation of the landing obligation in EU waters will likely cause a substantial increase in bycatch rates in longliners, at least in the short-term, due to birds switching from trawlers to longliners.  Thus the implementation of the landing obligation must be carefully monitored and counterbalanced with an urgent implementation of bycatch mitigation measures in the longline fleet.”

 Scopolis Shearwater Pep Arcos

Scopoli's Shearwater at sea, photograph by 'Pep' Arcos

Reference:

Andrea Soriano-Redondo ,Verónica Cortés, José Manuel Reyes-González, Santi Guallar, Juan Bécares, Beneharo Rodríguez, José Manuel Arcos &Jacob González-Solís, J. 2016.  Relative abundance and distribution of fisheries influence risk of seabird bycatch.  Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/srep37373.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 December 2016

The Agreement on the
Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels

ACAP is a multilateral agreement which seeks to conserve listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters by coordinating international activity to mitigate known threats to their populations.

About ACAP

ACAP Secretariat

119 Macquarie St
Hobart TAS 7000
Australia

Tel: +61 3 6165 6674