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.

A Northern Giant Petrel photographed with a sublingual oral fistula sparks a request

Victor Wilkens Northern Giant Petrel 27 01 2025 Flock
A Northern Giant Petrel with a sublingual oral fistula, photograph by Helen Badenhorst, southern Indian Ocean, 27 January 2025

Dr James Reynolds (Assistant Professor in Ornithology and Animal Conservation, Centre for Ornithology, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, UK) has written to ACAP Latest News on a long-term citizen science project that he has been running about the incidents and causes of sublingual oral fistulas in the world's birds.  Since 2016 he has collated records of the condition in nearly 110 species of birds from all continents except Antarctica.  Many of the species in which oral fistulas have been recorded are gulls and terns.  James will be pleased to receive details of the condition in other seabird species.

James notes that a Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli was photographed by several participants on the Flock to Marion AGAIN! 2025 voyage in January this year, likely to be the same individual, as depicted on its Facebook Page.  He says “I am asking for help from people who routinely interact with free-living birds at close quarters when handling, observing and photographing them.  I am especially appealing to banders, wildlife photographers and birdwatchers to respond but I am happy to hear from anyone with relevant information.  All records of this rare condition are invaluable because they allow us to map the condition's occurrence onto location, and phylogenetic and ecological trait spaces.  The ultimate aim of the research project is to identify the cause(s) of this condition and thereby to ensure that we can protect avian biodiversity, and especially seabirds that face so many threats, against it proliferating.”

Records of ACAP-listed and other seabirds exhibiting sublingual oral fistulas can be sent to James at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Relevant publications:

Camiña, A. & Guerrero, L.M. 2013.  An Eurasian Griffon Gyps fulvus disadvantaged for feeding.  Vulture News 64: 66-68.

Castro, I. & Taylor, J. 2001.  Survival and reproductive success of Stitchbird (hihi, Notiomystis cincta) suffering from a bill abnormality (oral fistula).  Notornis 48: 241-244.

Hughes, B.J., Martin, G.R., Wearn, C.P. & Reynolds, S.J. 2013.  Sublingual fistula in a Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra) and possible role of ectoparasites in its etiology.  Journal of Wildlife Diseases 49: 455-457.

Reynolds, S.J. 2021.  A call for observations of birds with sublingual oral fistulas in central and eastern Europe, and beyond.  Ornis Hungarica 29: 188-194.

Reynolds, S.J., Martin, G.R., Wearn, C.P. & Hughes, B.J. 2009.  Sub-lingual oral fistulas in sooty terns (Onychoprion fuscata). Journal of Ornithology 150: 691-696.

Rintoul, D.A. & Reynolds, S.J. 2019.  Sublingual oral fistula in a Franklin’s Gull (Leucophaeus pipixcan).  Kansas Ornithological Society Bulletin 70: 53-56.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 28 July 2025

The Mouse-Free Marion Project releases its 14th Quarterly Newsletter

14th cover 

The Saving Marion Island's Seabirds: the Mouse-Free Marion Project has produced the 14th issue of its Quarterly Newsletter for July 2025.  In the issue Keith Springer, MFM Project Operations Manager, provides an update on Marion Island fieldwork and the 2025 annual relief voyage, and Roelf Daling, MFM Project 2025/26 Overwintering Field Assistant, writes about his first month on remote Marion Island.

Thank you 1

News is also given on June’s Double your Donation Campaign in celebration of World Albatross Day on 19 June that reached its 220-ha target in record time.

Download the newsletter and all the previous issues from here.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 25 July 2025

Collision risk for albatrosses and petrels with offshore wind farms gets reviewed

offshore wind farmAn offshore wind farm                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Mark Miller (School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia) and colleagues have published open access in the Journal of Applied Ecology reviewing collision risk for procellariiform seabirds with offshore wind farms.

The paper’s abstract follows:

  1. “Offshore wind farms are a key component of the transition to renewable energy generation and are planned globally.  Procellariiformes (albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters and storm-petrels) include the most threatened and abundant seabird families, yet their risk of collision with offshore wind turbines remains virtually unquantified because we lack the ecological information necessary to parametrise Collision Risk Models (CRMs)
  2. However, Procellariiformes are relatively well-studied in academic literature, presenting the opportunity for systematic review through a collision-risk lens.  Here, we conduct meta-analyses to calculate species-level values for core CRM parameters: flight height, flight speed and nocturnal flight.
  3. Our systematic review returned 163 studies, providing excellent species coverage (>1 parameter value for 119 of the 145 Procellariiform species).  We compiled a flight parameter database with the most values for flight speed and nocturnal flight, while values for Procellariiform flight height were scarce and lacked empirical data.
  4. Procellariiformes flew at speeds up to 28 ms−1 with species flight speeds generally prescribed by aerodynamic and flight morphology theory.
  5. Procellariiform flight activity varied across the diel cycle, with approximately a third of species flying more at night, a third flying more during the daytime and a third with no preference.  Empirical studies characterised low (0–13 m) Procellariiform mean flight heights, but only for 21 species; expert opinion studies gave better coverage (104 species) but were highly uncertain when describing how frequently Procellariiformes may fly in a turbine's rotor swept zone.
  6. We make recommendations for how to best parameterise CRMs and identify priorities for further research, such as the importance of ‘instantaneous’ GPS biologger flight speeds, reconsidering how we model nocturnality in CRMs (given the abundance of night-flying Procellariiformes), the merits of parameterising CRMs with site-specific data over generic values and how new technologies can fill data gaps.
  7. Synthesis and applications. We present a database of mean flight parameter values and uncertainty for Procellariiform species and flight groups.  Flight speed and nocturnal flight parameter values are ready for use in CRMs; but flight height results are too uncertain for useful parameterization.  To fill this key information gap, we recommend mandatory Procellariiform flight height data collection at planned offshore wind farms.”

Reference:

Miller, M.G.R., Petrovic, S. & Clarke, R.H. 2025.  A global review of Procellariiform flight height, flight speed and nocturnal activity: Implications for offshore wind farm collision risk.  Journal of Applied Ecology doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70088.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 23 July 2025

“In the wake of Scott and Shackleton” - a photo and video essay by Mitchell Roberts

BullersAlbatross1Buller’s Albatross Thalassarche bulleri at The Snares

Mitchell Roberts is a photographer and videographer from Toowoomba, Australia who works with conservation groups to share their projects through video.  He also teaches photographers how to get the most out of their camera, from basics through to finding their vision. Mitchell has written to ACAP Latest News saying that he has a passion for wildlife nurtured in his early years and built on his love of photography to create visually engaging images.

From 2 February to 1 March 2025 he travelled to sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand and to Antarctica on the “In the wake of Scott and Shackleton : Ross Sea Antarctica” expedition as a True Young Explorer of Heritage Expedition's scholarship programme.

He says “Travelling to such a remote region of the world was truly mind blowing!  Experiencing the over three-metre wingspan of a Southern Royal Albatross Diomedea epomophora gliding right above my head was something I’ll never forget.  Seeing the sheer numbers of petrels flying and catching the winds captured my imagination as they picked up speed in an instant.  All while being surrounded by unique landscapes and wide expansive oceans”.

Mitchell Roberts
Mitchell Roberts

Mitchell has kindly agreed to share some of his photos and videos of the Snares, Enderby Island, Auckland Islands, Campbell Island and Macquarie Island with ACAP.


Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses at Campbell, Enderby and Macquarie Islands

GiantNorthernPetrel11
Northern Giant Petrel
Macronectes halli at Macquarie Island


Southern Royal Albatrosses at Campbell Island

Southern RoyalAlbatross Campbell Island Mitchell Roberts
A Southern Royal Albatross flies over Campbell Island

LightMantledSootyAlbatross6
Light-mantled Sooty Albatross
Phoebetria palpebrata chick

Southern RoyalAlbatross Campbell Island Mitchell 2
A Southern Royal Albatross gives a ‘sky call’ on Campbell Island

BullersAlbatross2 
A Buller’s Albatross in flight at The Snares

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 23 July 2025

“North Star on the South Shore”. A new breeding locality for the Laysan Albatross on Kauai

Hōkūpaa 1 Hōkūpaʻa five days before fledging, photograph by Hob Osterlund

Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis breed in several localities along the northern shore of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, from the Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands through Princeville, private lands to the Kilauea Point Nature Reserve.  The following text reporting a new breeding locality on the island is extracted from an article by Hob Osterlund, founder of the Kauaʻi Albatross Network, a Safina Center Conservationist-in-Residence and a long-term supporter of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement, that gives information of a new breeding locality on the island's southern shore.

“On July 9, 2025, a mōlī (Laysan albatross) chick fledged (flew for the first time) from the hotel grounds of the Point at Poʻipu on Kauaʻi.  She was just over five months old.  True to form, others of the roughly 250 chicks on the island had also started fledging.  But something set this particular chick apart.

Never in recorded history has there been a successful mōlī nest in Poʻipū, or anywhere on the south shore.  Locals report having seen albatross in flight and in courtship on the ground.  But no one (so far) could remember a chick growing up there.

Mōlī likely nested on many islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago for thousands—if not millions—of years. But on the islands where humans arrived with predators such as cats, dogs, rats and pigs, mōlī nesting would have disappeared. Kuaihelani (Midway) Atoll remains the mōlī mother ship—more than one thousand miles northwest of Kauaʻi—where this year there were 620,000 mōlī nests. Itʻs the largest colony of any albatross species in the world."

Hōkūpaa 2 Hob Osterlund
Hōkūpaʻa near its nest site, photograph by Hob Osterlund

"In modern history, a few intrepid mōlī attempted nesting at Barking Sands and Kīlauea Point. A 1980 article in the ʻElepaio Journal of the Hawaiʻi Audubon Society described a total of thirty albatross eggs between 1974-1980.  Almost all were predated [sic], abandoned or vandalized.  Three chicks did fledge in 1979, but only because of a temporary fence at Kīlauea Point.  Zero chicks fledged from Barking Sands.

Since those days, predator protection on Kauaʻi has unevenly improved and the mōlī population has gradually grown. This nesting season Kauaʻi started out with three hundred and ninety-four known nests, not including ninety-three on Lehua Islet. As of late June, those nearly four hundred nests had produced two hundred and fifty chicks.”

In the previous season a Laysan Albatross pair laid an egg at Poʻipu, but it did not hatch, so this season’s carefully protected fledgling, named Hōkūpa’a (Hawaiian for Polaris, the north star) is the first known from Kauai’s south shore."

Read the full article, containing two video clips of the chick wing flapping and of the fledgling taking flight by Hob Osterlund, here.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 22 July 2025

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

Email: secretariat@acap.aq
Tel: +61 3 6165 6674