Header design by Marion Schön, after photographs by Laurie Smaglick Johnson and Kirk Zufelt

For the sixth year running, ACAP is pleased to collaborate once more  with Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN).  For Project #49 the collective’s artists are being requested to produce artworks featuring the Endangered Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis, endemic to France’s Amsterdam Island, and the Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri.  The artworks will be in support of ACAP’s theme “Effects of Disease” for this year’s World Albatross Day on 19 June (WAD2025), the sixth to be held.  The project commenced on 01 April and will run until 31 May.,.

Both species are at risk from Pasteurella multocida that causes avian cholera and Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (causing erysipela) on Amsterdam Island.  As for other albatrosses on islands in the Southern Ocean, they are also at risk to the Highly Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus.

Photographs of the two albatrosses are available to view in an ABUN Facebook album to guide and inspire the artists.  The two albatross species will also feature in this year’s World Albatross Day with a photography competition, posters and infographics.

With thanks to Marion Schön, Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 02 April 2025

Graphical abstract from the publication

Laura Baes (Programa de Pós=Graduação em Ecologia e Recursos Naturais, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil) and colleagues have published in the journal Science of the Total Environment showing that anthropogenic activities impacted half of beach-cast collected seabirds in southeastern Brazil, with a possible link between starvation and plastic ingestion.  “Within Procellariiformes, most of them are from the family Procellaridae (petrels and shearwaters)”, including ACAP-listed White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis (43) and Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus (11), and Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris (24).

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The Southern Atlantic Ocean is home to globally significant seabird populations, and off Brazil little is known about health condition in many species.  Despite major known threats that these birds face (i.e., bycatch in fisheries, climate change, disease and pollution), plastic ingestion has become an emerging risk to seabirds, of which it is not clear how sublethal effects take part in the health of individuals that wash up along the coastline.  Therefore, this study aimed to characterize seabird health of beach-cast seabirds in Brazil to understand how ingested plastic is related to cause of death and other pathologies.  We reviewed complete postmortem examination records of 654 seabirds that beached between 2017 and 2021 in Southeastern Brazil.  We identified a multitude of causes that lead to the beaching and death of wild seabirds, including natural and anthropogenic causes, and we also found that over half of analyzed seabirds were impacted by anthropogenic activity (fisheries, oil, plastic, and trauma). Fisheries foremost among them have been impacting seabirds in interactive ways, through bycatch, trauma, and by mismanaged associated debris.  We found 5 % of birds that ingested plastic had potential debris obstruction in the gastrointestinal tract, and a possible relationship between ingested plastic and starvation either as a cause of death or as a pathological condition.  This study highlights that seabird populations that beach in southeastern Brazil are subject to multiple and interacting threats from anthropogenic activities, providing recent data that can serve as baseline for awareness, conservation and public policies in the South Atlantic.”

With thanks to Sandy Bartle.

Reference:

Baes, L., Freitas Pessi, C., Roman, L., d, Chupil, H., dos Santos Costa, P.C. & Reigada, C. 2025.  Postmortem examinations show human activity impacts over half of seabirds beach-cast in Brazil.  Science of the Total Environment. 973 10.

ohn Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 01 April 2025

Overall map of Kerguelen (a) and Courbet Peninsula (b). The red rectangle in panel (b) refers to our study area.  From the publication

Charlotte Bourgoin (Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement, Université de Toulouse, France) and colleagues have published in the journal Ecology and Evolution  on what effects brooding by Vulnerable Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans on Kerguelen.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Parental investment increases offspring fitness at the expense of the parent's ability to invest in other offspring. In many animal species, parents guard their offspring after birth. The parental decision over the duration of this period is expected to be triggered by the associated fitness costs and benefits for both offspring and parents. Here, we evaluated the relevance of several intrinsic and environmental variables in determining brooding period duration in the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) and questioned whether brooding duration was related to chick subsequent survival and biometry prior to fledging. We used a semi-experimental design to increase the variance in cat abundance, a recent predator of albatross chicks, and predicted that an increased predation risk at the nest scale would trigger longer chick brooding and thus, protection. In addition, we questioned the influence of weather conditions, hatching date, and characteristics of chicks (sex and biometry) and parents (sex and age) on brooding duration. We report no effect of predation risk or parental characteristics on brooding duration. However, the probability for a parent to end brooding decreased with forthcoming unfavorable weather. Our data also revealed reduced brooding duration for late-hatched chicks and a positive association between brooding duration and chick structural size, and between the frequency of shifts between parents and chick structural size. Finally, brooding duration was not associated with chick survival or with chick biometry prior to fledging. We discuss these results in light of pre-existing hypotheses on fitness costs and benefits associated with brooding duration for chicks and parents.”

Wandering Albatrosses over the Courbet Peninsula, Kerguelen, photograph by Maite Louzao

Reference:

Bourgoin, C., Barbraud, C., Getti, T, Delord, K., Bodin, A. & Blanchard, P.  2024.  Brooding duration does not depend on cat predation risk but is related to weather and phenology in the wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans).  Ecology and Evolution 14 (9).

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 31 March 2025

Laysan Albatross B267 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, March 2025, photograph by Hob Osterlund

It is now well known that the low-lying atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are at risk of losing their large populations of Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis from sea-level rise and storm surges thought due to climate change.  In fact, some small islets that supported breeding albatrosses have already disappeared, such as Whale-Skate Islet in the 1990s and East Island in 2018, both in the French Frigate Shoals.  As a consequence, efforts are being made to establish new colonies by translocating chicks to the high-level inhabited islands, notably on Oahu in the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve and the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge.   On both Oahu and Kauai predator-proof fences have been constructed to give these new and existing colonies alike a better chance of successful breeding.

In addition, and complementary to these conservation efforts, some individual Laysan Albatrosses are translocating themselves without human intervention from low-lying to the higher-altitude islands towards the east.  Here are accounts of just two of them.

Laysan Albatross B267 (white on blue colour band, metal band 1517-69467) was banded as a chick on Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals in June 2004.  After fledging it was first seen again in the James Campbell NWR on Oahu in February 2022.  It was next recorded (as a non-breeder) in March 2025 a couple of times  on private land on the north shore of Kauai, where it was photographed and videoed next to a chick (not its own) by Hob Osterlund of the Kaua/i Albatross Network.

Hob writes about B267 to ACAP Latest News: “While it’s possible the bird has nested here and evaded observation, the likelihood is pretty low.  We have spies all over the north shore, with greater diligence with each passing year. More likely he/she has nested elsewhere, especially since was previously spotted on O’ahu.  The video was [made] on private land where I have seen the bird twice in two weeks.  This is why the nesting colonies here [on Kauai] are vital: they have elevation, an absence of mongoose, and people who care--all the critical elements that make up a Noahʻs Ark”.

Another Tern Island Laysan Albatross (banded in June 2010 as KJ06 (black on yellow, metal band 2017-08906) has made the switch to higher ground.  First encountered on Oahu in 2021 it has been documented over 10 times either on Oahu or on Kauai (mostly in the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Reserve).  It was last encountered on Oahu on 12 December 204 and on Kauai on 19 March 2025.

Hopefully, both birds will settle down in colonies safe from sea level rise and commence to breed – time will tell!

With thanks to Hiob Osterlund, Kaua’i Albatross Network and Anna Vallery, USFWS.

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