The Endangered Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni, endemic to the vicinity of Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand, is fortunate to have a champion in the form of the Hutton’s Shearwater Charitable Trust to help with its conservation (click here).

The species breeds in the Seaward Kaikoura Range at elevations from 1200-1800 m in two remaining colonies.  These colonies are under threat from feral pigs Sus scrofa and Stoats Mustela erminea and from natural hazards such as avalanches and earthquakes.  The New Zealand Department of Conservation and the Trust have undertaken a translocation project whereby chicks were moved from the Kowhai mountain colony to the Kaikoura Peninsula within a predator-proof fence where they were hand-fed until fledging in an attempt to establish a third breeding colony.

Hutton's Shearwater fledgling, photograph by the Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust

Latest news on the translocation exercise is that the peninsula colony contains 11 breeding pairs with three chicks and eight eggs this season.  In addition to these, one egg was recently lost and two eggs are not being incubated regularly, which could be attributed to young inexperienced birds returning as first-time breeders.

The Trust has made a funding application to purchase six trail cameras to record shearwater activity at night, as well as 10 geolocators that can be deployed on departing chicks and retrieved up to five years later (as chicks could have very different migration patterns to adults).

An annotated bibliography for Hutton’s Shearwater is available on the Trust’s website (click here).

The activities of the Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust demonstrate how a local community can come together to successfully address a local conservation issue.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 December 2015

Mike Dunn and colleagues (British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK) have published online in the journal Polar Biology on population changes of Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus breeding on Signy Island in the South Orkney Islands.  “A fifty year study of the charismatic seabird, the southern giant petrel, on the Antarctic island of Signy shows its population has halved and its breeding success has declined in the last 10-20 years.”

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The southern giant petrel (Macronectes giganteus) has a circumpolar distribution and breeds on subantarctic islands and a few continental Antarctic sites.  Although this species has recently been down-listed to “Least Concern” by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), there are strong fluctuations in abundance and variable long-term trends recorded at different sites.  Systematic, long-term monitoring is essential to determine drivers underlying its population dynamics.  Here, we examine long-term changes in population size and productivity of southern giant petrels at Signy Island, South Orkney Islands.  Comparing estimated numbers of breeding pairs over the whole island in 2000/2001, 2005/2006, 2009/2010 and 2014/2015 with historical data revealed several phases of population change: a 64 % decline (6.2 % per annum) from 1968/1969 to 1984/1985, a 162 % increase (6.2 % per annum) to 2000/2001, stability until 2005/2006, a 56 % decline (18.3 % per annum) to 2009/2010 and stability until 2014/2015. This represents a 1.8 % decline per annum between 1968/1969 and 2014/2015.  Annual counts within focal study areas suggested a more rapid increase from 1996/1997 to 2006/2007, but the same downward trend from 2006/2007 to present, underlining potential pitfalls in inferring trends from part-island counts.  There was also a 20 % decline in breeding success from 1996/1997 to 2014/2015.  Our results indicate substantial fluctuations in southern giant petrel abundance at Signy Island over 4–5 decades and a recent decline in breeding numbers and success.  As the southern giant petrels breeding at the South Orkney Islands represents [sic] ~5–10 % of the global population, continuation of these declines would be of high conservation concern.”

Read a press release on the publication.

Southern Giant Petrel on Signy Island, photograph by Mike Dunn

With thanks to Richard Phillips for information.

Reference:

Dunn, M.J., Jackson, J.A., Adlard, S. & Phillips, R.A. 2015.  Population size and trends of southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) nesting at Signy Island, South Orkney Islands.  Polar Biology doi:10.1007/ s00300-015-1855-0.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 December 2015

Paolo Becciu (Ornis Italica, Rome, Italy,) and colleagues have produced a poster that reports on a study of the effects of an all-night disco on nest attendance in Scopoli’s Shearwater Calonectris diomedea.

The poster’s abstract follows:

In the summer 2014, four outdoor disco events were organised during the chick rearing period in close proximity of the Scopoli’s shearwater colony of Linosa island, the largest colony of this species in Italy (Massa & Lo Valvo 1986).  We took this opportunity to investigate the effects of high intensity artificial light and sound on the behaviour of parent birds and the effects on chick growth and survival.  Since propagation of light and sound over the colony was differentially affected by the topography of the area, we were able to separate the specific effects on nest attendance of these two disturbance factors.  Shearwaters return to the colony when it is completely dark, often avoiding moonlight.  This behaviour probably evolved to minimize predation risk by gulls and other diurnal predators.  The deleterious effects of artificial light sources on shearwaters are mostly related to mortality caused by attraction of fledglings to the light (Rodrìguez & Rodrìguez 2009).  In fact there are no studies on potential effects of artificial light and sound disturbance on parental nest provisioning and their consequences on chick growth.  Some touristic recreational activities have been shown to cause elevated stress responses, increased heart rate, and nest desertion in other seabird species.”

Fledgling Scopoli's Shearwater

Reference:

Becciu, P., Benedetti, M.C., Massa, B. & Dell'omo, G. 2015. Conflicts between touristic recreational activities and breeding shearwaters: light but not sound disturbance affects nest attendance.  XXVI Conference of Italian Society of Ethology, Parma, Italy.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 December 2015

UPDATED:  The conference website is now live.

The 13th International Seabird Group Conference will be held in in Edinburgh over 6-9 September 2016.  The venue will be the John McIntyre Conference Centre, close to the Scottish Parliament and the Royal Mile and set in the shadow of Arthur's Seat at Holyrood Park.  The conference will commence with a plenary lecture and reception on the evening of 6 September.  Three days of talks on all the latest topics in seabird ecology will follow, including further plenary talks from top researchers in the field.  Registration will open the week commencing 4 January 2016 with “early bird” and abstract deadlines in 15 April 2016.  Further details are to be circulated via the web sites and social media.

“The Seabird Group was founded in 1966 to promote and help coordinate the study and conservation of seabirds.  The Group organises regular international conferences and provides small grants towards research and survey projects.  The Group actively encourages its members to get involved in surveys of seabirds and other research work.”

Black-browed Albatross in the North Atlantic, photograph by John Larsen

Click here to access information on previous International Seabird Group Conferences, including their abstracts.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 December 2015, updated 21 December 2015