Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has this week announced the creation of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, which will cover a surface area of more than 297 000 km² around the Islas Desventuradas (2.4-km² San Ambrosio and 2.5-km² San Félix Islands) c. 900 km west of the Chilean mainland.  President Bachelet announced the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park at the Our Ocean Conference 2015 in Valparaiso, Chile earlier this week.  The first Our Ocean Conference was held in Washington, D.C., USA in June of last year.

The two islands form part of the underwater Nazca Ridge, which runs south-west from Peru towards Easter Island.  With the formation of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, Chile will now protect 12 percent of its marine surface area.  The islands are uninhabited save for a Chilean naval detachment and the intermittent presence of lobster fishers; feral cats Felis catus (to San Félix) and rodents have been introduced.  Access to the Islas Desventuradas is restricted due to the presence of the naval base on San Félix – which has a runway for aeroplanes.

The Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park

The Desventuradas support breeding populations of two gadfly petrels (Kermadec Pterodroma neglecta and Vulnerable Masatierra P. defilippiana) and White-bellied Storm Petrel Fregetta grallaria, amongst other seabirds.  ACAP-listed Black-browed Thalassarche melanophris and Salvin’s T. salvini Albatrosses and Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus have been regularly recorded in their surrounding waters.

Southern Giant Petrels have been reported from around the Islas Desventuradas, photograph by Warwick Barnes

The new marine park is to be a fully protected no-take zone where fishing and other extractive activities will not be allowed, although an artisanal trap fishery for Juan Fernández Rock Lobster Jasus frontalis, which has been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, will continue in specific areas around the islands.

The Chilean Government has also committed to the creation of a Marine Park around Easter Island (Rapa Nui) encompassing more than 600 000 km², pending the approval of the island’s indigenous community. Easter Island supports breeding populations of three gadfly petrels and a shearwater.  In addition, Chile intends to protect part of the waters around Juan Fernandez (Robinson Crusoe) Island with a network of five no-take zones as a marine park.

Proposed Easter Island Marine Park

News item researched from here and from several other on-line sources.

The Our Ocean Conference will return to the USA in 2016.

Reference:

Flores, M.A., Schlatter, R.P. & Hucke-Gaete, R. 2014.  Seabirds of Easter Island, Salas y Gómez Island and Desventuradas Islands, southeastern Pacific Ocean.  Latin American Journal of Aquatic Research 42: 752-759.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 October 2015

Following a review in 2013 by BirdLife International’s Globally Threatened Seabird Forum it was considered that “despite considerable uncertainty over the trend data, an uplisting from Vulnerable to Endangered [of the ACAP-listed White-chinned Petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis] may be warranted”.  However, no conclusion was then reached and the review was kept open until this year (click here).

Following further comments by interested individuals and organizations, including by the ACAP Secretariat, BirdLife has now recommended that the White-chinned Petrel - at risk to longline fisheries in the Southern Ocean and in waters off southern Africa and South America - retain its Vulnerable status and not be uplisted to Endangered.

White-chinned Petrel on the Antipodes, photograph by David Boyle

“The final categorisation will be published on the BirdLife website in late October and on the IUCN website in November, following further checking of information relevant to the assessment by BirdLife and IUCN.”

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 October 2015

In 2006-07, an observer from the NGO SEO (BirdLife in Spain) participated in three fishing trips to the Gran Sol fishing ground west of the United Kingdom and detected worrying seabird bycatch rates.  Each trip saw 48 to 141 birds caught, most of them recovered dead.  The main species captured were Great Shearwater Puffinus (Ardenna) gravis, Northern or Arctic Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis, Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla and Northern Gannet Morus bassanus.

“The Gran Sol hosts a fishing fleet that includes about 50 demersal longline vessels.  The majority of them are from Spain.  This fleet targets hake, using the traditional piedra-bola system (a line with hooks hanging of it regularly, which hangs near the bottom with alternating weights and buoys).”

BirdLife plans a workshop with the fleet before the end of the year to help assess the problem and to find effective solutions to minimise bycatch.  According to SEO the Gran Sol fishers have already agreed to turn off the lights on deck at night, which has reduced the bycatch of seabirds 10 fold.

Read more on seabird mortality on the Grand Sol fishing ground.

A Great Shearwater gets entangled on a Gran Sol longliner, photograph by Alvaro Barros, SEO

The European Commission has produced an EU Action Plan for reducing incidental catches of seabirds in fishing gears.

Reference:

European Commission 2012.  Action Plan for Reducing Incidental Catches of Seabirds in Fishing Gears.  Brussels: European Commission  16 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 October 2015

The Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan, endemic to islands within the Mediterranean Sea, has been identified as a potential candidate for listing within the Albatross and Petrel Agreement.  Its conservation status of Vulnerable has been under review by BirdLife International this year, with the proposal to downlist the species to Least Concern because of a perception its populations are not decreasing in size (click here).

A detailed discussion on the downlisting proposal has been undertaken on the BirdLife International’s Globally Threatened Seabird Forum, with 21 individual submissions made, all arguing for retaining its current status.  As a consequence BirdLife has agreed to recommend that the shearwater’s Vulnerable category remain:

“We accept the argument that the most prudent approach at this stage would be to precautionarily maintain Yelkouan Shearwater as Vulnerable, recognising that the various components of the 2012 study may represent a more accurate assessment of the species’ status than the European Red List data, given the difficulties associated with monitoring the species.  If further study and monitoring fail to provide evidence of declines, the species should again be considered for downlisting in the future” (click here).

Yelkouan Shearwater, photograph by Matthew Borg Cardona

Reference:

BirdLife International 2015.  European Red List of Birds.  Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 October 2015