The 22nd Annual Meeting incorporating the Extended Commission of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) will be held in Yeosu, South Korea over 12-15 October 2015.

The provisional agenda for the Extended Commission [EC] meeting states that “at the ERSWG’s [CCSBT Working Group on Ecologically Related Species] March 2015 meeting, the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) presented a paper which proposed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the CCSBT and ACAP Secretariats.  The ERSWG commented on the considerable benefits already obtained through close collaboration with ACAP and the high importance of ACAP’s contributions to the ERSWG.  The ERSWG therefore endorsed and strongly supported the proposed MoU.  The EC will consider whether to sign an MoU to facilitate cooperation between the CCSBT and ACAP.”

Click here for an earlier ACAP Latest News report on developing an MoU between ACAP and CCSBT.

ACAP will be represented at the meeting by its Executive Secretary Warren Papworth.

Chatham Albatross, photograph by Matt Charteris

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 September 2015

Lehua, one of the USA’s Hawaiian Islands, supports small populations of Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses (click here).  Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Puffinus pacificus breed in large numbers (an estimated 23 000 pairs) on Lehua and the island also holds an important population of Bulwer’s Petrels  Bulweria bulwerii.  Newell’s Shearwater P. newelli and Madeiran or Band-rumped Storm Petrel Oceanodroma castro have both been confirmed breeding on the island in the past, although if any remain to the present day they are present in extremely small numbers.  In addition the Christmas Shearwater P. nativitatus is suspected of breeding.

The uninhabited 126-ha island was the target of an eradication attempt in 2009 which failed to remove its introduced rodents.  Field research with an aerial drop of non-toxic bait has now taken place towards making a second attempt to rid the island of rats (click here).

Lehua Island  from the air

The uninhabited 126-ha island was the target of an eradication attempt in 2009 which failed to remove its introduced rodents.  Field research with an aerial drop of non-toxic bait has now taken place towards making a second attempt to rid the island of rats (click here)

A Black-footed Albatross pair on Lehua, photograph by Eric Vanderwerf

"The results of the aerial drop project will provide guidance for the potential development of a new project to use a rodenticide to control Lehua’s invasive rat population.  The project would be at least one year out."

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 September 2015

Location and Dates of Meetings

The Ninth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC9) will be held from Monday, 9 May to Friday, 13 May 2016, in Chile.  Chile became a Party to the Agreement in December 2005.

Pink-footed Shearwater, a Chilean breeding endemic and ACAP's most recently listed species, photograph courtesy of Fardela Blanca

The location of the meeting venue will be advised in AC9 Meeting Circular 2.  Meetings of the Population and Conservation Status Working Group and Seabird Bycatch Working Group will precede AC9, at the same venue.  These meetings will be held from Monday, 2 May to Friday, 6 May 2016.  A Heads of Delegation meeting will be convened on Sunday, 8 May 2016 in the evening.  

Meeting Documents

The deadlines for submission and distribution of meeting documents for AC9 and the Working Groups meetings follow:

2 January 2016.  Draft agenda for AC9 distributed

1 February 2016.  New items for inclusion in the agenda submitted to Secretariat 

9 March 2016.  AC9 Working Papers and abstracts for Working Group documents requiring translation submitted to Secretariat

9 March 2016.  Revised draft agenda for AC9 distributed

28 March 2016.  Information papers and documents for Working Group meetings submitted to Secretariat

8 April 2016.  Meeting documents distributed in the working languages by the Secretariat
Meeting documents will not be accepted after these dates.  It would be appreciated if participants could advise the Secretariat of any papers that they intend submitting to the meeting as soon as possible.

Applications for Observer Status

The deadlines for submission of requests for Observer status to attend AC9 are:

8 February 2016:  Submission of written requests for observer status by international bodies

9 March 2016:  Submission of written requests for observer status from non-international bodies

9 March 2016.  International bodies advised if their request for observer status has been approved

8 April 2016.  Non-international bodies advised if their request for observer status has been approved

Information on registration and other meeting arrangements will be provided in Meeting Circular No 2.

The First Session of the Meeting of the Parties to ACAP, held in Hobart, Australia in 2004 established an Advisory Committee to provide expert advice and information to ACAP Parties, the Secretariat and others. Click here to access reports and documents of previous meetings of ACAP’s Advisory Committee.  The previous meeting (the 8th) was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay in September 2014.

ACAP Secretariat, 28 September 2015

Rachel Buxton (Department of Zoology and Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the Journal of Wildlife Management on monitoring burrowing petrels, utilizing field data from the Grey-faced Petrel Pterodroma macroptera gouldi.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Burrow-nesting petrels (order Procellariiformes) are keystone species in island ecosystems, where they modify habitat through guano deposition and burrow digging.  Burrowing petrels are among the most threatened groups of birds, yet robust long-term monitoring data remain scarce because of the financial and logistical constraints of working on offshore breeding islands, the variety of surveying strategies used, and the birds’ below-ground breeding behavior.  We examined the sampling requirements of monitoring programs to detect changes in the number of breeding pairs of gray-faced petrels (Pterodroma gouldi), a common species in northern New Zealand.  We first examined the relationship between burrow entrance density and breeding pair density using 4 years of data from 3 large colonies.  We then conducted a simulation-based power analysis to assess the ability of different burrow-occupancy sampling regimes to detect changes in breeding bird abundance.  Power to detect change was influenced by population growth rates, initial bird density, interannual variation in abundance, plot size, number of plots, intervals between surveys, time of year surveys are undertaken, and duration of the monitoring program.  Our analyses suggest that, under the most suboptimal monitoring conditions, at least 45 randomly assigned 5-m-radius plots surveyed annually during the incubation period for 20 years will be required to detect a 1% annual change in breeding bird abundance.  Because power will vary depending on project specifications, local conditions, and potential change, we created an online application with over 50,000 combinations of starting parameters (https://landcare.shinyapps.io/petrels).  This allows managers to determine the power of different combinations of survey intensities while maintaining consistency and maximizing efficiency.”

Grey-faced Petrel, courtesy of Sabine's Sunbird

With thanks to Rachel Buxton.

Reference:

Buxton, R.T., Gormley, A.M., Jones, C.J., Lyver, P.o’B. 2015.  Monitoring burrowing petrel populations: a sampling scheme for the management of an island keystone species.  Journal of Wildlife Management DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.994.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 September 2015