In May last year a Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus chick was found on Nakodojima Island, five kilometres south of Mukojima Island in Japan's Ogasawara Islands where a translocation project (70 chicks over the four years 2007-2011) was undertaken, but it was not possible to identify the parent birds (click here).

In the current breeding season, a pair made up of a female hand-reared on Mukojima in 2009 and a naturally-reared male bird from Torishima was identified on Nakodojima.  The pair failed to breed this time but it was confirmed that they were the parents of last year's chick by a parentage DNA test in a cooperative study conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Institute of Boninology and the Hokkaido University Museum.

The 2014 Short-tailed Albatross chick on Nakodojima Island, photograph courtesy of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government

A young Short-tailed Albatross on Mukojima Island, photograph by the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology

This finding supports the success of the reintroduction of Short-tailed Albatrosses from Torishima to the Ogasawara Islands.

With thanks to Tomohiro Deguchi, Yamashina Institute for Ornithology for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 March 2015

The Sixth International Albatross and Petrel Conference (IAPC6) is to be held in Barcelona, Spain, over 19-23 September 2016.  The conference follows on from the successful Fifth Conference held in Wellington, New Zealand in August 2012.  It continues a series that commenced with the First Conference, held in Hobart, Australia in 1995.  Intervening conferences were held in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (2000), Montevideo, Uruguay (2004) and Cape Town, South Africa (2008).

At the Fifth Conference (IAPC5) an informal approach was made to Jacob González-Solís of the Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, to consider hosting the next conference in Spain in four years’ time.  Acceptance of the suggestion came through in November that year, with the intention to hold IAPC6 in Barcelona in September 2016 (click here).

This will be the first time an albatross and petrel conference is to be held in Europe.  It will follow on from Spain hosting the Fifth Session of ACAP’s Meeting of Parties, to be held this May in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and earlier from Spain successfully nominating its endemic and Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus to the Agreement in 2012 (click here).

Balearic Shearwater, photograph by Miguel McMin

IAPC6 has now opened its website for pre-registration.  You can sign up now to ensure you receive further information on the conference.

Key dates announced on the conference website include early registration and abstract and travel award submissions by 1 March 2016.  Travel award winners will be announced by 1 June next year.

The Local Organizing Committee consists of Jacob González-Solís, Gaia Dell'Ariccia and Raül Ramos Garcia, all of the Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona (click here for their profiles).

With thanks to Jacob González-Solís for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 March 2015

Phase 3 of the rodent-eradication programme on South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* in the South Atlantic, last reported in ACAP Latest News to be 80% completed by the South Georgia Heritage Trust’s “Team Rat” (click here), reached 100% coverage two days ago on Monday the 23rd as reported in Project News No. 26.

"At 12:37 today I watched helicopter Alpha Mike flown by Chief Pilot Peter Garden pick up the 259th load of Phase 3 rodent bait and then disappear over the hill. Thirteen minutes later Peter returned with an empty bucket, as he has done many, many times before. But this load was different, because it was the last load of the Charlotte baiting zone, and the last load of Phase 3. Not only that, but this was also the last load of bait for the entire South Georgia Habitat Restoration project. After many years of preparation, three seasons of fieldwork, more than 800 bait loads, a thousand helicopter flying hours and over a thousand square kilometres treated, the final pellet had been dropped."

Now that Phase 3 is completed and thus all the areas of the island infested with either Norway or Brown Rats Rattus norvegicus or House Mice Mus musculus have been treated with poison bait comes a long (and no doubt anxious) wait for at least two years with no further signs of live rodents before the island can be declared officially rat (and mouse) free.  If this is achieved then South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* will become the largest island by far anywhere in the World where rodents have been eradicated; allowing its especially smaller seabirds a chance to recover.  Success should encourage plans and efforts to remove rodents from other ACAP-listed seabird islands in the Southern Ocean.

Transferring poison bait from ship to shore, photograph courtesy of Tony Martin

Click here to access Project News, Team Rat’s monthly newsletter.

Other news from the island is that following the last account (click here) on the demise of Reindeer Rangifer tarandus on South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* which had 44 animals removed in January this year, a further three animals (all males) were spotted in February, as reported below.

“Three male reindeer were spotted on February 14th by a field party and one of the helicopters baiting the Barff Peninsula to remove rats.  The Barff Peninsula was largely cleared of introduced reindeer last summer, with a further ‘mopping up’ operation carried out by the same Norwegian SNO marksmen earlier this season.   Although the reindeer were skittish around the helicopter, once baiting operations had moved to the south the hunting party of three managed to get close enough to shoot the reindeer.  It was notable that the three reindeer were in very good condition; heavy with big racks of antlers.  Previously, with thousands of deer in the area, it was so overpopulated that the animals were small and in poor condition” (click here).

Now gone: a Reindeer among King Penguins, photograph by Martin Collins

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 March 2015

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

Grant Harper (Biodiversity Restoration Specialists, St Arnaud, New Zealand) and Nancy Bunbury have published a review paper in the open-access journal Global Ecology and Conservation on the biology and impacts of three species of introduced rats Rattus spp. on tropical islands.  The paper identifies 10 species of procellariiform seabirds, mainly gadfly petrels Pterodroma spp. and shearwaters Puffinus spp., but also including Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses, as impacted.

No storm petrels Oceanitidae are listed in the review despite their presence on some islands considered tropical in the review (e.g. Tristram’s Storm Petrel Oceanodroma tristrami on French Frigate Shoals, Kure Atoll and Laysan Island in the North Pacific), perhaps because of the paucity of studies.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The three most invasive rat species, black or ship rat Rattus rattus, brown or Norway rats, R. norvegicus and Pacific rat, R. exulans have been incrementally introduced to islands as humans have explored the world’s oceans.  They have caused serious deleterious effects through predation and competition, and extinction of many species on tropical islands, many of which are biodiversity hotspots.  All three rat species are found in virtually all habitat types, including mangrove and arid shrub land.  Black rats tend to dominate the literature but despite this the population biology of invasive rats, particularly Norway rats, is poorly researched on tropical islands.  Pacific rats can often exceed population densities of well over 100 rats ha⁻¹and black rats can attain densities of 119 rats ha⁻¹, which is much higher than recorded on most temperate islands.  High densities are possibly due to high recruitment of young although the data to support this are limited.  The generally aseasonally warm climate can lead to year-round breeding but can be restricted by either density-dependent effects interacting with resource constraints often due to aridity.  Apparent adverse impacts on birds have been well recorded and almost all tropical seabirds and land birds can be affected by rats.  On the Pacific islands, black rats have added to declines and extinctions of land birds caused initially by Pacific rats.  Rats have likely caused unrecorded extinctions of native species on tropical islands.  Further research required on invasive rats on tropical islands includes the drivers of population growth and carrying capacities that result in high densities and how these differ to temperate islands, habitat use of rats in tropical vegetation types and interactions with other tropical species, particularly the reptiles and invertebrates, including crustaceans.”

Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses, photograph by Pete Leary

References:

Harper, G.A. & Bunbury, N. 2015.  Invasive rats on tropical islands: their population biology and impacts on native species.  Global Ecology and Conservation 3: 607-627.

McClelland, G.T.W., Jones, I.L., Lavers, J.L. & Sato, F. 2008.  Breeding biology of Tristram's Storm-petrelOceanodroma tristrami at French Frigate Shoals and Laysan Island, Northwest Hawaiian Islands.  Marine Ornithology 36: 175-181.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 March 2015