The New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust has commenced to release the six juvenile Northern Giant Petrels Macronectes halli that is has taken into care over the last several weeks.

Northern Giant Petrels under care, photographs by the New Zealand Bird Rescue Charitable Trust

Three birds were released at the end of last month at Muriwai in the Auckland region of New Zealand’s North Island from where they flew out to sea.

Read more in the New Zealand Herald and in an earlier report in ACAP Latest News.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 July 2014

The Kauaʻi Endangered Seabird Recovery Project (KESRP) is a Hawaiian Division of Forestry and Wildlife project, administered through the Pacific Studies Co-operative Unit of the University of Hawaiʻi.  Formed in 2006, the project focuses primarily on three threatened seabirds that breed on the island of Kauaʻi – Newell’s Shearwater Puffinus newelli, Hawaiian Petrel Pterodroma sandwichensis and Band-rumped Storm Petrel Oceanodroma castro.

KESRP has recently reported on its work placing cameras at seabird burrows on Kaua‘i and filming feral Domestic Cats Felis catus entering burrows, in two separate cases killing a Newell’s Shearwater and a Hawaiian Petrel (click here).

“In one of the videos, a cat enters a rare Newell’s Shearwater burrow at a site within the Hono o Na Pali Natural Area Reserve.  It is then seen struggling about in the burrow and then emerging with the shearwater in its mouth before killing it and eating parts of it off camera.  The remains of the bird were recovered a few days later by KESRP staff.  The bird was one of a pair of the very rare Newell’s Shearwaters that had successfully fledged a chick last year.”

“The cameras are showing that cats are regularly visiting seabird burrows.  Last year, we had one cat visit nine burrows in a single day – killing a Hawaiian Petrel chick in the process.  If one considers that we are only monitoring a small number of burrows with cameras in a small number of areas, then the true impact of feral cats must be very significant indeed.   These cats are not house pets. They are predators capable of wiping out entire colonies of our native and endemic seabirds.”

“This season, KESRP has already recorded 25 instances on camera of feral cats trying to enter breeding bird burrows, including the two that resulted in the birds inside being killed.  The remains of nine endangered seabirds killed by cats have also been discovered at multiple remote sites around the island so far this season.”

Newell's Shearwater photograph by Eic Vanderwerf

Read more in news accounts in the Star Advertiser and the Garden Isle.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 July 2014

David Costantini (Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium) and colleagues have published in the journal Oecologia on whether oxidative damage has a physiological cost of reproduction in long-lived Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans.

The paper’s abstract follows:

Reproduction is a demanding activity for animals, since they must produce, and in some cases protect and provision, their young.  It is often overlooked that demands of reproduction may also be exacerbated by exposure to contaminants.  In this study, we make use of an exceptional long-term dataset to perform a cross-sectional study on the long-lived wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) in order to test the effects of reproduction, persistent organic pollutants [POPs: pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)], mercury, individual age (3–47 years), and sex on the levels of plasma oxidative damage and inflammation.  The results of our study support the hypothesis that oxidative damage may be a physiological cost of reproduction and that individuals carrying higher levels of organic or non-organic contaminants have higher oxidative damage.  Levels of the inflammatory protein haptoglobin were similar between breeding and non-breeding birds, with the exception of breeding males which had the lowest levels of haptoglobin.  Our data also show an effect of age and of organic contaminants on the plasma oxidative damage level, but not on plasma haptoglobin.  In addition, plasma oxidative damage level increased with red blood cell mercury concentration in females but not in males.  Hence, our study highlights that the harmful effects of contaminants may come through interaction with factors like life stage or gender, suggesting potential for high variation in susceptibility to contamination among individuals.

An old Wandering Albatross guards its chick

Reference:

Costantini, D., Meillère, A., Carravieri, A., Lecomte, V., Sorci, G., Faivre, B., Weimerskirch, H., Bustamante, P., Labadie, P., Budzinski, H. & Chastel, O. 2014.  Oxidative stress in relation to reproduction, contaminants, gender and age in a long‑lived seabird.  Oecologia.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 July 2014

Jean-Baptiste Thiebot (Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-bois, France) and colleagues publish in the Japanese journal Ornithological Science on whether Black Rats Rattus rattus affect Amsterdam Albatrosses Diomedea amsterdamensis.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Introduced mammals may have deleterious effects on avifauna.  We investigated whether such species may be affecting the breeding success of the critically endangered Amsterdam Albatrosses Diomedea amsterdamensis on its remote breeding island.  Twelve camera-traps deployed near albatross nests during the chick brooding period in 2011 captured 25,000 pictures. Two of them showed Black Rats Rattus rattus, but without revealing evidence of any direct interaction between the two species.  Breeding success in 2011 was similar to that in previous years (60%).  Our survey suggests that introduced mammals may not currently represent a primary direct threat to this population, but they might amplify the risks of chick mortality in case of disease outbreaks.”

Amsterdam Albatross, photograph by Scott Shaffer

Reference:

Thiebot, J.-B., Barbraud, C., Delord, K., Marteau, C. & Weimerskirch, H. 2014.  Do introduced mammals chronically impact the breeding success of the world's rarest albatross?  Ornithological Science 13: 41-46.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 July 2014