A Flesh-footed Shearwater at sea; photograph by Kirk Zufelt

NOTE:  ACAP Monthly Missives are more personal than those news articles that are regularly posted in ACAP Latest News.  The new series offers the opportunity to go behind and beyond factual events and current news, giving opinions on matters related to the conservation of all the members of the tubenose group of birds.  Posts will be largely written by the Emeritus ACAP Information Officer, with guests from time to time invited to make their own contributions.  This missive is the second in the series, the first reviewed the connection between the United Kingdom Royal Family and albatrosses.  The opinions expressed in ACAP Monthly Missives are not to be taken as those of the ACAP Secretariat or any of the Agreement’s Parties.

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Shearwaters in the genera Ardenna, Calonectris and Puffinus are pursuit divers known to be killed by longline fisheries.  Longline mortality of albatrosses and petrels directly led to the negotiation and adoption of the Agreement in 2001 but at the time shearwaters were not considered for listing.  Following a 2008 published review of procellariiform species that identified several shearwaters for possible listing via a scoring system, two shearwaters have been included within the Agreement, the Critically Endangered Balearic Puffinus mauretanicus in 2012 and the Vulnerable Pink-footed Ardenna creatopus in 2015.  Subsequently, the original list of candidate species has been reviewed by ACAP, with the most recent text available in MoP7 Inf 02, and the next review scheduled for the Thirteenth Meeting of the ACAP Advisory Committee (AC13) and its working groups in May 2023.

ACAP-listed Balearic (left) and Pink-footed (right) Shearwaters; photographs by ‘Pep’ Arcos and Peter Hodum

The question arises, should more shearwater species be added to the Agreement?  Here, I consider whether two species that have been identified with high weighted totals in the latest review should be listed, what activities have taken place to date towards their nomination, what might be the consequences of and impediments to their listing, and a way forward.

Flesh-footed Shearwater

At the Eleventh Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC11), held in Brazil in 2019, New Zealand reported it was considering the merit of nominating the globally Near Threatened Flesh-footed Shearwater Ardenna carneipes for listing by ACAP (click here).  Flesh-footed Shearwaters are regularly caught as bycatch by commercial fisheries in both Australian and New Zealand waters.  The species is also known for the ingestion of large amounts of plastic fragments, at least at some breeding localities, notably Australia’s Lord Howe Island, as a series of papers by the University of Tasmania’s Adrift Lab continues to show.  The Flesh-footed Shearwater (categorized as Nationally Vulnerable by New Zealand and as Vulnerable by New South Wales and Western Australia, but not categorized by the Australian Federal Government) has been previously identified as a potential candidate species for such listing (see AC11 Inf 04).  Perhaps due to COVID-19 resulting in recent meetings of the Agreement being shortened versions held virtually, there appears to have been little progress in the last three years with its nomination.

The Flesh-footed Shearwater breeds within three countries, Australia, France (on sub-Antarctic île Saint-Paul) and New Zealand; all three are ACAP Parties.  Its high-seas distribution largely falls within the ambit of tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations (tRFMOs) with which ACAP currently engages.  Further, it does not appear to be the target of a directed take for human consumption, as is the case for some other shearwater species in Australia and New Zealand.  There thus appears to be no obvious impediment to its listing, or notable consequences to the Agreement itself.  I suggest that Australia, France and New Zealand consider working together towards a nomination.  A first step could be holding a one-day expert workshop to review the species’ status associated with a meeting of the ACAP Advisory Committee.  Depending on the workshop’s findings and recommendations, the three breeding states could then produce a nomination text to be discussed at a following meeting of the Advisory Committee and its working groups.

Yelkouan Shearwater

The globally Vulnerable Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan is endemic to the Mediterranean region, breeding on islands within the sea and migrating eastward in to the Black Sea when not breeding.  The species is listed in Annex I (“particularly threatened”) of the EU Birds Directive and in Annex II (“requiring special protection”) of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention).  As for the closely related Balearic Shearwater (with which there is evidence that it may hybridise) the species is at risk to both artisanal and commercial fishery mortality, light pollution and introduced predators at breeding sites.

A banded Yelkouan Shearwater breeding in Malta, photograph by André Raine

The species is known to breed in at least nine countries around the Mediterranean Sea, with significant populations in France, Greece, Italy and Malta, as well smaller ones in Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Tunisia, and possibly also in Turkey.  Of these countries, only France is an ACAP Party.  Based on what is known of its at-sea distribution, all the many political entities surrounding the Mediterranean and Black Seas will be range states.  Populations appear to be decreasing, with low breeding success at many breeding sites - and some sites have gone extinct.

In 2013 two environmental NGOs, BirdLife International and Medmaravis, jointly submitted an Information Paper to the Seventh Meeting (AC7) of the Agreement’s Advisory Committee, held in La Rochelle, France.  The paper (AC7 Inf 04) had among its recommendations that “Mediterranean countries that are Parties to ACAP are encouraged to propose Calonectris diomedea [= Scopoli’s Shearwater, categorized as Least Concern] and Puffinus yelkouan for listing in Annex 1” (click here).  Since then, no further proposals for listing the Yelkouan Shearwater have been made to the Agreement.

The consequences of listing the Yelkouan Shearwater are likely to be more significant for ACAP than for the Flesh-footed Shearwater.  Firstly, it would add up to nine more countries as breeding range states to those non-Party breeding range states (Japan, Mexico and the United States) with which ACAP already interacts, with the obvious issue of potentially over-extending the capacity of a small Secretariat.  Inviting even Greece, Italy and Malta, the most important non-Party breeding states, to ACAP meetings would also have financial and personpower consequences.  Further, ACAP may then feel the desirability of interacting  with the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) which up to now it has had no direct dealings.

An initiative to list the Yelkouan Shearwater on ACAP's Annex 1 might come from its sole breeding Party, France, perhaps working with Italy that holds by far the largest populations.  Alternatively, the European Union could take the lead, although its Environmental Agency categorizes the bird as Least Concern, i.e. not threatened (click here).   A recent development is Malta's intention to produce a National Action Plan 2022-2030 for the species.  An international action plan could sensibly then follow, negotiated by all the breeding range states for the Yelkouan Shearwater.  Such could possibly transpire under the auspices of the European Union's LIFE Programme (a funding instrument for the environment and climate action). It is noteworthy that the Life Programme has funded a consortium of environmental NGOs in France, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain (the LIFE PanPuffinus! Project) to improve the conservation status of the Yelkouan Shearwater and the Balearic Shearwater by tackling threats at land and sea through transboundary collaboration.  ACAP should keep a watching brief of all these developments.

Selected Publications:

Baker, G.B. & Wise, B.S. 2005.  The impact of pelagic longline fishing on the Flesh-footed Shearwater Puffinus carneipes in eastern Australia.  Biological Conservation  126: 305-316.

Bonnaud, E., Berger, G., Bourgeois, K., Legrand, J. &  Vidal, E. 2012  Predation by cats could lead to the extinction of the Mediterranean endemic Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan at a major breeding site.  Ibis 154: 566-577.

Bourgeois, K. & Vidal, E. 2008.  The endemic Mediterranean yelkouan shearwater Puffius yelkouan: distribution, threats and a plea for more data.  Oryx 42: 187-194.

Cooper, J., Baccetti, N., Belda, E.J., Borg, J.J., Oro, D., Papaconstantinou, C & Sánchez, A. 2003.  Seabird mortality from longline fishing in the Mediterranean and Macaronesian waters: a review and a way forward.  Scientia Marina 67, Supplement 2: 57-64.

Cooper, J. & Baker, G.B. 2008.  Identifying candidate species for inclusion within the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.  Marine Ornithology  36 1-8.

Jamieson, S.E. & Waugh, S.M. 2015.  An assessment of recent population trends of flesh-footed shearwaters (Puffinus carneipes) breeding in New Zealand.  Notornis 62: 8-13.

Lavers, J.L. 2014.  Population status and threats to Flesh-footed Shearwaters (Puffinus carneipes) in South and Western Australia.  ICES Journal of Marine Science: 72: 316-327.

Oppel, S., Raine, A.F., Borg, J.J., Raine, H., Bonnaud, E., Bourgeois, K. & Breton, A.R. 2011.  Is the Yelkouan shearwater Puffinus yelkouan threatened by low adult survival probabilities?  Biological Conservation 144: 2255-2263.

Priddel, D., Carlile, N., Fullagar, P., Hutton, I. & O’Neill, L. 2006.  Decline in the distribution and abundance of flesh-footed shearwaters (Puffinus carneipes) on Lord Howe Island, Australia.  Biological Conservation 128: 412-424.

Raine, H., Borg, J.J., Raine, A., Bariner, S. & Cardona, M.B. 2007.  Light Pollution and its effect on Yelkouan Shearwaters in Malta; Causes and Solutions. Malta: Life Project Yelkouan Shearwater, BirdLife Malta.

Rivers-Auty, J., Bond, A.L., Grant, M.L. & Lavers, J.L. 2022.  The one-two punch of plastic exposure: macro- and micro-plastics induce multi-organ damage in seabirds.  Journal of Hazardous Materials.  doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130117.

John Cooper, Emeritus ACAP Information Officer, 01 November 2022

An adult Tristan Albatross with back wounds from mice; photographs (L - R) Kate Lawrence and Jaimie Cleeland

Lessons and insights from the failed mouse eradication attempt on Gough Island were presented in a recent webinar hosted by New Zealand’s Crown Research Institute, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, a partner in the Gough Island Restoration Programme. The eradication attempt on the island’s introduced House Mice Mus musculus was carried out in 2021 during the southern hemisphere’s winter. Monitoring equipment captured footage of a single mouse in mid-November confirming the programme had been unsuccessful and dashing the hopes of those involved in the ambitious project. 

Providing insight into the project and answering questions submitted to the webinar was Conservation Biologist and Technical Advisor to the Programme, Dr Araceli Samaniego. Dr Samaniego, who has been involved in and led a number of successful mouse eradications, outlined the eradication plan, its execution, and touched on possible reasons for its failure, including the hypothesis of invasive slugs thwarting the programme’s success. Despite the mouse population increasing quickly since the eradication attempt, Dr Samaniego believes another bid at eliminating the island’s mice would be a worthwhile venture and, due to the lessons learnt this time around, has every reason to be a success. 

The 30-minute webinar, Mice squeak through eradication attempt on Gough Island - what can we learn?, is available to watch above or at the Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research website. A transcript of the presentation and answers to questions submitted to Dr Samaniego are also available to download at the website.

For further insight on the interference of the invasive slugs during the eradication attempt, please read Dr Samaniego and colleagues' paper, “A lesson for planning rodent eradications: interference of invasive slugs during the Gough Island mouse eradication attempt in 2021”, published in the journal, Wildlife Research. 

31 October 2022

Displaying Amsterdam Albatrosses; photograph by Romain Buenadicha
In a study by Henri Weimerskirch and colleagues, Amsterdam Albatrosses were fitted with loggers capable of detecting radar emissions from fishing vessels which may help halt illegal fishing

Claudia Geib has published an article, To Stop Illegal Fishing, Send a Seabird in Nautilus, exploring the feasibility of seabirds tracking and helping stop illegal fishing. Her article draws on a current study using Peruvian Boobies to monitor anchovy fisheries but also references previous studies involving albatrosses. ACAP has highlighted research such as that by Henri Weimerskirch and colleagues which utilised geolocating loggers attached to Wandering Diomedea exulans and Amsterdam D. amsterdamensis Albatrosses to track fishing vessels by detecting the vessel’s radar. The resulting paper, “Ocean sentinel albatrosses locate illegal vessels and provide the first estimate of the extent of nondeclared fishing” was published in PNAS -Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and is available to read here.

28 October 2022

A Great-winged Petrel incubates an egg in its burrow

NOTE:  This post is the ninth in an occasional series on the website of the Marion Mouse-Free Project that features breeding seabirds of Marion Island which are being attacked by introduced House Mice, or are considered to be at risk to them.

Stefan Schoombie of the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation writes on working with the winter-breeding Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera during his several long sojourns on South Africa’s sub-Antarctic possession in the southern Indian Ocean.

With breeding Sooty Albatrosses looking on, Stefan Schoombie abseils down a coastal cliff on Marion Island

I have had the privilege of spending a considerable amount of time on Marion Island over the past nine years.  Most of my research involved albatrosses and large petrels, but in 2019 I worked on a project focusing on the smaller burrowing petrels. There are several species of burrow-nesting petrels breeding on Marion Island.  Burrow-nesting birds are something we are not often familiar with on the mainland, but they are a common occurrence on sub-Antarctic islands, where millions of birds tunnel underground to escape the harsh weather and the larger seabirds that prey on them.  Studying burrowing birds can be challenging, but all the more rewarding/ as we have the privilege of seeing these special birds from close up.

On Marion Island we monitored a subset of Great-winged Petrel nests, following their progress throughout the breeding season.  These birds can dig long tunnels, stretching several metres, and we often had to install inspection hatches to enable monitoring of the nest contents.  However, some of the burrows can be very shallow, allowing a unique view of these beautifully sleek birds.

A view from a burrowscope – a Great-winged Petrel adult and its chick in their nest

Studying birds that nest several metres underground has its challenges, but we now have tools accessible to us enabling more efficient monitoring of their breeding habits. The above image was recorded by a small camera attached to a light and mounted on a flexible tube, known as a “burrowscope”.  These cameras allow us to monitor the birds more efficiently, as we can review images afterwards.   In 2016, during one of these nest checks, we found several mice attacking a very small Great-winged Petrel chick.  Unfortunately, the bird died shortly after discovering the incident, but by documenting the attack we could add Great-winged Petrels to the list of seabirds affected by mice on Marion Island.

Burrowscope photograph of a House Mouse feeding on a two-day-old Great-winged Petrel chick on Marion Island, the chick did not survive, from a video by Stefan Schoombie (see Dilley et al. 2018 for details of the attack)

Night birding – by shining a bright light into the sky, nocturnal seabirds are caught at their breeding sites as they become dazzled and land

Burrowing birds are often nocturnal, because predators, such as Brown Skuas Stercorarius antarcticus, can easily catch them during the day when they arrive at their nests.  Once fully dark, the sky is filled with thousands of birds echoing in a cacophony of different calls and a wind-still night in the breeding season is a marvellous experience on a sub-Antarctic island.  On misty nights we could catch smaller petrels by shining a bright light into the sky, disorienting the birds and resulting in them crash-landing, usually onto soft vegetation, before we caught them in a net.  I did a lot of this work in the company of my wife, Janine Schoombie, and here she is in the image above attracting a bird in the torch light.  Great-winged Petrels are among only a couple of species that breed during the winter months on Marion Island, so working on them is often challenging as winter nights can be pretty cold in the sub-Antarctic.

Ready to fledge.  A Great-Winged Petrel chick that has lost nearly all its down feathers, with the Marion Island base in the background
Photographs by Stefan Schoombie

In 2019 I worked on a project with the Marine Apex Predator Research Unit (MAPRU) at South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University, when we studied a range of burrowing petrels that breed on Marion Island.  These included Great-winged Petrels and I took samples and measurements from a number of adults and chicks.  These data will contribute to our understanding of the species’ foraging habits, and also give an insight into the amount of microplastics that are found in their diet.  During this work I had the privilege to handle many birds, giving me a unique opportunity to view them up-close, something for which I will always be grateful.

The impact of mice on Great-winged Petrels at Marion emphasizes the importance of the Mouse-Free Marion Project in eradicating the sole remaining introduced mammal on the island, thus markedly improving their conservation status.  I wish the project every success!

Read Stefan’s MFM News post on Marion Island’s globally Endangered Sooty Albatrosses Phoebetria fusca here.

Selected Publications:

Cooper, J. & Fourie, A. 1991.  Improved breeding success of Great-winged Petrels Pterodroma macroptera following control of feral cats Felis catus at subantarctic Marion Island.  Bird Conservation International 1: 171-175.

Cooper, J. & Klages, N.T.W. 2009.  The winter diet of the Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera at sub-Antarctic Marion Island in 1991.  Marine Ornithology 37: 261-263.

Cooper, J. Marais, A.V.N., Bloomer, J.P. & Bester, M.N. 1995.  A success story: breeding of burrowing petrels (Procellaridae) before and after eradication of feral cats Felis catus at sub-Antarctic Marion Island.  Marine Ornithology 23: 33-37.

Dilley, B.J., Davies, D., Stevens, K., Schoombie, S., Schoombie, J. & Ryan, P.G. 2019.  Burrow wars and sinister behaviour among burrow-nesting petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island.  Ardea 107: 97-102.

Dilley, B.J., Schoombie, S., Stevens, K., Davies, D., Perold, V., Osborne, A., Schoombie, J., Brink, C.W., Carpenter-Kling, T. & Ryan, P.G. 2018.  Mouse predation affects breeding success of burrow-nesting petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island.  Antarctic Science  30: 93-104.

Schramm, M. 1983.  The breeding biologies of the petrels Pterodroma macroptera, P. brevirostris and P. mollis at Marion Island.  Emu 83: 75-81.

Schramm, M. 1986.  The diet of chicks of Greatwinged, Kerguelen and Softplumaged Petrels at the Prince Edward Islands.  Ostrich 57: 9-15.

Schramm, M. 1986.  Burrow densities and nest site preferences of petrels (Procellariidae) at the Prince Edward Islands.  Polar Biology 6: 63-70.

Stefan Schoombie, Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa, 27 October 2022