Pointillist portrait of Short-tailed Albatrosses George and Geraldine by ABUN artist Holly Parsons for ACAP’s World Albatross Day on 19 June, after a photograph by Jonathon Plissner.  Geraldine is the darker bird in front on the nest.  Acrylic on 16x20-inch canvas board

The 2023/24 chick produced by the well-known pair of Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus on the USA’s Midway Atoll was given its metal and colour bands by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biologists Laura Brazier and Jon Plissner on 17 April (click here).  This is the fifth chick to be reared (out of six breeding attempts) by the atoll’s lone Short-tail (or Makalena) pair, known affectionately as George and Geraldine.  All four previous chicks successfully fledged and two of them have been seen regularly back on the atoll’s Sand Island as juveniles.

Held for banding.  The Short-tailed albatross chick is noticeably larger than the surrounding Laysan Albatross chicks, photograph by Dan Rapp

“The day before [banding] Jon Plissner and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project crew observed much more than just the 4-month-old chick that is often left alone at this age.  The father was sitting next to the chick as the mother was snoozing close by and two of the chick's siblings, one that hatched in 2019 the other in 2022, were dancing with each other within a few feet of the nest.  Perhaps one day this exciting and additional Makalena activity will attract other mature birds from across the Pacific to join them.”  So will the second pair of Short-tailed Albatrosses to breed on Sand Island be brother and sister?

 
The 2023/24 Short-tailed Albatross chick gets plastic colour band green AA01 on its left leg, photograph by Dan Rapp

Access previous posts to ACAP Latest News about George and Geraldine here, and view more paintings of Short-tailed Albatrosses produced by Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for this year’s World Albatross Day and its theme “Marine Protected Areas – Safeguarding our Oceans” in an ACAP Facebook photo album.

Other news from Midway is of the latest annual nest count of Black-footed P. nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses as reported on the Facebook page of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service.

“Every December for over 30 years, a dozen incredible volunteers arrive at the atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to count every Laysan (mōlī) and black-footed albatross (ka’upu) nests.  It takes weeks of systematic walking, hand counting, and in some cases, methodically repeating a specific section to double check.  This year the team counted nearly 500,000 mōlī nests and a little less than 30,000 ka’upu nests.  The counts typically rise and fall in alternating years, sometimes by as much as 20%, and the reason for the pattern remains unknown.”

Watch a video of Midway’s annual albatross count in progress by Dan Rapp, United States Fish & Wildlife Service.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 30 April 2024

From the report: Fig 1. A tail mounted Telonics PTT device (A) and a body-harness mounted TechnoSmart PTT device (B) fitted to a Northern Buller’s Albatross. The latter was fitted as a test for a couple of hours only.

A report by Mike Bell and Dave Bell (Toroa Consulting) and Carlos Zavalaga (Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Perú) has been released by the Conservation Services Programme of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. The report is part of an ongoing long-term research project that began in 2021 on populations of Northern Royal and Buller’s albatrosses and Northern Giant Petrels on the Chatham Islands’ Motuhara. 

The report’s summary follows:

“Northern Royal Albatross (Diomedea sanfordi), Northern Buller’s Mollymawk (Thalassarche bulleri platei) and Northern Giant Petrel (Macronectes halli) all have significant breeding populations on Motuhara (43⁰96’S, 175⁰83’W). Although research has been undertaken periodically since the 1970’s on these islands, more recently a long-term research project on Motuhara has been initiated since January 2021. Some aspects of this work have been funded by the Department of Conservation’s various programmes, including the Conservation Services Programme and the Budget22 International Seabird Conservation Initiative.

In January 2024, a 10-day field trip to Motuhara was carried out to undertake seabird research. Aims of the trip were varied and included:

1. Deploying PTT satellite transmitters on Northern Royal Albatross and Northern Buller’s Mollymawk, including the trialling of a novel leg-loop harness attachment method (DOC AEC 453)
2. Deploying and recovering i-got-u GPS loggers on Northern Buller’s Mollymawk
3. Retrieving previously deployed GLS loggers on Northern Buller’s Mollymawk, Cape Petrels (Daption capense), and Pyramid Prions (Pachyptila pyramidalis)
4. Census breeding Northern Royal Albatross and Northern Buller’s Mollymawk
5. Resighting banded Northern Royal Albatross and Northern Buller’s Mollymawk at various study colonies
6. Retrieving trail cameras set up to recording breeding activity at Northern Royal Albatross, Northern Buller’s Mollymawk, and Northern Giant Petrel breeding areas
7. Banding another cohort of Northern Giant Petrel chicks

This report provides a summary of the trip and the associated raw data. Similarly to previous trip reports, no species analyses of data are included, as all these species are long-lived, and demographic data hasn’t been collected for enough years to warrant analyses. This report aims to provide data of the trip’s findings in a similar format to previous trip reports (e.g., Bell 2023).

Unlike previous trips, however, this trip included an additional international component in the form of a secondee from Perú to New Zealand: Carlos Zavalaga (Director de la Unidad de Investigación de Ecosistemas Marinos, Grupo Aves Marinas, Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Perú) joined the trip assist with the field research and further strengthen the connection and collaboration between Perú and New Zealand on the conservation of seabirds that are shared between the two countries, including Northern Buller’s Albatross.”

Publication information

Bell, M. 2024. Motuhara seabird research: field trip report January 2024. Report prepared by Toroa Consulting Limited for the Department of Conservation. 8 pp. 

29 April 2024

The Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project is a non-profit company registered in South Africa and established to eradicate the invasive albatross-killing House Mice Mus musculus on Marion Island in the Southern Ocean.  The project was initiated by BirdLife South Africa and the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.  “Upon successful completion, the project will restore the critical breeding habitat of over two million seabirds, many globally threatened, and improve the island’s resilience to a warming climate”.

The latest issue (No. 9 of April 2024) of the project’s quarterly newsletter has been released. Following on from a Welcome editorial by Robyn Adams, MFM Communications Officer and Project Assistant, the newsletter gives information of the MFM Project’s recent activities under the heads:

• Out of office at Marion Island. The MFM Project Manager and new MFM Project overwintering team member head to Marion Island as part of the annual relief voyage.
• Planning for success: The Mouse-Free Marion Project brings together experts at a Mouse-Eradication Workshop.
• MFM Patron, Peter Harrison MBE, visits the Mouse-Free Marion Project’s Cape Town office.

This Vulnerable Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans chick has been attacked by mice on Marion Island; it did not survive, 21 June 2023, photograph by Michelle Risi

Previous issues of the newsletter may be found on the project’s website.

With thanks to Robyn Adams, MFM Communications Officer and Project Assistant.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 25 April 2024

A special issue of the journal Emu – Austral Ornithology reports on Australian avian biodiversity over three decades of Australian threatened bird action plans between 1990 – 2020.

The edition contains nine open access papers on topics related to the edition’s theme, ‘Threats to Australian Birds’.

An extract from the edition’s Introduction, Trends and lessons from thirty years of Australian threatened bird action plans, by Stephen T. Garnett (Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, NT, Australia) and colleagues follows: 

“International concern for declining bird species figured prominently in the formation of many ornithological, conservation and scientific organisations across the globe in the late 19^th Century, including the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (now BirdLife Australia; Robin Citation2001). However, despite concerns about the rarity of some species being expressed repeatedly in the early years of the Union (e.g. Ashby Citation1924), little action was taken to prevent extinctions. As a consequence, it was only in the late 20^th century that the first systematic attempt was made to document which Australian bird species were most threatened with extinction (Brouwer and Garnett Citation1990).

Shortly after this documentation, the Australian Federal Government passed the first national legislation targeting threatened species, the Endangered Species Act 1992. The government also funded the first action plans for Australian threatened species, including the first Action Plan for Australian Birds (Garnett Citation1992). This plan had two important consequences. First, it created a foundation of information on the extinction risk of Australian birds on which later assessments could build. Secondly, the Plan established the ultrataxon (monotypic species or subspecies of polytypic species; Schodde and Mason Citation1999), as the basic unit for Australian bird conservation action. Continued support from the Australian government and the ornithological community has since enabled three other Action Plans to be written at intervals of about 10 years (Garnett and Crowley Citation2000; Garnett et al. Citation2011; Garnett and Baker Citation2021). Each has improved on its predecessor, incorporating new knowledge and insights and expanding the range of sources of information.

It is on these four Action Plans and the data that underpins them that the current special issue of Emu – Austral Ornithology builds. These repeated reviews reveal trends not only in extinction risk to Australian birds but also about the threats they face, the extent of our knowledge and management and the directions Australian threatened bird conservation may go in the future.”

Reference:

Garnett, S. T., Burbidge, A. H., & Pruett-Jones, S. (2024). Trends and lessons from thirty years of Australian threatened bird action plans. Emu - Austral Ornithology, 124(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2024.2304903

Emu - Austral Ornithology, Volume 124, Issue 1 (2024)

Table of Contents

Trends and lessons from thirty years of Australian threatened bird action plans by Stephen T. Garnett et al.

Extinct Australian birds: numbers, characteristics, lessons and prospects by John C. Z. Woinarski et al.

Trends in Monitoring of Australia’s Threatened Birds (1990–2020): Much Improved but Still Inadequate by Simon J. Verdon et al.    

Monitoring threats to Australian threatened birds: climate change was the biggest threat in 2020 with minimal progress on its management by Stephen T. Garnett et al.

Trends and patterns in the extinction risk of Australia’s birds over three decades by Alex J. Berryman et al.

Australian threatened birds for which the risk of extinction declined between 1990 and 2020 by Stephen T. Garnett et al.

Biological characteristics of Australian threatened birds by George Olah et al.

The feasibility of implementing management for threatened birds in Australia by Ross Crates et al.

Imperilled birds and First Peoples’ land and sea Country in Australia by Amanda Lilleyman et al.

Declining but not (yet) threatened: a challenge for avian conservation in Australia by Andrew F. Bennet et al.

24 April 2024