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

UPDATE

Only a few hours left to vote; closes 12h00 BST, 26 October 2022

A Gam of young Wandering Albatrosses on Marion Island, photograph by Tom Peschak

The Mouse-Free Marion Project that aims to eradicate the sub-Antarctic island’s “killer mice” has recently made it to the shortlist of the category 'Wild Places' and is in the final round to be awarded funding by the European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA) which would contribute to the project’s goal.  The shortlisted projects go through a public voting phase which is now open and extends until 26 October.  To help save Marion Island's seabirds, the MFM Project is asking for votes to be made here.

The European Outdoor Conservation Association has a vision to champion the conservation of nature and wild places.  As a charitable organisation directly funding specific projects, the association wants to show that the European outdoor industry is committed to putting something back into the environment, and all working together a real difference can be made.

Scalped by mice: this Grey-headed Albatross chick on Marion Island will not survive another night’s attack; photograph by Ben Dilley

EOCA describes the MFM Project on its website:

“Non-native, albatross-killing mice were accidently introduced to Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic by ships in the 1800s.   With no natural predators, the mice prey on native invertebrates and plants, as well as on sea bird eggs, chicks and even adult birds as they sit on their nests. The tunnelling activities of the mice is also drying out peat bogs, which cover half of the island and are important for carbon storage. The Mouse-Free Marion Project aims to restore the critical breeding habitat of over two million seabirds on Marion Island, by removing mice from the 30 000- ha island.  Additionally, the project will improve the island’s ecosystem’s resilience to climate change by removing the impact the mice have on other native fauna and flora, and benefit birdwatchers throughout the Southern Hemisphere.  The project will benefit 28 seabird species including Grey-headed, Sooty and Wandering Albatrosses.  Twelve educational events about the project will be delivered in South Africa.”

Access the latest newsletter of the Mouse-free Marion Project here.

John Cooper, ACAP News Correspondent, 17 October 2022, updated 26 October 2022

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement is continuing with its intention of producing ACAP Infographics for all 22 listed species in the three official languages of English, French and Spanish.  To date, infographics have been produced in all three languages for six species of albatrosses.  The release today of French and Spanish infographics for the Grey-headed Thalassarche chrysostoma and Shy T. cauta Albatrosses brings the total now fully covered to eight.  The infographics are freely available from this website to download and print as posters in two sizes (approximately A2 and A3).

It is planned to produce more infographics over the next 12 months or so, including for the first ACAP-listed petrels.  Two of these, for the Black-browed T. melanophris and the Northern Royal Diomedea sanfordi Albatrosses, will be released in time for World Albatross Day next year on 19 June with its theme of “Plastic Pollution”.

The ACAP Species Infographics are produced by Thailand-based illustrator, Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim, with texts first reviewed by experts for each species.  Please note they are only being made available for personal use or when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels.  The infographics serve to complement the detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments, the more concise and illustrated ACAP Species Summaries and the ACAP Photo Essay series.

English and Portuguese language versions of infographics are available to download here, whilst French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under, Infographies sur les espèces and Infographía sobres las especies.

ACAP thanks Jonathon Barrington of the Australian Antarctic Program for arranging funding of the infographics for the Grey-headed and Shy Albatrosses, and “Pep” Arcos and Karine Delord for their careful checking of the Spanish and French texts, respectively.

John Cooper, ACAP News Correspondent, 25 October 2022