Balearic Shearwater, mixed media by Catarina Vitorino; after a photograph by Pep Arcos

Note:  The illustrated Species Summaries have been written to help inform the general public, including school learners, of the biology and conservation needs of the 31 ACAP-listed species.  They serve to complement the more detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments.  To date, summaries for the 22 species of albatrosses have been produced in in all three ACAP official languages, English, French and Spanish.

Texts have also been prepared for the nine ACAP-listed petrels and shearwaters in English, but as yet have not been translated into French and Spanish.  As an interim service, the illustrated English texts are being posted to ACAP Latest News, continuing here with the Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus.

A Balearic Shearwater at its marked nest site; photograph by Pep Arcos

The Balearic Shearwater is one of two shearwaters listed within the Albatross and Petrel Agreement (ACAP); the other is the Pink-footed Shearwater of Chile.  It is a small-sized shearwater with greyish-brown upper surfaces and head and variably white and brown underparts.  The bill, legs and feet are mainly grey.

The Balearic Shearwater breeds only in Spain’s Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean.  Breeding colonies are known for the island groups of Cabrera, Formentera, Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca.  Menorcan birds show signs of hybridisation with the closely related Yelkouan Shearwater which breeds elsewhere in the Mediterranean.  The species’ breeding population is not well known, due to difficulties in surveying its cliff-breeding habitats but recent estimates are of around 3000 pairs.  However, counts of birds on passage through the Straits of Gibraltar and a global at-sea estimate suggest a total population of 25 000, implying a larger breeding population of perhaps 7000 pairs; alternatively, there could be a substantial proportion of non-breeding birds.  The population trend is downward at all studied breeding sites, most recently estimated at 14% a year.  Adult survival is considered low for a shearwater.

he species breeds in caves and rocky crevices in coastal cliffs and in burrows, laying a single white egg in March with chicks fledging in June and July.  It is migratory, flying through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic and northwards coastally to the Bay of Biscay and marginally into the North Sea. It is regular within territorial waters of France, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.  Prey is predominantly small pelagic fish (such as anchovies and sardines) caught by diving, often in flocks, to as much as 30 m.  Diet includes scavenging on discards from fishing vessels.

The Balearic Shearwater faces threats both on land and at sea.  At some breeding sites it is at risk to predation by feral cats (on chicks and adults) and by rats (on eggs and chicks) leading to a lowered breeding success.  Light pollution in urban areas can down fledglings.  In the past birds were collected for human consumption.  At sea, the shearwater is killed predominantly by demersal longline fisheries, considered to be the main threat facing the species, but also by pelagic longline, purse-seine, set net and trawl, fisheries, affecting breeding birds within the Mediterranean and non-breeding birds in the Atlantic, such as in the Bay of Biscay.  Up to a hundred or more birds have been caught by a single fishing event.All breeding sites fall within Special |Protection Areas under Europe’s Natura 2000 network.  Some breeding sites fall within national parks.  Rodent eradication exercises have been successfully conducted at some localities, such as on the islands of Malgrats and Sa Dragonera.  Management plans or equivalents for the species exist at regional, national and international levels but require full implementation.  Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been declared within the species’ foraging range but do not yet have management plans.  Research into bycatch mitigation needs to be followed through into fisheries practices, such as setting longlines at night when the species appears not to forage.

The Balearic Shearwater was listed within ACAP in 2015; it is also listed on Appendix I of the Convention on Migratory Species.  The species has a global threat category of Critically Endangered, placing it at a high risk of extinction.

Sources:

ACAP 2013.  Balearic Shearwater Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus.

BirdLife International 2021.  Species factsheet: Puffinus mauretanicus.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 April 2022

Artwork for WAD2022 by ABUN artist Anju Rajesh

For the third year running the Albatross and Petrel Agreement has collaborated with Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) to produce artworks to help raise awareness of World Albatross Day in the cause of the conservation of ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

ACAP has chosen “Climate Change” to be its theme for the third World Albatross Day, to be celebrated on 19 June 2022.  This follows the inaugural theme “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020 and “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” last year (click here).  The featured species chosen for 2022 are two of the three species of albatrosses that breed in the North Pacific: the Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and the Laysan P. immutabilis.  Both these Near Threatened albatrosses have most of their breeding populations on the low-lying atolls of the USA’s North-western Hawaiian Islands.  There they are at risk from sea-level rise and increases in the number and severity of storms that result in flooding, both considered a consequence of climate change.

“My Heart is Yours”, A Laysan Albatross pair by Marion Schön, after a photograph by Hob Osterlund

ABUN’s 39th Project has concentrated on producing artworks depicting these two Northern Pacific albatrosses over the extended period of January to March.  Now the project is ended, save for a few last, promised artworks, ACAP is both proud and grateful to announce that no less than 93 new paintings and drawings by ABUN artists are available for the Agreement to use to illustrate its news posts and in other products.  All these artworks can be viewed in a photo album on ACAP’s Facebook page.

Combating sea-level rise: a translocated Laysan Albatross chick in Hawaii’s James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, by Ilana Nimz

Two of the participating ABUN artists, Flávia Barreto from Brazil and Grisselle Chock in the USA, and their artworks have been featured in ACAP Latest News; it is planned to feature more artists and their 2022 art during the build up to ‘WAD2022’ on 19 June.  Also to follow soon are a music video and a collage poster based on Project #39.  Further, eight of the 90-odd artworks have been chosen (a hard task!) to be turned into freely downloadable posters to match the 12 WAD2022 photo posters already available on this website.

A ”Homeless & Hungry” Black-footed Albatross bemoans looming climate change, digital artwork by Grace Innemmee

The three years of working with ABUN has resulted in over 520 artworks featuring all 31 ACAP-listed species being available for ACAP to use; these will last for many years ahead.  They surely must be a unique collection for any intergovernmental conservation body to have at its disposal.  Chapeau, ABUN!

With grateful thanks to Kitty Harvill, Marion Schön and all the contributing ABUN artists, as well as to the photographers whose pictures offered inspiration.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 April 2022

Yellow-fin Tuna Thunnus albacares

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is advertising for a Project Manager for the second phase of the GEF Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project.

The project, 'Sustainable Management of Tuna Fisheries and Biodiversity Conservation in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction', is one of five projects of the GEF-7 Common Oceans II Programme 'Global Sustainable Fisheries Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ)'.

The post will be administratively located with the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) in the FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Applications are due by 22 April. Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 April 2022

A Grey-headed Albatross guards its chick on Marion Island; photograph by Michelle Risi

The Mouse-Free Marion Project is working towards eradicating the island’s seabird-killing House Mice in 2024.  To increase awareness of the dangers the birds face, and the risks to Marion’s whole ecosystem from the mice, as well as to raise the visibility of the endeavour, the project has illustrated many of its news posts with grisly pictures of mice eating the chicks of Grey-headed and Wandering Albatrosses and other species alive.  However, it is also important to show the beauty of the island and its birds, so the passion the project team and its supporters feel for the project can be understood.  To this end, a poster series has been produced that depicts the four albatross and two giant petrel species that breed on Marion Island.

Two Light-mantled Albatrosses interact on Marion Island; photograph by John Dickens

MFM News wrote to researchers who have spent a year or more on Marion Island, asking them to submit a portfolio of their best photos, from which 34 were selected.  The posters have been designed by Michelle Risi, who has spent over four years living on Marion and Gough Islands, conducting research on their breeding seabirds.

Wandering Albatrosses display on Marion Island, with neighbouring (and mouse-free) Prince Edward Island on the horizon; photograph by Michelle Risi   

The 34 posters are being released in batches in high resolution suitable for printing (click here for the first batch).  They are also being made available in a lower resolution in a photo album on the Mouse-Free Marion Facebook Page.  It is intended to produce a second series of posters that will feature several of the burrowing petrels that have been severely impacted by mice on Marion.

A Southern Giant Petrel pair rests in the snow on Marion Island; photograph by Janine Schoombie

With grateful thanks to the six overwintering Marion Island researchers who willingly contributed their evocative photographs: John Dickens (M72, 2015/16), Sean Evans (M76, 2019/20), Alexis Osborne (M71, 2014/15), Michelle Risi (M74, 2017/18), Janine Schoombie (M72, 2015/16) and Stefan Schoombie (M70, 2013/14; M72, 2015/16; M76, 2019/20).  Thanks especially to Michelle for her much valued (and pro bono) contributions towards the project’s success.

This news post originally appeared on the Mouse-Free Marion Project website.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 April 2022