Black-footed Albatross by Eric Vanderwerf and Laysan Albatross by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement has chosen the theme “Climate Change” to mark 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.  ACAP is pleased to be able to work once more with Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) over January and February on its 39th Project (“World Albatross Day 2022 - Climate Change”) to produce artworks that will help increase awareness of the conservation plight facing the world’s albatrosses.

In support of World Albatross Day and its annual themes ACAP highlights one or more of the 22 albatross species each year with posters, infographics and artworks in ACAP’s three official languages of English, French and Spanish.  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.  These atolls - and their breeding seabirds - are all 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.  Storm floods have even caused at least one small sandy islet to disappear into the sea, taking with it breeding sites for several thousand albatross pairs (click here).  Elsewhere in the island chain, as on Midway Atoll, storms have caused flooding of albatross nests and loss of chicks close to the shore.

This year for WAD2022, ACAP will be working with the Hawaii-based environmental NGO, Pacific Rim Conservation, to feature its ongoing project to create a new albatross colony safe from predicted sea level rise by translocating and hand-rearing Black-footed and Laysan Albatross chicks on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.  It is hoped ABUN’s artworks will help draw attention to this work.

With thanks to Kitty Harvill, ABUN Co-founder.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 January 2022

Not proof to cats and rats: the existing Kilauea Point fence behind a Laysan Albatross chick close to fledging. The new gated fence will largely follow the line of the existing fence
Photograph by Louise Barnfield

The Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge has announced that work will soon begin on construction of a new 3.4 km-long predator exclusion fence around the refuge boundary, which will help protect the thousands of native birds nesting there from mammalian predators such as feral cats and pigs, domestic dogs, rodents and mongoose.  “Construction will begin in early 2022 and is expected to be complete by September 2023.  The fence will enclose 168 acres [68 ha] of the Refuge and all non-native mammalian predators (cats and rats) will be removed from within the fence boundary.  The fence [will be] tall enough to prevent animals from jumping over, has a curved hood to prevent them from climbing over, mesh that is small enough to prevent animals as small as mice from squeezing through, and a skirt that extends underground to prevent them from digging under it.  All materials will be marine grade stainless steel.”  The total cost of the new fence is given as USD 1.09 million and will be built by Pono Pacific LLC, with the Hawaii-based environmental NGO, Pacific Rim Conservation, acting as project manager.

To be protected: a Laysan Albatross stands over its egg at Kilauea Point; photograph by Jacqueline Olivera

The Kīlauea Point NWR supported a total of 115 pairs of Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis (Near Threatened) in the 2019/20 breeding season, with an overall breeding success of 37.9% (36 fledglings).  This low figure is attributed in part to incursions by feral cats and pigs, the latter causing breaches in the old fence (click here).  The 2020/21 season within the refuge was somewhat better, fledging 61 chicks from 129 nests (47.3%,).  So far this season (2021/22) 90 occupied nests have been counted within the refuge.

Pacific Rim Conservation writes on its Facebook page: “We are thrilled to be partnering with @ponopacific and Pacific Islands: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be building a predator exclusion fence that protects the native ecosystems at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge from invasive mammalian predators.  Kilauea Point is home to tens of thousands of native birds ranging from the endangered Nene Goose, `Ua`u (Hawaiian Petrel), and A`o (Newell's Shearwater) to the Moli (Laysan Albatross) and `Ua`u Kani (Wedge-tailed Shearwater), and all of whom are vulnerable to predation.  Once complete, this will be the largest full predator exclusion fence in the Hawaiian Islands.”

Existing predator-proof fences on Hawaiian islands that protect breeding seabirds, including Laysan Albatrosses, may be found on Oahu (Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve and the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge) and elsewhere within the Kilauea Point NWR at Nihoku.

News from Pacific Rim Conservation and Wild Times, newsletter of Friends of Kaua’i Wildlife Refuges for December 2021.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 December 2021

A Wedge-tailed Shearwater chick at at Kama'ole III

The Wedge-tailed Shearwater or 'ua'u kani Ardenna pacifica colony at Kama'ole Beach Park III on the Hawaiian island of Maui has grown from 387 burrows in 2019 to 1069 burrows this season, an increase of 176%.  This increase has followed a predator control programme including against feral cats.  Habitat restoration efforts by the Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project (MNSRP) have been directed at removing non-native vegetation that can shelter such predators (click here).

“The Maui Nui Seabird Recovery Project (MNSRP) began in March of 2006 when project staff documented the presence of a significant breeding colony of Endangered Hawaiian Petrels (HAPE) [Pterodroma sandwichensis] in the upper reaches of the Lāna‘i watershed. This colony is the second largest known breeding colony of HAPE in Hawaii.  Project staff began work to protect the seabirds by removing predators and habitat altering plants that were taking over the breeding colony.  On Maui and Moloka’i MNSRP continues to search for seabird colonies, provide protections where funding and staffing permit and to provide public education about the importance of seabirds in our natural environment.  The project collaborates with researchers, managers and regulators to focus efforts as well as possible to benefit our seabirds.”

Maui Nui Seabirds is a project of the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit of the University of Hawaii at Manoa in association with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resourcess, Division of Forestry and Wildlife and the NGO Pacific Rim Conservation.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 December 2021

A burrow-nesting Westland Petrel beside its egg; photograph by Reuben Lane

David Hawke (Ara Institute of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand) has published an article in the New Zealand of Ecology that reviews how breeding Westland Petrels Procellaria westlandica affect biogeochemical processes at their breeding sites.

The paper’s abstract follows:

The Westland petrel (Procellaria westlandica) is a 1200 g medium-sized seabird whose breeding colonies are dispersed across 700 ha of forest on the western coast of South Island, New Zealand. These birds represent the sole landscape-scale lowland remnant of formerly widespread petrel and shearwater colonies in mainland New Zealand and provide an opportunity to investigate maritime species’ impact on terrestrial ecosystems characteristic of pre-human New Zealand. This review develops a conceptual model of biogeochemical processes influenced by Westland petrels from a single burrow to individual colonies and thence to a catchment scale. Results show the distinctiveness of the Westland petrel system, with colonies moving around the landscape in response to local damage by earthquakes and storms. Based on monitored streams in forested landscapes elsewhere, storms also control N and P fluxes to streams. Non-seabird temperate forests are dominated by mycorrhizal plant-soil interactions, but the high N and P status of Westland petrel colony soils minimises the role of fungi in soil processes, including trace element (Se) uptake. The more N-rich C:N ratio in tree foliage within habitat occupied by the colony may provide nutritional support for terrestrial herbivorous animals, including those whose ranges extend beyond the colony. Overall, the review emphasises the spatial and temporal dynamics of the Westland petrel terrestrial ecosystem, and highlights potential ecological linkages that connect colonies to the wider landscape.

Reference:

Hawke, D. 2022.  The biogeochemistry and ecological impact of Westland petrels (Procellaria westlandica) on terrestrial ecosystems.  New Zealand Journal of Ecology 46(1): 3455.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 December 2021