A Laysan Albatross tends its chick, artwork by Anne Lyon for ACAP, after a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

As for nearly all international meetings affected by the COVID-19, the Twelfth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC12) and of two its working groups will be virtual ones.  This year’s meetings - delayed from last year by the pandemic - are now being held from 16/17 August to 1/2 September (depending on where you are in the world).  Meetings of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group and the Population and Conservation Status Working Group will precede AC12; SBWG10 from 16/17 to 18/19 August, and PaCSWG6 from 23/24 to 24/25 August.  AC12 will meet from 30/31 August to 1/2 September.

SBGW10 is being chaired by its Convenor, Igor Debski from New Zealand, with the support of Vice-convenors Juan Pablo Seco Pon of Argentina  and Sebastián Jiménez of Uruguay; the working groups full membership may be viewed by scrolling down from here.  Nineteen Documents (including an Annotated Agenda, SBWG10 Doc 02) and 23 Information Papers have been tabled for consideration, leading to a busy meeting over the three days allotted.  All these documents can be downloaded from this website but note that some are password protected and so only their abstracts are available to be read.

 Further information is available in AC12 Circular 5 in the three official ACAP languages of English, French and Spanish lengths on timing at different localities and lengths of the three meetings.  Congress Rental has been chosen to manage the technical aspects of the meeting, using the Interprefy platform.  Interprefy enables “relay interpretation” (involving multiple languages – three in the case of ACAP).  Congress Rental is providing technical advice to Chairs, Convenors, Secretariat, interpreters and to other participants.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 August 2021

 Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses, photograph from the Kure Atoll Conservancy

Sayaka Nakatsuka (Fisheries Resource Institute, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, Shizuoka, Japan) and colleagues have published in the Japanese journal Ornithological Science on stomach contents of Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes caught by pelagic longliners in the western North Pacific.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The stomach contents (food and ingested plastics) of Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes were examined by necropsy analysis of birds caught as bycatch in the pelagic longline fisheries in the Western North Pacific. The contents were classified separately for the proventriculus and gizzard. Undigested fish and cephalopods were found in the proventriculus, while hard objects such as cephalopod beaks, plastics, and pebbles were found in the gizzard. This indicates that the retention time of soft tissues in fish or cephalopods differs from that for hard objects. The main prey of both albatrosses consisted of mesopelagic cephalopods such as Cranchiidae, Gonatidae, Histioteuthidae, and Onychoteuthidae species. Laysan Albatrosses also foraged on small teleosts (Japanese Anchovy Engraulis japonicus and some Myctophidae fishes) as major prey items. The estimated dorsal mantle length of cephalopods preyed upon by the albatrosses was below 200 mm, which was smaller than the mature sizes of those cephalopods and the size class mainly preyed upon by cetaceans. This implies that the albatrosses may forage on immature cephalopods floating in the surface layer. Ingested plastics were found in 71.8% of Laysan and 31.8% of Black-footed Albatrosses and plastic fragments were the most abundant.”

Reference:

Nakatsuka, S., Ochi, D., Inoue, Y., Ohizumi, H., Niizuma, Y. & Minami, H, 2021.  The diet composition and ingested plastics of Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses incidentally captured by the pelagic longline fishery in the western North Pacific.  Ornithological Science 20: 29-140.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 August 2021

Wandering Albatross by April Grossruck for ACAP, from a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

 Rory Crawford, Bycatch Programme Manager, BirdLife International Marine Programme writes on the occasion of the release of BirdLife’s Albatross Task Force Annual Report for 2020/21:

“There’s not a lot to say about 2020 that hasn’t been said already. But in spite of it all, the Albatross Task Force has continued its course through some choppy seas and this is your annual dose of what we’ve been able to achieve!  In the attached annual progress report you can find out all about our project activities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Namibia and South Africa between April 2020-March 2021, a year like no other.”

“The big positive news of the past year was the publication of our paper demonstrating a 98% reduction in seabird bycatch in the Namibian demersal longline fishery since we were successful in pushing for regulations back in 2015.  Over 20,000 seabird lives have been saved each year as a consequence – a reminder of why we do what we do, and huge credit due to the team in Namibia for making the magic happen! The paper picked up lots of great press coverage, including in BBC Wildlife Magazine, the Guardian and on the BBC World Service [and in ACAP Latest News].

“The pandemic has, of course, presented many challenges, but the adaptive nature of our teams has meant that we’ve still be able to train over 400 fisheries observers (via outdoor or online events) and work with governments and industry to advance trials of electronic monitoring of bycatch.  Electronic monitoring is very much the future of ensuring that the collateral damage of fishing is properly understood and minimised, and the pandemic has accelerated efforts to test various systems – we’re either supporting or leading trials in Argentina, Chile and South Africa.

“None of this would be possible without the collaborative efforts between our in-country partners and stakeholders, the RSPB and BirdLife International – as well as funding from the RSPB membership, foundations and generous individual donations.  We are extremely thankful for the continued support we receive from you, without which we wouldn’t be able to keep up the fight to save the albatross.”

For regular updates follow @AlbyTaskForce on Twitter and read monthly updates on the ATF blog.  E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request the 15-page 2020/21 annual report.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 August 2021

Grey Petrel chick, watercolour by Coleen Laird for ACAP, after a photograph by Michelle Risi

Ben Dilley (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) and colleagues published in 2018 in the journal Antarctic Science on introduced House Mice Mus musculus preying upon burrow-nesting petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island, including on chicks of the ACAP-listed and Near Threatened Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea.

A House Mouse approaches a Grey Petrel chick at its cave breeding site on Marion Island,
infrared video footage from the publication, photograph by Stefan Schoombie

The paper’s abstract follows:

“We report the breeding success of four species of burrow-nesting petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island where house mice Mus musculus are the sole introduced mammal. Feral cats Felis catus were present on Marion for four decades from 1949, killing millions of seabirds and greatly reducing petrel populations. Cats were eradicated by 1991, but petrel populations have shown only marginal recoveries. We hypothesize that mice are suppressing their recovery through depredation of petrel eggs and chicks. Breeding success for winter breeders (grey petrels Procellaria cinerea (34±21%) and great-winged petrels Pterodroma macroptera (52±7%)) were lower than for summer breeders (blue petrels Halobaena caerulea (61±6%) and white-chinned petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis (59±6%)) and among winter breeders most chick fatalities were of small chicks up to 14 days old. We assessed the extent of mouse predation by monitoring the inside of 55 burrow chambers with video surveillance cameras (4024 film days from 2012–16) and recorded fatal attacks on grey (3/18 nests filmed, 17%) and great-winged petrel chicks (1/19, 5%). Our results show that burrow-nesting petrels are at risk from mouse predation, providing further motivation for the eradication of mice from Marion Island.”

With thanks to Ben Dilley and Janine Dunlop, Niven Library, University of Cape Town.

Reference:

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.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 August 2021