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The Albatross and Petrel Agreement has produced its first wall poster. It illustrates no less than 54 individual incubating Tristan Albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena, photographed as part of a newly-established demographic study in Gonydale on Gough Island, part of the United Kingdom’s Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic.

The poster shows the breadth of plumage variation in this Endangered species, threatened, as the poster says, by longlining at sea and predation by the introduced House Mouse Mus musculus on land.

The poster was first showcased at the Third Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee, held in Valdivia, Chile, in June 2007. All attendees of that meeting were given a copy to take home with them.

Tristan da Cunha was included within the UK’s ratification of ACAP on 13 April 2006, facilitated by the territory’s adoption of a new “ACAP-friendly” conservation ordinance earlier that year. Five ACAP species breed within the territory (of which three are endemic, including the Tristan Albatross). The albatross poster has been produced in collaboration with the island group’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, which has been supplied with a 100 copies by ACAP for its own use.

On 3 October 2007, ACAP’s honorary Information Officer, who with his artist daughter Ruth designed the poster, visited St Mary’s School in the village of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas on the main island of Tristan da Cunha and presented copies of the poster to the school children to increase awareness among them of their islands’ threatened seabirds.

Visitors to the ACAP Secretariat in Hobart, Australia may request a copy of the poster while stocks last. Electronic requests for posted copies should be sent to: Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.. Single copies of the posters are free, but a small charge for airmail postage and packing will be made.

News from John Cooper, ACAP Honorary Information Officer