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Following a re-assessment process now completed (click here) the World Conservation Union, acting on the advice of BirdLife International, will in September this year reclassify ("downlist") the Chatham Albatross Thalassarche eremita, a New Zealand breeding endemic, from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable in its Red List of Threatened Species^TM.

According to BirdLife this decision is based on the lack of evidence of ongoing habitat degradation at its only breeding site (The Pyramid, Chatham Islands) and that the global population is either stable or increasing.  It remains Vulnerable as it has a very small breeding range rendering it susceptible to stochastic events and human impacts (click here).

In the same round of assessments, the Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis of the North Pacific will be downlisted by IUCN from Vulnerable to Near Threatened because recent population censuses suggest the species' breeding population has recovered from decreases in the late 1990s and early 2000s (click here).

Click here for an earlier news story on the conservation status of these two species.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 June 2010