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Researchers at the University of Cape Town's Percy FitzPatrick Institute have reported on the populations of White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis at Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean and of Spectacled Petrels P. conspicillata on Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic in South Africa's popular ornithological magazine Africa Birds & Birding.

Ben Dilly, Genevieve Jones and Peter Ryan counted 30 000 White-chin burrows on Marion Island in South Africa's Prince Edward Island Group in 2009 over a two-week period: the first survey of the numbers of any burrowing petrel at the island.

With previously published numbers of White-chinned Petrels for other southern islands in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, progress is being made to assess the global population - against which losses to longlines may be measured.

Inaccessible's Spectacled Petrels, endemic to the island, appear to be doing better than the much more abundant and wide-spread White-chins.  A survey in 2009 by Peter Ryan and Ron Ronconi revealed a 40% increase since the previous one conducted in 2004, which itself showed a 7% annual increase since the original 1999 survey.

Reference:

Percy FitzPatrick Institute 2011.  30000 holes on Marion Island.  Africa Birds & Birding 16(1): 22. 

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 February 2011