Archives

Tomohiro Deguchi (Division of Avian Conservation, Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, Japan) and colleagues writing on-line in the journal Bird Conservation International describe the techniques they have developed to translocate three species of albatrosses to new breeding sites.

The paper's summary follows:

"Many breeding colonies of Procellariiformes have been threatened with extinction.  Chick translocation has been shown to be an effective method for establishing new "safer" colonies of burrow-nesting species, but techniques for surface-nesting species have not been fully developed.  The entire breeding population of the threatened Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus is restricted to two sites, Torishima Island and the Senkaku Islands, and neither site is secure due to volcanic activity or political instability.  The Short-tailed Albatross Recovery Team has recommended facilitating the recovery of this species by establishing at least one additional colony through the translocation and hand-rearing of chicks at a safe historical breeding site.  To evaluate the feasibility of this approach, we hand-reared 10 post-guard phase chicks of two related species in 2006-2007:  Laysan Albatross P. immutabilis translocated from Midway Atoll to Kaua'i Island, Hawai'i and Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes translocated from a nearby islet in the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands to Mukojima Island, Japan.  In these pilot studies, 40% of Laysan Albatross chicks and 90% of Black-footed Albatross chicks fledged successfully.  Following this groundwork, 40 post-guard phase Short-tailed Albatross chicks were translocated from Torishima Island to Mukojima Island in February 2008-2010 and hand-reared to fledging.  Their fledging success has been 100% in all three years.  Fledging body sizes were similar or greater in hand-reared chicks at the release site than parent-reared chicks on Torishima Island.  There were significant differences in levels of some blood chemistry parameters between pre-fledging hand-reared and parent-reared chicks.  The techniques developed in our studies have broad-reaching implications for the future conservation of threatened populations of other surface-nesting seabirds."

Translocated Short-tailed Albatrosses among adult models on Mukojima
Photograph by Tomohiro Deguchi

A further 15 Short-tail chicks were transferred from Torishima to Mukojima in February 2011, bringing the total translocated to date to 55, with one more year to go.  Fourteen of the 2011 cohort fledged successfully.  To date seven translocated birds have revisited the translocation site, including 60% of the first (2008) cohort, boding well for the likelihood of a breeding colony of Short-tailed Albatrosses becoming established on Mukojima over the next few years.  Click here to access previous stories in ACAP Latest News on this translocation exercise.

Reference:

Tomohiro Deguchi, Judy Jacobs, Tomoko Harada, Lyndon Perriman, Yuki Watanabe, Fumio Sato, Noboru Nakamura, Kiyoaki Ozaki And Greg Balogh 2011.  Translocation and hand-rearing techniques for establishing a colony of threatened albatross.  Bird Conservation International.  doi: 10.1017/S0959270911000438.

With thanks to Tomohiro Deguchi for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 December 2011