Another year of ACAP Latest News with 261 postings: grateful thanks are due

It's the last day of the year and so time for some thank-yous.

ACAP Latest News has continued its policy of posting one news item each weekday during 2018, a total of 261.  Subjects have ranged widely, but all are centred on some aspect of the biology and conservation of procellariform seabirds, especially of the 31 species of albatrosses and petrels listed within the Agreement.

2018’s postings can be searched by keyword.  For example, the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena, endemic to the UK’s Tristan da Cunha islands in the South Atlantic, garners 13 hits for the year.  All the news items posted to ALN going back around a decade – well over 3000 of them - are key-word searchable: there are no less than 245 that mention the Tristan Albatross.

A Tristan Albatross stands over its egg on Inaccessible Island in February 2011, photograph by Lourens Malan

All ALN items are posted to ACAP’s Facebook page, currently with 3787 friends.  The Facebook page also carries selected postings on non-ACAP listed procellariiform seabirds, including gadfly petrels, shearwaters, diving petrels and storm petrels, as well as on conservation news of the listed birds' breeding localities.

Keeping up regular postings is only possible with the willing help of correspondents who alert ACAP of news, including of scientific publications in the peer-reviewed literature and of reports produced by Party governments and NGOs, as well as supply photographs.  Grateful thanks are extended to all such correspondents.  Especial thanks must go to the following who have regularly supplied information or helped in other material ways during the course of 2018:

Barry Baker, Latitude 42 Environmental Consultants, Australia; Susan Mvungi, Niven Library, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Ria Olivier, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Stellenbosch University; Hob Osterlund, Kaua’i Albatross Network, Hawaii, USA; and Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey.

On a more personal note I thank past and present members of the ACAP Secretariat for their continued support during 2018 in my role as honorary Information Officer for the Agreement: Christine Bogle, Executive Secretary; Marco Favero, past Executive Secretary and Wiesława Misiak, Science Officer.

See you all next year!

ACAP’s Information Officer also rides a bike!

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 December 2018