Read about recent developments and findings in procellariiform science and conservation relevant to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels in ACAP Latest News.
“A jinrickshaw in Cape Town”, from the Cape of Diab Facebook group
In the past albatrosses and their eggs were exploited in various ways, mainly for food, but also for cultural purposes, as notably occurred in Hawaii (to be covered in a future post).
A hitherto unreported cultural (or at least decorative) use is depicted in an old postcard that has recently come to light. Thought to be from around 1900 (late Victorian/early Edwardian), the photo from South Africa’s Cape Town shows a rickshaw puller with a pair of yellow-nosed albatross wings (not identifiable to species) strapped to his upper arms. This is the only known case of such a use found. Perhaps he found them washed up on the shore, or obtained them from a fishing vessel. In the same era, rickshaw pullers in South Africa tended to a cow horn head dress, presumably as an aid to attracting clients. Just a few rickshaws survive in the country in Durban, aimed at the tourist trade.
Headdresses worn by Durban rickshaw pullers: past and present
With thanks to Michael Fortune and Peter Ryan.
John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 December 2020
Puzzle this one: Tristan Albatross and chick on Gough Island, photograph by Michelle Risi
“The days of our years are three score and ten” - Psalm 90, verse 10 (King James Bible). It seems then that the ACAP Information Officer is several years past his sell-by date! One outcome of this is that his field work with albatrosses and giant petrels on Gough and Marion Islands, conducted over near four decades since the late 1970s, is now a thing of the past and well into his eighth decade he can be properly described as an armchair marine ornithologist, armed with laptop rather than boots, rain gear, notebook and banding pliers.
Good then that he has recently discovered one can assemble jigsaw puzzles online, dragging pieces about the computer screen by mouse or touch pad until they click into place, all from the comfort of his self-isolating home in Cape Town by visiting https://www.jigsawplanet.com. Even better, is that the website has nearly 90 puzzles depicting albatrosses ready to be assembled.
Puzzlers (it’s a word!) are able to choose how many pieces they wish to assemble for each puzzle, from 24 to 300. Further, assembly effort is timed, so if you are of a competitive nature you can compare your completion time against the website’s fastest puzzlers. Lastly, if you sign up you can load your own photographs so you and others can get puzzling with them, such as this one of a Tristan Albatross and chick on Gough Island, from a photograph (see above) by Michelle Risi.
Self isolating or in lockdown with spare time due to COVID-19? Well get albatross puzzling!
*Although there are not (yet) many petrel and no shearwater puzzles.
John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 December 2020
Geraldine incubates her 2020 egg, photograph by J. Plissner/USFWS
"The game camera images show that the female laid the egg on the evening/night of October 28. She remained at the nest with the male often present until the following morning.
The male then sat with the egg until the afternoon of November 15, when the female returned and took over incubation duties. The male remained with the female for five hours before taking off and has yet to return for his next stint. We're expecting the egg to hatch sometime around January 1" - Pacific Islands: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Facebook Page.
George (left) and Geraldine return to Midway, photograph by Jon Brack, USFWS Volunteer
George and Geraldine, currently the only successfully breeding Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus pair outside of Japan, reunited last month on Sand Island, Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Last season the globally Vulnerable pair successfully fledged their second chick, after first meeting up on the island in 2016.
Read more about the Short-tailed Albatross pair here.
John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer. 05 November 2020, updated 01 December 2020
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross on Gough Island, photograph by Chris Jones
Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa) and colleagues have published open access in the annual journal Seabird on three new seabirds recorded from the Tristan da Cunha- Gough Islands in the South Atlantic: Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri, Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur and a gannet Morus sp..
The Endangeredalbatross, which breeds only on islands in the southern Indian Ocean, was seen on Gough Island on 17 January 2019 (click here for an earlier report). Three other sightings are now reported at sea within the 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone around the Tristan da Cunha Archipelago.
Previously, two sightings of vagrant Salvin’s Albatrosses T. salvini have been made on Gough Island (click here).
References:
Ryan, P.G., Dilley, B.J., Risi, M.M., Jones, C.W., Osborne, A., Schofield, A., Repetto, J. & Ratcliffe, N. 2019. Three new seabird species recorded at Tristan da Cunha archipelago. Seabird 32: 122-125.
"We catch up with Dimas Gianuca, ATF Team Leader and Scientific Coordinator for Projeto Albatroz in Brazil, about his new paper on the 'Intentional Killing and Extensive Aggressive Handling of Albatrosses and Petrels at Sea in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean'. We talk about the findings of the paper, what this means for albatross conservation in the Atlantic and what the ATF are doing to combat this behaviour" - Albatross Task Force
Bill mutilations reported in the publication from the south-western Atlantic
Dimas Gianuca (Projeto Albatroz & Albatross Task Force/Brazil, Santos, Brazil) and colleagues have reporteded in the journal Biological Conservation on 46 albatrosses and petrels found mutilated in the south-western Atlantic off South America.
“Large Procellariiformes (albatrosses and petrels) constitute a highly threatened group of birds, for which bycatch in fisheries is the most prevalent threat. At-sea intentional killing and post-capture, handling-related injuries, remain poorly understood menaces. Here, we report fishermen off southern Brazil trying to reduce bait depredation in pole-and-line and handlining fisheries by hitting birds with a metal piece attached to a pole-and-line on four occasions. Fishermen also mutilated or killed birds caught alive on the lines (aggressive handling). In addition, we present a compilation of records of Procellariiformes with bill mutilations across the southwest Atlantic Ocean. Related to the intentional killing events, 16 birds of four species (two globally threatened) were recorded dead (n = 13) or injured (n = 3) with head trauma, broken limbs, wounds or bill mutilation. Observations spanning 1999–2019 across the waters of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina totalize 46 Procellariiformes of eight species (four globally threatened) recorded with bill mutilations (29 alive and 17 dead). Mutilations were likely caused by aggressive handling of birds caught alive, potentially in Brazilian hook-and-line fisheries or in demersal and pelagic longline fisheries across the southwest Atlantic. Observations of deliberate killing from multiple vessels and the recurrent records of mutilated birds suggest those practices represent pervasive but largely undocumented threats to seabirds and could complicate the detection of fishery-related population effects. Coordinated actions by international bodies and national authorities are urgently needed to address this threat, including increasing at-sea observation, enforcement actions and campaigns targeting better handling practices among fishermen.”
See also a post to ACAP Latest News on bill mutilations of albatrosses, and a popular account on the new publication.
With thanks to Dimas Gianuca, Projeto Albatroz.
Reference:
Gianuca, D., Bugoni, L., Jiménez, S., Daudt, N.W., Miller, P., Canani, G., Silva-Costa, A., Faria, F.A., Bastida, J., Seco Pon, J.P., Yates, O., Serafini, P. & Bond, A.L. 2020. Intentional killing and extensive aggressive handling of albatrosses and petrels at sea in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Biological Conservation doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108817.
John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 November 2020, updated 01 December 2020
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