Southern Giant Petrel at sea, photograph by Warwick Barnes

Jarred Towers (Bay Cetology, Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada) and Nicolas Gasco have published in the journal Polar Biology on giant petrels attacking Sperm Whales.

The abstract follows:

“Relationships between seabirds and cetaceans can vary from symbiotic to predatory.  At high latitude seas in the Southern Hemisphere, giant petrels (Macronectes spp.) and male sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are often solitary, but commercial longlining for Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) provides consistent feeding opportunities that result in persistent aggregations of both.  From ~ 1997 to 2019, we opportunistically photographed 23 events where individual giant petrels preyed on the flesh. of live sperm whales that were depredating from Patagonian toothfish longliners near South Georgia, Crozet, and Kerguelen Islands.  Both immature and adult southern (M. giganteus) and northern (M. halli) giant petrels were implicated in these predation events.  Sperm whales reacted to attacks from one or more giant petrels by sinking or flinching, and then arching, rolling, diving, and snorkelling at the surface during subsequent predation attempts.  Depredating sperm whales will dive deep, fast, and for long periods which can result in limited dive ability while replenishing oxygen stores at the surface.  This behaviour, and the relatively high density of both species around longlining vessels may facilitate unique opportunities for giant petrels to exploit live sperm whales that are not likely as common under circumstances not sustained by longlining operations.”

Reference:

Towers, J.R., Gasco, N. 2020.  Giant petrels (Macronectes spp.) prey on depredating sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Polar Biology doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02687-2.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 June 2020

The globally Endangered and Nationally Vulnerable Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni is a New Zealand endemic that breeds only in coastal mountains near Kaikoura on South Island.  It is at risk at its only two breeding sites to feral pigs and earthquake-induced avalanches and to light pollution in the town of Kaikoura (click here).  ACAP Latest News is pleased to hear that the Hutton’s Shearwater Charitable Trust (HSCT) “wholeheartedly endorses and supports” the celebration of the inaugural World Albatross Day (WAD 2020) on 19 June.

Lorna Deppe, Chair of the Trust’s Scientific Committee writes to ALN:

It is the Trust’s mission “to encourage and promote the conservation, research, education and sustainable management of the endangered Hutton's Shearwater.”  Raising public awareness for the threats these birds are facing is a big part of our work and naturally we want to be part of WAD’s mission to “increase global awareness of the conservation crisis facing albatrosses and petrels”.

Lorna Deppe with a Hutton’s Shearwater “fluffball”, photograph by Ailsa Howard

While we focus on keeping Hutton’s Shearwaters safe while ‘on the ground’ at their breeding colonies in Kaikoura, New Zealand, we are aware that ensuring their survival at sea is the much bigger challenge and needs global collaboration.  WAD2020 is a wonderful opportunity to connect not only organisations but each and every one of us in order to do our part in this important quest.

Kaikoura is famous for the variety of albatross species feeding close to the coast due to upwelling from the Kaikoura Canyon, and naturally we are very fond of our Hutton’s Shearwaters’ big brothers and the opportunity to get eye-to-eye with these magnificent birds when out on a boat.  Sometimes even our shearwaters catch a ride with Encounter Kaikoura’s albatross tours, when rescued and released after crash-landing in Kaikoura due to light disorientation.

Let’s work together to make our oceans a safe place again for these beautiful spirits of the sea!

Lorna Deppe, Chair of Scientific Committee, Hutton’s Shearwater Charitable Trust, Kaikoura, New Zealand, with John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 June 2020

Hutton’s Shearwaters flocking at sea, photograph by Lorna Deppe

Michelle Risi and Chris Jones with their WAD2020 Banner outside the new field hut in Gonydale on Gough Island

As part of raising awareness of the inaugural World Albatross Day on 19 June and to draw attention to the conservation crisis facing the world’s 22 albatross species, ACAP has been challenging field teams working with albatrosses at breeding localities or going to sea as observers on fishing vessels to make a suitably-worded banner or poster advertising the international day.

Banner photos have come from 22 islands with breeding albatrosses (some photographed at different times and localities), two fishing vessels and one institute, along with two ‘virtual’ banners when COVID-19 restrictions halted field work.  A selection of banner challenge photos is available on this website in individual posts for each country involved.  Click below the photograph captions to read more about each one in posts to ACAP Latest News.

These 47 photographs, one for each “photo opportunity”, have now been loaded to an album on ACAP’s Facebook Page.  Readers are invited to visit the album and click ‘like’ or ‘love’ on the ones they particularly think help the most to spread the message of albatross conservation.  Click on just one or as many as you like.

At the end of June the likes and loves will be totalled up and the photograph with the greatest number of clicks will be declared the challenge winner. The person who submitted the winning photograph will then receive a book on South Africa’s Sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands co-authored and signed by ACAP’s Information Officer, as well as a printed WAD2020 poster suitable for framing.

With grateful thanks to all who have made, photographed and submitted images of WAD2020 banners to ACAP Latest News.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, updated 06 June 2020

A hooked Wandering Albatross gets a second chance, photograph from the British Antarctic Survey

Richard Phillips and Andy Wood (British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK) have published in the journal Biological Conservation on the substantial proportions of birds bycaught in longline fisheries alive.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Bycatch of seabirds in longline fisheries includes mortalities and live captures (mainly during hauling). Excluding outliers, the latter accounts for 5–70% (mean 40.4%) of all bycaught birds in demersal, and 3–23% (mean 10.7%) in pelagic longline fisheries. The proportion that later die from injuries is unknown, and this cryptic mortality complicates efforts to quantify fisheries impacts. Over a 26-year period at South Georgia, foul-hooking indices - birds with embedded hooks or entangled among tens of thousands checked at the colony - were broadly similar in wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans and giant petrels Macronectes spp., an order of magnitude lower in black-browed albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris and nil in two other albatross species. This likely reflected differing degrees of overlap with fisheries and interaction with gear during hauling. Indices peaked in the early-mid 2000s, then declined, broadly corresponding with changing fishing practices, including the lagged effect of a seasonal fisheries-closure, introduction of a new fishing system, reduced effort in some demersal fisheries and general improvements in bycatch mitigation. Foul-hooking indices at colonies can therefore reflect relative risk for different species over time, and be a useful adjunct to vessel-based monitoring of live-capture rates. Taking into account age and status when reported, and annual survival probabilities, subsequent survival of live-caught and released wandering albatrosses was around 40% of that expected for the wider population. This has major implications for ecological risk assessments that seek to determine the impacts ofisheries on seabirds, as most do not currently consider deleterious impacts of live capture.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips.

Reference:

Phillips, R.A. & Wood, A.G. 2020.  Variation in live-capture rates of albatrosses and petrels in fisheries, post-release survival and implications for management.  Biological Conservation 247.  doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108641.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 June 2020