Kalinka Rexer-Huber (Parker Conservation) and colleagues have presented a draft final report to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation at a meeting of its Conservation Services Programme (CSP) Technical Working Group late last month that details their field research on three ACAP-listed species on the Auckland Islands.  The three taxa are:  Antipodean Albatross of the Gibson’s subspecies Diomedea antipodensis gibsoni, White-capped Albatross Thalassarche steadi and White-chinned Petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis.

The report’s summary follows:

“This report details the mark-recapture methods and findings for white-chinned petrels, Gibson’s albatrosses and white-capped albatrosses. For Gibson’s albatross, we present data on the size of the nesting population in 2019, and updated estimates of survival, productivity and recruitment to help identify causes of current population size and trends. We also document tracking methods and device recoveries for all three species, and for white-capped albatrosses, describe nest camera recoveries and aerial photographic work.

White-chinned petrels. Three global location sensor (GLS) tracking devices were recovered and forty-seven banded white-chinned petrels were recaptured (recapture rate 0.27). Some burrow-switching has occurred, with three banded birds in new burrows ~2–5m from the burrow where first banded, justifying checks in unmarked burrows. With further banding this season, the study area now contains 230 banded white-chinned petrels in 131 marked burrows. Further resighting effort is needed before demographic parameters can be estimated reliably.

Gibson’s albatross. Nesting success has returned to levels recorded before the 2005 crash and appears to have stabilised, with 61% productivity in the 2017–2018 breeding season. The survival rate of adult males and females is now similar though survival remains below pre-crash levels. Breeding numbers in 2018-2019 continued the slow post-crash increase. The total estimated number of breeding pairs of Gibson’s wandering albatrosses in 2018–19 was 4,180, just under half the number of pairs breeding in 2004 (i.e., 8,728) before the population crashed. With annual mortality a little higher than it used to be, a total population substantially smaller than it used to be and more than a decade of low chick production, population recovery is likely to be slow.

White-capped albatross. Banded white-capped albatrosses were resighted at a rate of 0.34, and a further 122 breeding white-capped albatrosses were banded bringing the study colony total to 679 birds banded. Four GLS tracking devices were retrieved, and one further bird which had lost its GLS (or had it removed) was resighted.

Nest cameras gave up to 9½ months of data from deployment in January 2018. Chick success, or the survival of a chick from hatching to fledging, was lower than expected at 0.29 (5 out of 17 nests). Chicks fledged ~27 July (range 12 July–23 August), and adults returned to the colony from around 30 September. Low chick success is a concern since breeding success (survival from egg lay to fledging) will be lower than chick success. To estimate breeding success, nest cameras must follow the full breeding season, and all parameters (chick success, dates of fledging and adult return) would benefit from following more nests than in this trial.

Aerial photographs of the Disappointment Castaways B area were taken on 7 February around 1400 hrs. 260 suitable photos have been archived for interpretation at a later date. The main difference to previous aerial photography work is the timing: photographs in 2019 were taken 3 weeks later. Nest counts from these photographs will have to be corrected for breeding failures during incubation.”

Gibson's Antipodean Albatross on Adams Island, Auckland Islands, photograph by Colin O'Donell

The Conservation Services Programme monitors the impact of commercial fishing on protected species, studies species populations and looks at ways to limit bycatch. The programme is funded by levies from commercial fishers.

With thanks to Graham Parker.

Rexer-Huber, K., Elliott, G., Thompson, D., Walker, K. & Parker, G. 2019.  Seabird populations, demography and tracking: Gibson’s albatross, white-capped albatross and white-chinned petrels in the Auckland Islands 2018-19.  DRAFT FINAL Report to the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation.  Dunedin: Parker Conservation 19 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 June 2019

South Africa, a Party to the Albatross and Petrel Agreement (ACAP), has instituted a process to revise and update its National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Fisheries (NPOA-Seabirds).  The current plan, adopted in 2008, came after a several-year process with a first draft being submitted to the government authority in November 2002, with a second draft following review submitted in December 2003.  The final draft followed on from a Stakeholders Workshop held in South Africa in January 2003.  These two draft texts were produced at the University of Cape Town by academic ornithologists John Cooper and Peter Ryan, following the guidelines for NPOA-Seabirds set out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in its IPOA-Seabirds document published in 1999.  In line with the IPOA-Seabirds the draft was made up of two parts.  Firstly, came a detailed assessment of the level of seabird bycatch in different South African longline fisheries (which the text describes) along with a summary of relevant South African legislation and a description of the affected seabird species.  The second part was the national plan itself, which described recommended mitigation measures, as well as considering research and development, education, training and publicity, and data collection. The texts, whose production was funded by the FAO’s Committee on Fisheries (COFI), were submitted to the then Branch: Marine and Coastal Management of the South African Department of Environmental Affairs & Tourism, recently reconstituted as the Department of the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF).

The officially adopted 2008 text, given the new knowledge that had come to light on seabird mortality from colliding with warps and cables, was expanded to include trawl fisheries and did not include the assessment in the drafts described above.

South Africa's 2008 NPOA-Seabirds - now under revision

DEFF's Oceans and Coasts Branch is now leading on the latest revision, with the intention of having a new NPOA-Seabirds, adopted in time to submit it to the Seventh Meeting of the Parties to ACAP, expected to be held in Hobart, Australia in 2021.  To this end a revision working group held its first meeting last week, with a small group of experts from DEFF, BirdLife South Africa’s Seabird Conservation Programme (Andrea Angel) and the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town (Peter Ryan), as well as ACAP’s Information Officer.  The Meeting was co-chaired by Azwianewi Makhado (South Africa's ACAP National Contact Point) and Herman Oosthuizen, both from DEFF.  At the meeting it was decided to co-opt Anton Wolfaardt, a Co-convenor of ACAP’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG) and who is based in South Africa. Another member of the SBWG, Johan de Goede of DEFF, is also a member of the revision group.

During the meeting a way forward was decided on improving and expanding an existing revision, which had been produced under contract earlier.  Individual group members were given sections to work on, with the intention of convening a second group meeting once a new text can be collated.  As well as considering longline and trawl fisheries, the new South African NPOA-Seabirds will also take account of any seabird bycatch that might occur in other South African marine fisheries, including tuna pole and line, purse-seining, and fixed/gill nets.

References:

Cooper, J. & Ryan, P.G 2002.  South African National Plan of Action for Reducing the Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries.  [Rondebosch: University of Cape Town].  95 pp.

Cooper, J. & Ryan, P.G 2003.  South African National Plan of Action for Reducing the Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries.  [Rondebosch: University of Cape Town].  103 pp.

FAO 1999.  International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries.  International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks.  International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity.  Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  26 pp.

South Africa [Cooper, J., Petersen, S. & Ryan, P.G.] 2008.  South African National Plan of Action for Reducing the Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries.  [Cape Town]: Department of Environmental Affairs & Tourism.  32 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 June 2019

UPDATE:  The tracked birds have been travelling in a north-easterly direction and are starting to pass the southern tip of Africa - and Cape Town where ACAP's Information Officer lives.  One bird has flown over 10 700 km as of 10 June.  Access the regularly updated tracking map here.

A Grey-headed Albatross chick from the 2018 Bird Island cohort.  The satellite tracker's aerial can be seen. Photograph by Derren Fox

ACAP meetings in Brazil this and last week heard of research conducted on 16 globally Endangered Grey-headed Albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma chicks close to fledging fitted with PTTs (“Platform Transmitter Terminals” or satellite trackers) at Bird Island, South Georgia/Islas Georgias del Sur* in the South Atlantic during May last year.  The Bird Island population is an ACAP Priority Population for study as it is currently considered to be declining in size with annual survival rates of juveniles lower than expected.  One bird flew across the southern Indian Ocean past New Zealand into the Pacific Ocean, travelling a total of 49 604 km when last recorded on 12 December 2018 (see also abstract at PaCSWG5 Inf 19).

 “There are records from observers on board fishing vessels that immature birds are killed in pelagic longline fisheries in some areas that are not used regularly by nonbreeding adults. In addition, circumstantial evidence suggests that because of the population decline there may have been a density-dependent increase in predation by giant petrels [Macronectes sp.] of juvenile grey-headed albatrosses both as they fledge and in the few days immediately thereafter when they often rest on the sea close to the island.

For these reasons, there is an urgent need to:

• map the movements and foraging areas of juveniles in order to determine the overlap with fisheries,
• assess the survival rate of juveniles in the initial weeks and months after they fledge.”

The work is therefore continuing with another 16 Grey-headed Albatross chicks fitted with trackers over 11/12 May this year; five of these have now fledged.  The juveniles are being tracked in near real-time with a duty cycle of eight hours on and 43 hours off.  As of today the longest distance travelled by one of these five is 1572 km, in a north-easterly direction.    Read more and access the regularly updated tracking map here.

With thanks to Richard Phillips and Andy Wood for information and Derren Fox for the photograph.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 May 2019, updated 10 June 2019

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

“George” and “Geraldine”, a pair of globally Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus, that have been attempting to breed on Sand Island in the USA’s Midway Atoll are thought to have fledged their first chick this year – and the first for the island (click here).  The albatross pair arrived on the island in late October 2018 within one day of each other, subsequently laying and incubating an egg which hatched on 3 January.

“George” (right) and “Geraldine” together on Midway in 2018, photograph by USFWS volunteer, Madalyn Riley

George stands by his 2019 chick, photograph by Bob Peyton

George, the male of the pair, a bird in adult plumage, has been visiting Midway Atoll since November 2006 (when known as “Lonesome George”).  He hatched from the colony on Japan’s Torishima in 2003 and was banded there as a chick.  Geraldine, an assumed younger bird, is still in sub-adult plumage and is suspected to be an individual that was banded on Torishima in April 2008.  She was first observed on Sand Island in early 2012.  The two birds were first seen together on the island in late 2016.  Last season (2017/18) the pair incubated a Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes egg, which hatched and resulted in a fledged chick.  Now they have fledged their own chick.

USFWS biologists Keely Hassett (left) and Kelly Goodale band the downy Short-tailed Albatross chick with Red AA08 on 6 May 2019

Banding photographs by Jon Pilssner from the Friends of Midway Atoll NWR

Previously, a different pair of Short-tailed Albatrosses bred successfully three times in four years on the atoll’s Eastern Island, fledging several chicks, the last one in 2014.

Read more postings on Midway’s Short-tailed Albatrosses on both Eastern and Sand Islands here and here.

With thanks to Madalyn Riley.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 June 2019