Rae Okawa of Native Hawaii Designs.has designed what is described as a “tribal mōlī poster” to support the conservation of Kauai’s Mōlī or Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis, as well as the use the of Hawaii’s indigenous language.  Each symbol depicted on the poster is given its meaning in the Hawaiian and Polynesian cultures.  In addition, Rae Okawa has produced a logo to a similar design which aims to raise funds for the Kaua’i Albatross Network from the sale of clothing and tote bags.

The network’s Mission states that “The Kaua‘i Albatross Network is dedicated to helping preserve the vitality of the Laysan Albatross and promoting safe habitat on which this magnificent bird depends.”

Design by Rae Okawa

It is intended to write an article for the ACAP Monthly Missive series on the usage of native languages and names in the conservation of ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels and their breeding sites.  The indigenous languages of Hawaii (Ōlelo Hawai’i, an official state language since 1978) and New Zealand (te reo Māori a national official language since 1987) are prominent in this regard, but there are other examples of the use of local names in Chile’s Juan Fernández Islands, Spain’s Balearic Islands and the United Kingdom’s Tristan da Cunha Islands.

With thanks to Hob Osterlund, Kaua‘i Albatross Network and Fellow, Safina Center.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 04 September 2024

Sketches of the great albatross seen off Ireland, drawing by John Lynch

Those species of albatrosses whose homes fall within the southern hemisphere are rarely recorded outside of it; the less windy and prey-poor tropical seas being considered-too much of a barrier to their crossing the equator and venturing farther north.  Nevertheless, isolated individuals of several species do get seen at sea from time to time, or even on or over land, in the northern hemisphere (click here for an ACAP Latest News 2010 compilation).  In the North Atlantic it is the Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris that is most commonly observed, with sometimes multiple sightings of what is most likely the same individual; a recent record being of an adult seen off Iceland.  There are also a few records of Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses T. chlororhynchos north of the equator in the Atlantic.

 Less common are North Atlantic sightings of a great albatross of the genus Diomedea, making the recent report of one seen (and sketched) off the coast of Ireland noteworthy.  The following account by John Lynch is from the online news service BirdGuides.

“The remnants of Hurricane Ernesto were due to hit south-west Ireland on the evening of Wednesday 21 August.  After finishing work, I drove with some anticipation to Seven Heads, a promontory to the east of Leganagh Point in Co Cork that myself and some local birders have been pioneering as access to other headlands in the area has become difficult.

When I was 2 km from the site, a message in the Cork Rare Birds WhatsApp Group announced that Dennis O'Sullivan had an albatross species at 5.23 pm heading west from Ballycotton, which is 57 km to the east. Within 15 minutes I had met local birder Ronan O'Driscoll at the watchpoint. We discussed Dennis's find and the possibility that the bird could potentially pass Seven Heads, so we commenced scanning east towards the Old Head of Kinsale.

The wind was blowing from the south-west at a F6 and light conditions were good, with the Old Head lighthouse visible some 12.5 km to the east. There was a light breaking swell over which there was a steady westerly moving passage of Manx Shearwaters interspersed with Cory's Shearwaters and some Northern Fulmars.

Seven Heads seawatch point, with Cotton Rock foreground and the Old Head of Kinsale some 12.5 km to the east, photograph by John Lynch

The minutes passed and at 5.55 pm I was checking through a feeding flock of manxies [Manx Shearwaters] approximately 500 m offshore when a bird rose and banked vertically in front and above the flock presenting its full underside.

I thought: 'What the … this bird is huge!'  My first impression was of long, extended gleaming-white underwing, with black-bordered secondaries, primaries and to a lesser extent the inner wing arm and outer wing hand. The hand of the outer wing was swept back and tipped black.

I shouted 'albatross' to Ronan, followed by 'it's got a pink bill'. The bill was huge and really stood out. As the light caught the bird I noted how clean the underside and head were. 'I have to get a photo,' I thought, and I reached for the camera hoping the bird would pass in front of us. I couldn't pick the bird up, though.

'OK, focus on getting details,' I thought, as I dropped the camera and reverted back to the 'scope, quickly connecting with the bird as it completed a towering arc and presented its back. I could clearly make out that the head, mantle, rump and tail were white and the white of the mantle extended onto the lesser and median coverts. The rest of the wing, including the greater coverts, primaries and secondaries was black and flecked with white, which was primarily confined to the coverts. The intergrading of the white on the coverts with the dark Diomedea areas looked blotchy, spotted and rough.

What was now clearly an albatross species was completing slow towering arcs and as I shouted directions to Ronan he connected as it broke the horizon. On reaching the top of an arc I could see the wings were slightly arched and, coupled with the size of the bird, the thought that 'this bird looks like a hang glider' ran through my head!

Both Ronan and I watched as the bird completed six or seven towering arcs from the sea surface to above the horizon, slowly making its way in a southerly direction out to sea, until it was finally lost to view. The total observation time was about seven to nine minutes and both of us concurred that in all this time we hadn't see the bird flap once!

I sent out a message that read 'albatross sp past Seven Heads 5.55 pm' and called Dennis. Given the distance and time this was not Dennis's bird, which had a dark underwing and he identified D. dabbenena as an immature Black-browed Albatross.

It was clear Ronan and myself needed to take notes and read reference guides as I suspected this was one of the 'great albatrosses' of the genus. We discussed our notes on Thursday morning and concluded that this was an adult male from the wandering albatross species complex.”

Without photographs (as in this example), or the reading of a individually numbered leg band or morphometric measurements (which requires the bird in the hand), it is not feasible to identify the Irish great albatross to species, but it seems most likely to be either a Tristan D. dabbenena from Gough Island, or a Wandering D. exulans from South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)¹, farther south.

¹A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur e Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

References:

Cuthbert, R.J., Phillips, R.A. & Ryan, P.G. 2003.  Separating the Tristan Albatross and the Wandering Albatross using morphometric measurements.  Waterbirds 26: 338-344.

Ryan, P.[G.] 2000.  Separating albatrosses.  Tristan or Wandering?  Africa – Birds & Birding August/September 5(4): 35-39.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 03 September 2024

Figure 1 from the paper: Hake artisanal fishery occurs in the sub-Antarctic channels of Patagonia, Chile. This area comprises three political-administrative regions: Los Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes. The blue box shows the study area, the red circles display where the interviews were conducted, and the yellow rectangles show fishing grounds where we ran the sampling periods related to the offal consumption survey.

Jaime Ojeda (School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) and colleagues have published open access in the journal People and Nature on the reciprocal relationship between artisanal hake fishers in Chilean Patagonia and seabirds, highlighting how fishers benefit from seabirds' presence and how seabirds rely on fishers for food through discarded offal.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“ 1. Reciprocal relationships between fishers and marine life have been documented in Indigenous fishing contexts, but there are few case studies that describe the mechanisms of such relationships, and even fewer that explore other contexts, such as that of artisanal fishers in Latin American countries.
2. We studied the artisanal hake fishery in the sub-Antarctic channels of Chilean Patagonia, a global hotspot for albatross and petrel diversity. We aimed to uncover nature's contributions to hake fishers and, reciprocally, the potential fishers' contributions to marine life with a particular emphasis on seabirds. We adopted a bifocal observational strategy. From a human perspective, ethnographic methods (e.g., semi-structured interviews) are analysed with Nature's Contributions to People and reciprocal contribution frameworks. From the seabirds' view, we assessed offal consumption through experimental and observational methods. We randomly threw offal items into the sea and observed the seabird responses (whether they consumed offal).
3. Hake fishers' relationships with the marine environment are multidimensional, particularly with seabirds. Based on fishers' perceptions, we identified four key contributions of seabirds to humans: they serve as value indicators of fishing distribution and concentration areas, offer companionship and recreation during fishing activities, enhance scenic emotionality through the presence of albatrosses and assist in the function of sea cleaning. In reciprocal contributions, artisanal fishers viewed hake offal as a beneficial food source for the seabirds, especially the liver. Fishers described that fishing in the right way can reduce bycatch and effort.
4. The fishers' main contribution to seabirds is through offering them the offal of hake catches. We observed that seabirds consumed hake liver 99% of the time, while they consumed stomach less frequently (24%). We identified that southern giant petrels and black-browed albatrosses consumed more liver, while kelp gulls ate more stomach. The liver comprises 51.6% fat, essential for high trophic level marine predators such as black-browed albatrosses.
5. Adopting reciprocal contributions and NCP served as a catalyst for understanding fishers' positive actions but also is a promoter to research multiple views of nature–human relationships in fishing settings. Values of nature, like reciprocity, could enrich ecosystem-based management strategies.”

Reference:

Ojeda, J., Morello, F., Suazo, C. G., Astorga-España, M. S., Salomon, A. K., & Ban, N. C. (2024). Two lenses for exploring relationships between seabirds and fishers: Unveiling reciprocal contributions. People and Nature, 00, 1–16.

2 September 2024

Antipodean Albatross by Lea Finke for World Albatross Day 2020, after a photograph by Kirk Zufelt

New Zealand’s annual Bird of the Year competition for 2024 (“BOTY2024”) commences on Monday 02 September, with voting based on an instant runoff system closing on Sunday 15 September.  The winner will be announced on Monday 16 September.  Once more the Antipodean Albatross Diomedea antipodensis is available to be your number one choice.  This ACAP-listed species, endemic to New Zealand, is categorized as globally Endangered, and Nationally Critical, and has been recognized as a Species of Special Concern by ACAP.

An Antipodean Albatross pair engages in mutual display, artwork by Hannah Shand

“Antipodean albatross or toroa spend most of their lives at sea, only coming on land to raise young every two years.  They have an elaborate courtship that involves a characteristic singing and dancing display, and form enduring pairs that mostly last until one of them dies.   The Antipodean albatross is the party leader species representing all of the amazing albatrosses in Aotearoa.

Soaring above the waters of the Pacific Ocean and Aotearoa, the toroa represents perpetuity and strength. With a wingspan measured in metres, the Antipodean albatross shows us the beauty of New Zealand’s native birds.  These magnificent creatures, known for their impressive long-distance journeys criss-crossing the Pacific, face numerous threats from climate change and fishing practices.  By voting for the toroa in Bird of the Year, you are promoting efforts to protect their habitat, and ensure these majestic albatross continue to grace our skies for generations to come.”

Juvenile Antipodean Albatross by Maureen Rousseau for World Albatross Day 2020, after a photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Click here to learn how to vote.  For your second to fifth choices  there are available four procellariiform seabirds to choose:  ACAP-listed and Endangered Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica, Endangered Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni, Vulnerable Cook’s Petrel Pterodroma cookii and Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur.  No ACAP-listed species (or any procellariiform) has so far won the Bird of the Year competition; click here to  view all the past winners since 2005. 

In 2020 , the Antipodean Albatross came second in BOTY, then slipped to fifth in 2021, and did not get close to a podium position in the following two years.  Could 2024 finally be the year for the Toroa – after four years of trying?

BOTY 2024 is organized by the New Zealand environmental NGO, Forest & Bird.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 30 August 2024, updated 02 September 2024