UPDATE:  The suite of enhancements "designed to further conserve the rich biodiversity found within the ocean" and described below have now been signed into force (click here).

"The enhanced measures include a large increase in the proportion of the 1.24 million km² MPA within which all commercial fishing activity is prohibited. No-take zones now cover over 23 % of the MPA (284,000 km²). The no-take zones protect the most biodiverse habits found within the Southern Ocean. ... In order to further reduce competition for resources between the fishery for Antarctic Krill and the abundant populations of krill-dependent predators such as penguins, fur seals and flying seabirds, the closed season has been extended by two months across all 1.24 million km² of the MPA. This seven-month closure prevents overlap between the fishery and predators during the key part of their breeding season when their foraging ranges are restricted."

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The current 1.24-million-km² Marine Protected Area (MPA) around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur)* in the South Atlantic is to be expanded in area and also in the levels of protection it offers.  These islands support globally important populations of procellariiform and other seabirds, including seven species of ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.

A 54-year old globally Endangered Grey-headed Albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma and its chick on Bird Island, photograph by Stephanie Winnard

The changes include:

• Extension of the No-Take Zone (NTZ) around South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* from 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) to 30 km, increasing its area from 13 899 km² to 18 520 km² to protect the spawning aggregations of many fish species and the foraging areas of inshore marine predators
• Establishment of a NTZ and a pelagic closed area in zones extending 50 km from the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Sandwich del Sur)*, resulting in areas of 28 054 km² and 23 755 km², respectively, increasing both the size of the total NTZ and the area closed to pelagic commercial fishing activity.

Overall, the NTZs closed to all commercial fishing activity will expand to cover 23% (284 000 km²) of the MPA.  More details of the above and other changes may be found here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 March 2019, updated 06 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.

UPDATE:  Read of progress here.  "Some 28,000 bait stations were filled across farmed and residential areas starting 22 May, and helicopters will scatter baits over more forested and mountainous parts of the island as soon as weather permit[s]."

The Lord Howe Island Rodent Eradication Project aims to eradicate introduced Ship Rats Rattus rattus and House Mice Mus musculus from Australia’s World Heritage Lord Howe Island (14.55 km²⁾, inter alia to help protect its breeding populations of burrowing petrels and shearwaters.  The one-off eradication will distribute a cereal-based bait pellet (Pestoff 20R) containing 0.02 g/kg (20 parts per million) of the toxin Brodifacoum over the island by helicopter drop, coupled with bait stations in inhabited areas, including in and around dwellings and other buildings in the settlement area, as well as set out in a 10-m grid in pasture land.  Following years of planning and some delays and postponements (click here) implementation of the eradication exercise has recently received final approval from the Lord Howe Island Board and is now targeted for the austral winter months of June to August this year.

Lord Howe Island

At risk to rats: a globally Near Threatened Flesh-footed Shearwater Ardenna carnepeis pair on Lord Howe Island

According to information received earlier this month by ACAP Latest News from island naturalist, Ian Hutton, activities have already commenced ashore: 50 personnel have deployed no less than 24 000 empty bait stations which arrived on the island in late April.  Poison bait will be added to the stations from 20 May.  Two helicopters for aerial baiting of the non-inhabited, mountainous parts and coastal cliffs of the island are on their way to the island from Hobart and are expected to arrive on the 14th.  Aerial baiting is set to commence as soon as weather conditions will allow from 1 June, with a repeat operation planned two weeks later.

Get past that if you can: pasture land on Lord Howe Island with roofed rodent bait stations set out on a 10-m grid

A rodent bait station on Lord Howe Island

Large numbers of two species of land birds, the Lord Howe Pied Currawong Strepera graculina crissalis (120 caught), an island-endemic subspecies, and the endemic and Endangered Lord Howe Woodhen Hypotaenidia sylvestris (250), both determined to be at risk to non-target poisoning, are being taken into protective temporary housing on the island, following advice on rodent- and bait-proof enclosures and husbandry received from Sydney’s Taronga Zoo.  They will be released four months after the bait drop, when it is considered they will be no longer be at risk to poisoning.

Read recent news reports on the go-ahead here and here.

The above news was briefly mentioned under item 6.1. “Updates on management of land-based threats” at the Fifth Meeting of ACAP's Population and Conservation Status Working Group (PaCSWG5), that too place in Floreanópolis, Brazil on 9 and 10 May.

ACAP Latest News will report on the fortunes of the eradication attempt as further information comes to hand.

With thanks to Ian Hutton for information and photographs.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 May 2019, updated 12 May 2019 & 06 June 2019

Lauren Roman (CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) and colleagues have published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin on plastic items found in corpses of 20 species of petrels and shearwaters beach-washed or killed by fisheries in Australasia; most were 2-10 mm in dimension.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Pollution of the world's oceans by marine debris has direct consequences for wildlife, with fragments of plastic <10 mm the most abundant buoyant litter in the ocean.  Seabirds are susceptible to debris ingestion, commonly mistaking floating plastics for food.  Studies have shown that half of petrel species regularly ingest anthropogenic waste.  Despite the regularity of debris ingestion, no studies to date have quantified the dimensions of debris items ingested across petrel species ranging in size.  We excised and measured 1694 rigid anthropogenic debris items from 348 petrel carcasses of 20 species.  We found that although the size of items ingested by petrels scale positively with the size of the bird, 90% of all debris items ingested across species fall within a narrow “danger zone” range of 2–10 mm, overlapping with the most abundant oceanic debris size.  We conclude that this globally profuse size range of marine plastics is an ingestion hazard to petrels.”

A Flesh-footed Shearwater yields its plastic load, photograph by Ian Hutton

Read a popular article on the study here.

Reference:

Roman, L., Paterson, H., Townsend, K.A., Wilcox, C., Hardesty, B.D. & Hindell, M.A. 2019.  Size of marine debris items ingested and retained by petrels.  Marine Pollution Bulletin 142: 569-575.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 June 2019

Saskia Wischnewski (School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland) and colleagues have published in the journal Animal Behaviour on foraging strategy choice by Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus feeding their young.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Parental care can lead to a conflict of interest between parents and offspring.  For central place foragers, conflict is expected to be particularly intensive in species that feed on relatively inaccessible, distant food resources. Some pelagic seabirds use distinct foraging strategies when provisioning young versus self-feeding: short trips near the colony versus long trips far away. Limited empirical evidence suggests that the strategy used by parents depends on their own state and that of their young, suggesting that dynamic optimization may help reduce conflict.  Tests of this hypothesis, however, are scarce.  Using a combination of GPS tracking and nest monitoring, we examined whether foraging strategy choice by Manx shearwaters, Puffinus puffinus, is explained by the body condition of parents and offspring before trip departure, and whether choice affects condition upon return.  When chick body condition was poor prior to departure, subsequent foraging trips by adults were significantly shorter and faster, and chick condition upon return improved.  When chick condition was good prior to departure, the reverse happened.  There was no evidence that adult condition affected subsequent trip choice, but adults returning from slow, long-duration trips were in comparatively better condition.  Thus, although the trips that were good for offspring were different to those that were favourable for adults, trip choice was only dependent on chick condition, which may explain why there was no evidence for a trade-off between adult and chick condition during individual trips.  Our results suggest that spatiotemporal variation in foraging strategies is driven by the conflicting needs of parents and offspring, but that the parents can reduce the conflict, resulting in no detectable trade-off under these conditions.  This link between parental care and space use is likely to be widespread in central place foragers but remains largely unexplored in most systems.”

Manx Shearwater, photograph by Nathan Fletcher

Reference:

Wischnewski, S., Arneill, G.E., Bennison, A.W., Dillan, E., Poupart, T.A., Hinde, C.A., Jessopp, M.J. & Quinn, J.L. 2019.  Variation in foraging strategies over a large spatial scale reduces parent–offspring conflict in Manx shearwaters.  Animal Behaviour 151: 165-176.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 June 2019