UPDATE:  "1^st Place - Sushi (sponsored by Gull Whitianga Service Station). Currently around 100 km from the equator and flying in a westerly direction towards Tarawa (Kiribati)."  Read more here.

Last month Wildlife Management International Limited (WMIL) fitted satellite (GPS) tags weighing less than 15 g to 10 globally Near Threatened and Nationally Vulnerable Flesh-footed Shearwaters Ardenna carneipes chicks prior to their fledging from Ohinau Island, off North Island, New Zealand.  The tags transmit data to satellites which are downloaded in order for the fledglings’ progress to be tracked live as they migrate to the Northern Hemisphere.  The tags are fitted with solar panels stated to be able to transmit data for months and even for up to a year.  Each bird has been sponsored and named.

One of the 10 Flesh-footed Shearwaters with a back-mounted tracker.  This one has been named Fiona

A back-mounted satellite tracker with solar panels visible

On their way north: early tracks of nine of the 10 Flesh-footed Shearwater fledglings

LATEST UPDATE, DATED 30 MAY:

"Most of the flesh-footed shearwater chicks [n=8] are now 3000-4000 km N or NNE of Ohinau Island. Sushi is the furthest north and is currently sitting just less than 100 km below the equator. Previous tracking of adults using geolocators showed these birds crossed the equator before utilising the easterly trade winds to carry them towards Japan. Stay tuned to see if the chicks follow the same pattern!"

Reaching the equator: Flesh-footed Shearwater fledgling tracks

Illustrations from Wildlife Management International Limited

WMIL writes in a Facebook posting:

“The Summer field trips to Ohinau and Lady Alice Islands to study flesh-footed shearwaters have been completed. The team managed to check about 200 breeding burrows on each island while identifying and banding the partners in over 90% of these burrows. We will revisit both islands in April/May to check these same burrows again and determine the breeding success. This is all part of a long-term study to learn more about the breeding biology of flesh-footed shearwaters in New Zealand.”

Read more on the research in the The Mercury Bay Informer and on WMIL’s Facebook Page.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 June 2019, updated 06 June 2019

UPDATE:  Seven Black Petrel chicks were banded within the sanctuary this year according to the online HARATUA May at Glenfern Sanctuary newsletter:  " We have several takoketai [Black Petrel] burrows within the sanctuary and final burrow checks in May found seven healthy chicks ready to fledge. We were lucky to get the help of Nikki McArthur and Samantha Ray (pictured) from Wildlife Management International who helped band the young birds."

Read an earlier posting in ALN on the effects of a storm within the Glenfern Sanctuary.

The ACAP-listed and globally and nationally Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni was first recorded breeding in the mid 1990s within the Glenfern Sanctuary, an Auckland Council Regional Park since 2016, on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island.

Situated on the island’s west-coast Kotuku Peninsula, the 83-ha sanctuary falls within a 240-ha fenced area.  The 2.1-km predator-proof fence, built in 2008 and extended in 2010, is largely effective in keeping out introduced mammals such as feral cats, dogs and pigs from the peninsula, although at low tide cats occasionally gain access around either end of the fence where it reaches the sea.  Since 1994 Black Rats, Pacific Rats (Kiore) and a small number of House Mice have been controlled with a current network of up to 1560 rat traps and the regular use of tracking cards to detect rodent presence on the peninsula.  In 2009 two aerial bait drops from a helicopter using Brodifacoum eliminated European Rabbits on the peninsula within the fence.  Econode SmartTraps targeting feral cats are set all year round.  This season three cats have been trapped within the sanctuary. Two pest-detection dogs are also utilized.

Within the fenced area on the peninsula there are 88 known seabird burrows, at least 27 made by Black Petrels, with 13 of them currently occupied.  More burrows may exist.  Sarah Matthew of the Glenfern Sanctuary writes to ACAP Latest News “we are in the process of increasing our monitoring to get a better understanding of breeding success.  To date monitoring efforts have been [on] locating new burrows and checking for occupancy. This year we will visit all burrows three times to help us understand how many chicks fledge successfully.”  Cook’s Petrel Pterodroma cookii (globally Vulnerable) also breed within the sanctuary.

A Black Petrel chick in its burrow within the Glenfern Sanctuary

An Econode SmartTrap

Photographs from the Glenfern Sanctuary

Elsewhere on Great Barrier Island the Black Petrel breeds in numbers around the summit of Mount Hobson, as well as on nearby Little Barrier Island (click here).

The Glenfern Sanctuary is open to the public during daylight hours with access via a 2-km track through woodland with guided tours available.  Read more about the sanctuary and its activities in its online monthly newsletter.

With thanks to Sarah Matthew, Glenfern Sanctuary for information and photographs

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 April 2019, updated 02 May & 02 June 2019

"Kalama's Journey: One Mōlī's Story Among Millions" has received a bronze Telly Award in the Nature and Wildlife Category.  The eight-minute film was written and produced  by author and photographer, Hob Osterlund, a resident of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.  Hob founded the Kauai Albatross Network and is a Fellow of the Safina Center.  Rosemary Rawcliffe of Frame of Mind Films and Carl Safina (author of the 2002 book  Eye of the Albatross. Visions of Hope and Survival) acted as Executive Producers.

Kalama starts to lose her down

Previously, ACAP Latest News wrote:

“Kalama, a globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis chick on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, became well known by being the subject of a live-streaming “albicam”, hosted and operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  The video takes the watcher through the hatching, rearing and fledging of an albatross chick reared by an all-female pair.  The audio discusses the problems of sea-level rise and the importance of Kauai’s breeding albatrosses protected from climate change by nesting at altitude on bluff and cliff tops” (click here).

"The Telly Awards is the premier award honouring video and television across all screens. Established in 1979, The Telly Awards receives over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. Entrants are judged by The Telly Awards Judging Council - an industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies, and major television networks, reflective of the multi-screen industry The Telly Awards celebrates."

Hob Osterlund is the author of Holy Mōlī: Albatross and other Ancestors.  Click here for the ACAP Latest News review of her book.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 May 2019

One of the female parents incubates Kalama's egg

Photographs by Hob Osterlund

Tim Guilford (Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK) and colleagues have published open access in the 2019 volume of the journal Seabird on how Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus react to artificial light at night

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Understanding the detrimental effects of anthropogenic light on nocturnally mobile animals is a long-standing problem in conservation biology.  Seabirds such as shearwaters and petrels can be especially affected, perhaps because of their propensity to fly close to the surface, making them vulnerable to encountering anthropogenic light sources.  We investigated the influence of light pollution on adult Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus at close range in foggy conditions.  We recorded collisions with a building at a breeding colony for six consecutive pairs of intervals in which the house lights were left on as normal for 135 seconds, then turned off for 135 seconds.  The relationship between lighting condition and collision frequency was highly significant, with a collision rate in the presence of lighting around 25 times that in its absence.  Our results show that birds were clearly affected by the lights, by being either directly attracted, or disorientated during flight close to the structure.   This could have been due to the light source itself, or an indirect effect of the all-round reflective glow in the fog perhaps interfering with visual or magnetic control inputs on both sides of the bird simultaneously.  Our results suggest a mechanism by which the screening of artificial lights close to shearwater breeding areas, at least during foggy nights, could lead to improved welfare and survival at breeding colonies.”

The building used for the experimental light source on Skomer Island - from the publication

Guilford, T., Padget, O., Bond, S. & Syposz, M.M. 2019.  Light pollution causes object collisions during local nocturnal manoeuvring flight by adult Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus.  Seabird 31: 48-55.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer 30 May 2019