“If I were Bill Gates, this is where I would put my money” said Peter Ryan, Director of the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at South Africa’s University of Cape Town.  The A-rated ornithologist and University Fellow presented a plenary talk entitled Seabird Conservation - a Southern Hemisphere Perspective at this month’s 27th International Ornithological Congress in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

In his presentation Professor Ryan referred to the Marion Mouse Free project that aims to eradicate the introduced House Mice Mus musculus that are killing ACAP-listed albatrosses and other seabirds at South Africa’s sub-Antarctic island (click here), encouraging support for BirdLife South Africa’s  “adopt a hectare” fund-raising scheme to support the initiative to get rid of the mice.

Mouse attack!  A scalped Wandering Albatross chick on Marion Island, photograph by Stefan Schoombie

Read more here. Also watch a video.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 August 2018

Yuri Artukhin (Far East Branch, Pacific Geographical Institute, Vladivostok, Russia) and colleagues have published in Russian on mortality of Short-tailed Shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris (Least Concern) and other marine life in Japanese and Russian driftnet fisheries.  It appears the book was originally published in 2010 but has been made available online this month with an English abstract.

Short-tailed Shearwater at sea, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

A description of the book follows:

“The origins and development of the salmon driftnet fishery in the northwest Pacific are described. The scope of the modern gillnet fishery in the Russian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), as well as its research and monitoring programs.  Gillnet fishery methods in the Russian EEZ and the monitoring effort by commercial Japanese and scientific Russian  leets are described. Marine bird and mammal by-catch data collected during the large scale salmon fishery from the 1990s through the early 2000s are summarized in detail. Species composition and seasonal, interannual and geographic variation in by-catch mortality are analyzed. Estimates of bird and mammal mortality in gillnets are presented and the potential effect of the fishery on populations is discussed. Global measures to mitigate gillnet by-catch are presented, as is the potential of implementing some of these measures in Russian waters.”

Click here to access the book’s long English abstract.

Reference:

Yuri B. Artukhin, Y.B., Burkanov, V.N. & Nikulin, V.S. 2010 [2018].  Accidental by-catch of marine birds and mammals in the salmon gillnet fishery in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Moscow: Skorost' Tsveta.  264 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 August 2018

The Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project is working to reduce powerline collisions of three species of threatened seabirds on the Hawaiian island of Kauai by developing the Wildlife Laser Fence. The fence creates a visual barrier which seabirds then divert up and over, thus avoiding collision with the power lines.

The summary of a recent posting by the KESRP follows:

“Two major threats to birds worldwide are collisions with power lines and disorientation caused by artificial light sources. This is especially true on the island of Kauaʻi, where both power lines and artificial lights are a serious threat to the three endangered and endemic seabirds, the Newell’s Shearwater, Hawaiian Petrel, and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel. These seabirds are vulnerable to colliding with power lines when they make frequent nocturnal flights from the sea to their montane breeding colonies and back again. The young of these species are particularly vulnerable to grounding when they become disoriented by artificial lights on their maiden voyage out to sea.

The Underline Monitoring Project (UMP), which is a sub-project within KESRP, has multiple related research avenues: 1) determine where and to what extent seabirds hit power lines or are grounded by lights, 2) identify environmental and behavioral predictors of power line collision and grounding, and 3) conduct experiments testing the efficacy of minimization strategies.”

Wildlife Laser Fence in action, photograph by Adam Elzinga

Brief descriptions of the methods used to achieve the three overarching goals are described  here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 August 2018

The UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has postponed the intended eradication of the albatross-killing House Mice Mus musculus of Gough Island in the South Atlantic from next year to 2020.  According to the RSPB this will allow more time for planning the exercise and thus increase chances of success (click here for more details).

At risk to "killer" mice: a female Tristan Albatross incubates its egg on Gough Island; photograph by John Cooper

“A combination of unexpected challenges this year have shown the Gough team’s ability and determination to achieve our goals. By going ahead with the operation in 2020, we will have sufficient time not only to ensure that we overcome those challenges, but to use the results to build stronger, more robust plans.  The operational window is between June and August of each year. June 2020 is the next earliest feasible date that we can carry out an eradication.”

Read more items in ACAP Latest News on Gough’s mice here.

The Gough Island Restoration Programme is being carried out by the RSPB in partnership with Tristan da Cunha, BirdLife South Africa and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs.  Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 August 2018