The British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) Small Ornithological Research Grants Scheme provides awards of up to UK£ 2000 a project and is aimed at supporting small projects outright and to part-fund medium-sized research programmes. The scheme will consider funding ornithological studies “with clear aims and objectives (ideally with clearly stated hypotheses) where the methods are clearly explained, robust and appropriate to answering the questions asked within the application”.

Whereas applicants ordinarily have to be members of the BOU this requirement is waived for persons residing and working in developing countries.  Developing countries according to the International Monetary Fund (to which source the BOU refers) include five ACAP Parties: Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, South Africa and Uruguay.

Applications from individuals (not from institutions) are for awards made in March 2019 for projects which begin after 01 April 2019 and are entirely or largely complete by 31 March 2020 Applications for projects taking place outside this period will not be considered.  The deadline for applications - by e-mail only - is 30 November 2018.

A Sooty Albatross family on the coastal cliffs of Gough Island, photograph by Kalinka Rexer-Huber

Read more on the 2019 guidelines and how to apply here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 July 2018

In 2017 a translocated Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis chick being hand-reared on the Hawaiian island of Oahu by Pacific Rim Conservation that was unable to fly due to a “wing issue” was sent last month to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.  There the bird, named Alika (“protector” or “guardian” in Hawaiian), joined Makana, another Laysan Albatross in captivity that had been transferred from Hawaiian Kauai Island in 2006 after being permanently injured in the wing as a chick.

Alika inside her transfer cage for a flight across the Pacific Ocean by Hawaiian Airlines, photograph by Pacific Rim Conservation

Alika the captive Laysan Albatross, photographs from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

The aquarium posts: “as they become more comfortable and their training progresses, we hope that Alika and Sula [a Red-footed Booby Sula sula] will—like Makana—take part in public programs and interact with our guests ” as they act as “ambassadors” raising awareness about marine plastic pollution (click here for a video).

The aquarium considers the two birds are the only Laysan Albatrosses held “at an accredited zoo or aquarium in the US.”  Indeed, they may well be the only albatrosses (or for that matter any procellariiform seabird) in long-term captivity anywhere in the World; unlike penguins, which are commonly found in zoological gardens and aquaria where they often breed with success.  ACAP Latest News will be pleased to hear of any other long-term captive albatrosses – as opposed to birds taken into temporary captivity with the aim of them being released after rehabilitation.

Read more about Alika and Makana and watch a video of Makana displaying and calling.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 July 2018

The 46th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group will be held on the Hawaiian island of Kauai at the Aqua Kaua’i Beach Resort from 28 February to 3 March next year.  The meeting’s theme is “Seabirds in a Changing Pacific – Ensuring a Future, Fighting the Plastic.”  It is intended to link this theme with discussions and presentations on topics related to seabird ecology, behaviour, conservation and management.

The deadline to submit proposals for Special Paper Sessions or Symposia (a coherent set of papers intended to be published) and suggestions for plenary speakers is 15 August 2018.  The first call for abstracts will be made in September 2018.

The meeting’s "field trips will offer a range of adventure and, of course, the unique seabird encounters for which Kaua‘i is known”.  Kauai supports populations of ACAP-listed and globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis, such as at the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, with breeding underway at the time of the annual meeting.

Jessi Hallman Behnke and André Raine co-chair the Local Committee for the 46th Annual Meeting with David Craig as Scientific Program Chair.

Read more details of the meeting here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 July 2018

Jean-Baptiste Thiebot (National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan) and colleagues have published in the Journal of Ornithology on using a metal detector to inform interactions between globally Near Threatened Black-footed Albatrosses Phoebastria nigripes breeding on Torishima with a local artisanal longline fishery.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Incidental capture in fisheries (“bycatch”) is a major threat to global marine biodiversity, especially to those species with low fecundity, such as albatrosses. Efforts to reduce bycatch have been undertaken in industrial fisheries, but the scale of seabird interactions with artisanal or small-scale fleets remains largely unknown. The island of Torishima (Japan) is an important breeding site for two albatross species (short-tailed Phoebastria albatrus and black-footed P. nigripes) and also lies in the range of the artisanal longline fishery for the splendid alfonsino Beryx splendens. In February–March 2017, we tracked 23 foraging trips of adult P. nigripes feeding chicks by Global Positioning System (GPS) and monitored the prevalence of fishing gear at the nests using a metal detector. The foraging range of these albatrosses was a maximum of 280 km from Torishima, and only 3.7% of the GPS locations occurred over the shallow habitats targeted by the alfonsino fishery (water depth 150–500 m), suggesting relatively low risks of interaction. However, 190 (54.3%) nests of P. nigripes contained fishing gear, among which 12 (3.4%) nests or chicks contained a hook or an unidentified metallic object. Six hooks were also collected from P. albatrus nests. All found hooks, except one, originated from the alfonsino fishery, indicating that both targeted albatross species actually interacted with this fishery at sea. Both research approaches provided data from returning birds only and did not reflect possible lethal cases at sea. Monitoring the sub-lethal effects of bycatch and encouraging small-scale fisheries to report gear lost at sea are two possibilities to further help quantify and reduce the impact of fisheries on seabirds.”

"A case of detected metal inside a chick. The observer (Bungo Nishizawa) first tests the sensitivity of the metal detector on his wristwatch, then checks the area around and inside the nest, and finally passes the detector against the chick’s belly.  Video taken by J.-B. Thiebot"

Reference:

Thiebot, J.-B., Nishizawa, B., Sato, F., Tomita, N. & Watanuki, Y. 2018.  Albatross chicks reveal interactions of adults with artisanal longline fisheries within a short range.  Journal of Ornithology doi.org/10.1007/s10336-018-1579-3. [see video of metal detector in use in supplementary material).

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 17 July 2018