Meetings of ACAP’s Advisory Committee and two of its working groups start today in the CQ Hotel situated on cosmopolitan Cuba Street in Wellington, New Zealand. First up will be the 8th Meeting of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG), under the convenorship of Anton Wolfaardt.

SBWG Chief Officers met with AC Chair and Vice Chair along with the three-member ACAP Secretariat in the secretarial office on Sunday afternoon to discuss the “order of events” for the next three days of meetings. With 22 Documents to consider and no less than 31 Information Papers to take note of there will be a lot to discuss.  These papers, or in some cases only their abstracts, are available for public reading on this website.

Planning the next day's work: from left Sebastián Jiménez (SBWG Vice Convenor), Anton Wolfaardt (SBWG Convenor) Marco Favero (ACAP Executive Secretary), Nathan Walker (ACAP Advisory Committee Chair) and Tatiana Neves (ACAP Advisory Committee Vice Chair).  Not in view:  John Cooper (ACAP Information Officer), Igor Debski (SBWG Vice Convenor) and Wiesława Misiak (ACAP Science Officer)

Tatiana Neves, Sebastián Jiménez and Richard Phillips (PaCSWG Co-convenor) mug for the camera

 The group then moved to the conference venue, also in the CQ Hotel, to advise on set up of the room: some table shuffling transpired.

In discussion: Nathan Walker, Marco Favero and Anton Wolfaardt in the meeting room

Sound, lights, camera (and water glasses).  Setting up for two weeks of meetings

An early evening then followed for some of us still a little tired and jet-lagged after flights from South Africa, South America and Europe: Antipodes indeed!

Later in the week, the Population and Seabird Conservation Working Group (PaSCWG) will meet over two days, to be convened by Richard Phillips of the UK. This will be followed by the Pterodroma Workshop on the weekend and the 10th Meeting of the Advisory Committee next week.  In between all these meetings ACAP attendees will go on a few welcome outings.  ACAP Latest News will report on them all.

Photographs by John Cooper.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 September 2017

In 1991, South Africa eradicated feral cats Felis catus on its sub-Antarctic Marion Island, still the largest island in the world, at 290 km², where such has been achieved. Attention then turned to Marion’s remaining introduced mammal, the House Mouse Mus musculus, with a workshop held in 1995 to consider the desirability of their eradication. In the event not much further happened on managing mice on the island for the next two decades, but increasing evidence is now emerging that the mice are a serious threat to the island's bird life.

A Marion Island House Mouse, photograph by Peter Ryan

 In particular, since 2003 gruesome observations of mice attacking and killing albatrosses and burrowing petrels on the island have shown that the mice are not the “benign presence” they had once been thought to be.  Responding to the mouse attacks the NGO BirdLife South Africa commissioned a review of the impacts of the island’s mice, and then with logistic support from the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to enable a site visit, a feasibility study for their eradication by island eradication expert John Parkes of Kurahaupo Consulting, New Zealand.

A "scalped" Light-mantled Sooty Albatross on Marion Island, photograph by Peter Ryan

Grey-headed Albatross chicks "scalped" by House Mice at Marion, photograph by Ben Dilley

A Wandering Albatross chick is attacked by a House Mouse at night on Marion Island, photographs by Janine and Stefan Schoombie

South Africa is now considering making an eradication attempt on the island, as briefly mentioned in its Implementation Report (AC10 Inf 10) to ACAP’s meetings in Wellington, New Zealand this month.

Click here to read an earlier ALN story on mouse attacks on albatrosses on Marion Island.

With thanks to Ben Dilley, Peter Ryan and Janine and Stefan Schoombie for the photographs.

Selected Literature:

Angel, A. & Cooper, J. 2011. A review of the impacts of the House Mouse Mus musculus on sub-Antarctic Marion Island, Prince Edward Islands. Report to the Prince Edward Islands Management Committee, South African National Antarctic Programme.

Bester, M.N., Bloomer, J.P., Bartlett, P.A., Muller, D.D., van Rooyen, M. & Büchner, H. 2000. Final eradication of feral cats from sub-Antarctic Marion Island, southern Indian Ocean. South African Journal of Wildlife Research 30: 53-57.

Bester, M.N., Bloomer J.P., van Aarde, R.J., Erasmus, D.G., van Rensburg, P.J.J., Skinner, J.D., Howell, P.G. & Naude, T.W. 2002. A review of the successful eradication of feral cats from sub-Antarctic Marion Island, southern Indian Ocean. South African Journal of Wildlife Research 32: 65-73.

Chown, S.L. & Cooper, J. 1995. The Impact of Feral House Mice at Sub-Antarctic Marion Island and the Desirability of Eradication: Report on a Workshop held at the University of Pretoria, 16-17 February 1995. Pretoria: Directorate: Antarctica & Islands, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. 18 pp.

Cerfonteyn, M. & Ryan, P.G. 2016. Have burrowing petrels recovered on Marion Island two decades after cats were eradicated? Evidence from sub-Antarctic skua prey remains. Antarctic Science 28: 51-57.

Dilley, B.J., Schoombie, S., Schoombie, J. & Ryan, P.G. 2016. ‘Scalping’ of albatross fledglings by introduced mice spreads rapidly at Marion Island.  Antarctic Science 28: 73-80.

Dilley, B.J., Schramm, M. & Ryan, P.G. 2016. Modest increases in densities of burrow-nesting petrels following the removal of cats Felis catus from Marion Island. Polar Biology 40: 25-637.

Dilley, B.J., Schoombie, S., Stevens, K., Davies, D., Perold, V., Osborne, A., Schoombie, J., Brink, C.W., Carpenter-Kling, T. & Ryan, P.G. submitted ms. Mouse predation affects breeding success of burrow-nesting petrels at sub-Antarctic Marion Island.

Jones, M.G.W. & Ryan, P.G. 2010. Evidence of mouse attacks on albatross chicks on sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Antarctic Science 22: 39-42.

Parkes, J. 2016. Eradication of House Mice Mus musculus from Marion Island: a review of feasibility, constraints and risks. BirdLife South Africa Occasional Report Series No. 1. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa.

Schoombie, S., Crawford, R.J.M., Makhado, A.B., Dyer, B.M. & Ryan, P.G. 2016. Recent population trends of sooty and light-mantled albatrosses breeding on Marion Island.  African Journal of Marine Science 38: 119-127.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 September 2017, revised 06 September 2017

Tim Doherty (Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia;) and colleagues published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America on a global analysis of the effects of invasive mammalian predators stating that “cats, rodents, dogs, and pigs have the most pervasive impacts, and endemic island faunas are most vulnerable to invasive predators”.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Invasive species threaten biodiversity globally, and invasive mammalian predators are particularly damaging, having contributed to considerable species decline and extinction. We provide a global metaanalysis of these impacts and reveal their full extent. Invasive predators are implicated in 87 bird, 45 mammal, and 10 reptile species extinctions—58% of these groups’ contemporary extinctions worldwide. These figures are likely underestimated because 23 critically endangered species that we assessed are classed as “possibly extinct.” Invasive mammalian predators endanger a further 596 species at risk of extinction, with cats, rodents, dogs, and pigs threatening the most species overall. Species most at risk from predators have high evolutionary distinctiveness and inhabit insular environments. Invasive mammalian predators are therefore important drivers of irreversible loss of phylogenetic diversity worldwide. That most impacted species are insular indicates that management of invasive predators on islands should be a global conservation priority. Understanding and mitigating the impact of invasive mammalian predators is essential for reducing the rate of global biodiversity loss."

A globally Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross chick attacked by House Mice on Gough Island, photograph by Peter Ryan

Read more here.

Reference:

Doherty, T.S., Glen, A.S., Nimmo, D.G., Ritchie, E.G. & Dickman, C.R. 2016. Invasive predators and global biodiversity loss.  Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America 113: 11261–11265.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 August 2017

ACAP will host a workshop on gadfly Pterodroma and other small burrowing petrels at the time of the Agreement’s meetings in Wellington, New Zealand next month. The Ninth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC9) held in La Serena, Chile in May last year agreed to host the workshop with the main objective of advancing understanding about the best approaches for international cooperation in the conservation of the species to be considered.

Hawaiian Petrel, photograph by Andre Raine

An introduction to the workshop, along with its Terms of Reference, available as AC10 Doc 14, has now been joined online by an agenda for the one-day meeting and two background documents. One of these is a review commissioned by ACAP from BirdLife International entitled “Status, trends and conservation management needs of the Pterodroma and Pseudobulweria petrels” by Ben Lascelles, Rocio Moreno, Maria Dias and Cleo Small.   The review, which covers 39 extant species, will be presented to the workshop by Karen Baird of Forest & Bird, BirdLife's national partner in New Zealand. Although password protected the paper’s detailed summary and recommendations are open for reading. The second background paper reports on a survey of the distribution and status of gadfly petrel breeding colonies in New Zealand, covering 11 species and 253 different locations.

To find all the above documents visit the workshop page.

https://acap.aq/en/documents/workshops/workshop-on-pterodroma-and-other-small-burrowing-petrels

A report of the meeting, to be chaired by Mark Tasker of the UK, with ACAP's Information Officer acting as rapporteur, will be prepared for ultimate consideration by the next session of the ACAP Meeting of Parties, due to be held in 2018, with a summary report to ACAP’s 10th Advisory Committee which commences its meetings in Wellington two days after the workshop.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 August 2017