Friday the 13th is traditionally an inauspicious day but ACAP’s Advisory Committee was pleased to close two weeks of successful meetings in La Serena, Chile today by adopting the final report of its Ninth Meeting (AC9).

Before the report could be adopted elections were required to appoint Chief Officers for the Advisory Committee and its three Working Groups for the next three-year period, which will conclude at the end of the Advisory Committee meeting (AC11), expected to be held in 2019 after the Sixth Session of the Meeting of the Parties in 2018.  Another important decision to be confirmed today is where and when will ACAP meet again, with AC10 due to be held next year.  Watch this space!

To ready themselves for today’s important session, attendees were taken yesterday by our gracious Chilean hosts on an all-day outing inland into the fertile Elqui Valley.  Setting off with what we all thought was a packed lunch of sandwiches and fruit (which was intended to be just a snack, known as padkos – literally "road food" – in South Africa) we ended up sitting down for a splendid three-course lunch in Vicuña’s Terral Hotel & Spa.  Before that we made a visit to the village of Monte Grande in the foothills of the Andes to visit a small museum dedicated to the internationally renowned Chilean poet and diplomat Gabriela Mistral (1889 –1957), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945 "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world".  Pablo Neruda, also an internationally recognized Chilean poet (who wrote a poem on the Wandering Albatross entitled Oda a un Albatros Errante) had met Mistral  when he was a teenager.

Following this literary visit the comfortable bus took us to the Tourist Centre and Museum Pisco Capel near the town of Vicuña where we visited the underground museum, the pisco distilling and bottling factory and - for those among us not teetotallers - a tasting bar.  Pisco is described as “a colourless or yellowish-to-amber coloured brandy produced in the wine-making regions of Peru and Chile”.

After a group photograph next to an interesting cactus (that came with its own warning not to touch), a short drive took us to the above-mentioned lunch and then back to La Serena for an evening of reading and commenting on the draft AC report.  Before dawn today the report was ready for adoption due to the nocturnal activities of an ever hard-working Secretariat.  Cheers!

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 May 2016

R. Costa (Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus de Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal) and colleagues have an in-press paper with the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin that looks at trace element and organic pollutant levels in ACAP-listed and Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwaters Puffinus mauretanicus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“This study presents the first data on trace element and organic pollutant concentrations in the Critically Endangered Balearic shearwaterPuffinus mauretanicuscollected in 2010 and 2011 in Portugal.  Trace element levels were below the threshold levels for adverse effects on birds, despite the Hg concentrations in feathers (4.35 μg·g–1 ww).  No significant differences were detected between individuals from 2010 and 2011 except for Se concentrations in liver, feathers and muscle (higher in 2010) and Ag in liver and muscle (higher in 2011).  No significant differences were detected in total concentrations of organochlorine compounds in Balearic shearwaters between years, although PCB congeners -101 and -180 presented higher concentrations in individuals from 2010.  The PCB congeners -138, -153 and -180, and 4.4-DDE were detected in all individuals.  This study on toxic elements and organic pollutants in wintering Balearic shearwaters provides baseline data from which deviations can be detected in the future.”

Balearic Shearwater at sea, photograph by Pep Arcos

Reference:

Costa, R.A., Torres, J., Vingada, J.V. & Eira, C. 2016.  Persistent organic pollutants and inorganic elements in the Balearic shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus wintering off Portugal.  Marine Pollution Bulletin in press.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 May 2016

To date, 82 illustrated accounts of sites which support a breeding population of at least one ACAP-listed species have been posted to ACAP Latest News since February 2013. All known breeding sites for Argentina, Australia, Ecuador, Mexico, Norway and South Africa have now been covered, including ones with extinct colonies, such as Bouvet Island.

Approximately 50 sites remain to be written up. These include:

Chile: Islas Guafo, Ildefonso, Mocha, Robinson Crusoe and Santa Clara

France: Iles Apôtres, Cochons, de l’Est and Pingouins (Crozet Islands)

Japan: Mukojima (Ogasawara Islands)

New Zealand: Chatham (translocation site), Forty-Fours and Three Kings

Spain: Conills, Espartar, Vedrà and Vedranell (Ibiza, Balearic Islands)

USA: Barking Sands (Kauai), James Campbell Wildlife Refuge (Oahu; translocation site), French Frigate Shoals, Gardner Pinnacles, Lisianski, Ka’ula, Necker, Niihau and Pearl & Hermes Reef

Disputed Territories: Remaining individual islands in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*, South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* and the Senkaku Islands

Antarctic Continent: Remaining colonies of Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus on and around the Antarctic Peninsula

White-phase Southern Giant Petrel on Signy Island (ACAP Breeding Site No. 32), photograph by Michael Dunn

On the second day of its meeting in La Serena, Chile ACAP’s Advisory Committee adopted the report of its Population and Conservation Status Working Group (PaCSWG3), which met last week.  The Advisory Committee agreed with its working group that the above and any other identified sites be written up under the guidance of ACAP’s Information Officer, John Cooper and posted to ACAP Latest News by the time of the Tenth Meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC10) next year.

During the PaCSWG meeting offers of help with compiling the outstanding site descriptions came from Patricia Pereira Serafini (Brazil, for Southern Giant Petrels on the Antarctic Peninsula), Verónica López (Chile, Pink-footed Shearwater Puffinus (Ardenna) creatopus), Juan Pablo Seco-Pon (Argentina), Sally Poncet (Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*) and South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*), Igor Debski (New Zealand), Cristián Suazo (Chile; albatross colonies), Amanda Kuepfer (Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)*) and Beth Flint (USA; Hawaiian Islands).  French marine ornithologists will be approached seeking support for the outstanding accounts for their sub-Antarctic islands, and, of course, any other volunteers willing to be involved will be welcomed. J.M. "Pep" Arcos of Spain is currently drafting the remaining Spanish accounts for the Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus.

Each breeding site account normally includes:

1. A brief description of the locality with its name, locality, size, habitat and vegetation,

2. Information on breeding ACAP-listed species: names, numbers, trends and monitoring efforts,

3. Conservation status: management plan, nature reserve, Important Bird Area and World Heritage Site status and alien control/eradication efforts past, present or planned,

4. Up to 10 or so selected references, and

5. Five to eight photographs with captions showing the locality, its habitats, colonies and ACAP species.

Once the outstanding accounts have been written it is intended that the earlier ones will be updated where necessary and all will be brought together into a single document.  It is expected that AC10 will then discuss quite how best to publish an ACAP breeding sites compilation.

Reference:

Cooper, J. 2016.  A Proposal to Compile the ACAP Breeding Site Accounts into a Single ACAP Publication.  Third Meeting of the Population and Conservation Status Working Group La Serena, Chile, 5 - 6 May 2016.  PaCSWG3 Inf 05.  2 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 May 2016

*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.

The Ninth Meeting of ACAP's Advisory Committee started yesterday in the Hotel Club La Serena, La Serena, Chile.  The meeting was opened with welcoming speeches from Carlos Montenegro Silva, María Angela Barbieri and Javier Chavez of Chile.

From left: Carlos Montenegro Silva (Chile), Mark Tasker (Advisory Committee Acting Chair), María Angela Barbieri (Chile) and and Javier Chavez (Chile) at the opening ceremony

Mark Tasker (UK) acted as Chair, with Marco Favero attending his first Advisory Committee as the recently appointed Executive Secretary.  The first day proceeded smoothly and by closing the Chair announced with satisfaction that the meeting had moved farther along the week-long agenda than had been expected.

Halfway through the day the opportunity was taken for a group photograph.  In the evening the meeting's Chilean hosts threw a welcome reception and gave delegates and observers a gift of a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon to take home with them.

Mark Tasker (UK) and Jorge Azocar (Chile) toast each other at the welcome reception

AC9's deliberations will continue today and on Wednesday.  On Thursday the attendees will be taken inland on an excursion and Friday will be devoted to adopting the meeting's report.

Click here to access the meeting's agenda and the several Documents and Information Papers being tabled at AC9.  Note that some of these are password protected.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 May 2016