The Tasmanian Albatross Fund aims to raise money to help support monitoring and conservation of the Near Threatened Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, endemic to three small islands off the coast of Australia’s Tasmania. It also helps fund ongoing education and outreach activities.

To support the fund, photographer Matthew Newton and artist Richard Wastell spent 10 days ashore on Albatross Island last year.  They have compiled an exhibition “On Albatross Island” of the works they produced which opened last month in the Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania and will continue until 3 April next year.  It is accompanied by a similar exhibition aimed at children named “Albatrossity”.  The exhibition will then open in the Moonah Arts Centre on 23 April in Hobart.

Photographer Matthew Newton and artist Richard Wastell set up the exhibition

  Exhibition photographs from Albatross Island by Matthew Newton

Charcoal drawing of a Shy Albatross chick by Richard Wastell

Only five persons are allowed at a time on Albatross Island when monitoring is underway and access is strictly forbidden at all other times to prevent the introduction of diseases, feral animals and other potential threats.

Read more about research on Albatross Island and about the exhibition here and here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 December 2015

The Vulnerable Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan, a potential candidate for ACAP listing, is endemic to the Mediterranean.  Its global status assessment is complicated by the fact that little information exists for the species from Turkey; although birds pass through the Bosphorus from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea every year on migration.

Yelkouan Shearwater, photograph by Alex Olle

“The spectacular migration in the Bosphorus, which occurs in early February, is a total mystery.  Except that they occur in high numbers, very little is known about these birds passing the Bosphorus, such as where are they coming from and going to.  The most interesting part of the migration is the synchrony of thousands of birds; they all pass in a very short time” (click here).

The Yelkouan Shearwater Project–Turkey has monitored this migration for the last five years with 90 000 counted in 2014 (click here).  The project is now organizing the third Coastal Count Marathon over 1 - 7 February 2016 with a call for volunteers to help with counting.

Volunteer here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 December 2015

After travelling over 32 000 km during the last eight months, an ACAP-listed and Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwater Puffinus creatopus bearing a satellite tag has returned to its breeding site on Isla Mocha, Chile.

A Pink-footed Shearwater emerges from its burrow on Isla Mocha; photograph by Jonathan Felis 

The bird had spent most of May-October in Baja California and off the coast of California in the USA. After its return the bird has been making localized foraging trips around Isla Mocha. The remaining nine birds tagged earlier this year in April had all lost their tags before returning to Chile.

Trans-equatorial migration route

Post-migration local movements

Read more on the 2015 migration of the 10 Pink-footed Shearwaters here.  Live movement data can be followed here.

The tracking study is a project of the U.S. Geological Survey and Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 14 December 2015

The third in the series of Island Invasives Conferences will be held in the Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland over the week 10-14 July 2017, organized by the South Georgia Heritage Trust and the University of Dundee.

This conference will follow on from two previous conferences held in Auckland, New Zealand; the most recent in January 2010 (see below).

The theme of the 2017 conference will be Scaling up to Meet the Challenge - a reflection of the rapid growth in interest in the field, as well as the escalating size of islands now being freed of damaging invasive species (for example Australia’s Macquarie Island, certified free of introduced mammals last year).  In the context of the meeting, the definition of ‘island’ will be broader than just a piece of land surrounded by water. Much the same problems and solutions apply to land surrounded by predator-proof fences, and to unfenced but isolated patches of habitat such as coral reefs.

The middle day will be free of formal sessions and available for organised field excursions, group meetings or exploring/relaxing.  Abstracts will be invited for both spoken and poster presentations. Standard talks will be of 15 minutes duration, including questions. The expectation is that no parallel spoken sessions will be required.  One or two keynote speakers will be given longer speaking slots each day.  The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has offered to publish the proceedings of this conference, as it did for the others in the series.  The Chair of the Conference Committee is Tony Martin, Professor of Animal Conservation, University of Dundee.

Ability to book accommodation and submit abstracts will be added to the conference website over the next few weeks, along with further information about the programme.

ACAP has produced guidelines for the eradication of introduced mammals from breeding sites of ACAP-listed seabirds.  ACAP Latest News regularly reports on the successes, efforts and plans to rid islands in the Southern Ocean of their alien mammals, such as cats, mice, pigs, rabbits, Reindeer and rats, that impact upon albatrosses and petrels.

Mouflon may now be gone from the French Kerguelen Islands but Reindeer still remain

Photographs by Thomas Biteau and Kirk Zufelt

With thanks to Tony Martin for information.

Selected Literature:

Phillips, R.A. undated.  Guidelines for Eradication of Introduced Mammals from Breeding Sites of ACAP-listed Seabirds.  ACAP Conservation Guideline.  9 pp.

Veitch, C.R. & Clout, M.N. (Eds) 2002. Turning the Tide: the Eradication of Invasive Species.  Proceedings of the International Conference On Eradication of Island Invasives.  Gland & Cambridge: IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group.  414 pp.

Veitch, C.R., Clout, M.N. & Towns, D.R. (Eds) 2011.  Island Invasives: Eradication and Management.  Proceedings of the International Conference on Island Invasives.  Gland: World Conservation Union & Auckland: Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity.  542 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 December 2015