A single pair of Vulnerable Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus has bred successfully in three of the four seasons since 2010/11 on the USA’s Midway Atoll, one of the North-Western Hawaiian Islands, as regularly reported in ACAP Latest News (click here).

The immediate end of breeding by Short-tailed Albatrosses on Midway now seems likely with the discovery of the corpse of an adult male on 13 December on Eastern Island within the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.  The bird was found by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer in an area containing Short-tailed Albatross decoys and where the male and female pair had successfully bred (click here).

The dead Short-tailed Albatross as discovered on 13 December, photograph by Dan Clark/USFWS

Refuge Biologist Meg Duhr-Shultz takes measurements and acquires tissue samples from the seemingly freshly-dead corpse

Photograph by Penny Knuckles/USFWS

Midway staff believes the dead bird was paired with the female that produced three chicks at the same site.  How it may have died is currently unknown. Tissue samples will be transported from Midway Atoll to the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center Honolulu Field Station for analysis with the hopes of shedding light on the cause of death.

Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge Manager Dan Clark stated, “It is always difficult and a bit heart-wrenching to discover such an important and highly endangered bird deceased."

This male bird was first sighted in late October and was settled in amongst the decoys on Eastern Island, giving staff the impression it was one of the adults that had successfully reared chicks in previous years. His female mate has not been observed at Midway Atoll this year, although it is not unusual for Short-tailed Albatrosses to skip a breeding year.

Happier times.  The male Short-tailed Albatross incubates on Midway's Eastern Island

Photograph by Pete Leary

The first documented Short-tailed Albatross record on Midway Atoll was of a single individual in 1938.  After Midway Atoll became a national wildlife refuge in 1988 a “social attraction project” was implemented with the support from Japanese researchers involving placement of decoys and installation of a solar-powered calling system.  By 2007, one or two Short-tailed Albatrosses were observed and another four birds were observed in 2008.  Two years later, a female arrived and mated with a male who had been returning once a year for four consecutive years. Their chick hatched on 14 January 2011 and by 7 June the chick took flight, marking the first time a Short-tailed Albatross chick has fledged outside of islands near Japan in recorded history.  Since that time, the pair skipped the 2012 hatch year but returned and reared a chick during the 2013 and 2014 hatch years.

With acknowledgement to the Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 December 2014

Efforts have commenced to establish a new Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis colony on the northern coast of the USA's Hawaiian island of O‘ahu in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge.

Forty-three eggs from the US Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands (PMRF) on the nearby island of Kaua‘i were flown to O‘ahu on 17 December this year.  Eggs were candled before the fertile ones were taken to O’ahu.  Infertile eggs have been donated to a project looking at contaminants that the birds are exposed to in the marine environment.

Candling is conducted in the cover of darkness

A fertile egg being candled with the embryo seen as a dark spot in the middle with blood vessels leading away from it

The albatrosses at PMRF breed near an active runway, where, because of their large wingspan and habit of circling over the nesting area, they pose a collision hazard that puts aircraft and crews at risk.  Since 2004 the Navy has removed albatross eggs and adults each year from PMRF’s air safety zone to prevent collisions with aircraft.  The adults are transported to protected albatross nesting colonies on the northern coast of Kaua‘i and released.  Some eggs are placed with foster albatross parents on Kaua‘i whose naturally laid eggs are infertile and will not hatch, but there are not enough foster parents for all the fertile eggs collected, with only around five being able to be placed this season.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge was acquired in 1976 and expanded in 2005.  It provides excellent habitat for seabirds, including Laysan Albatrosses, but none currently breed there.  The simultaneous availability of Laysan Albatross eggs from PMRF and suitable, but unoccupied, albatross nesting habitat at a protected wildlife refuge represents an opportunity to accomplish an important conservation action for the species and also to help solve a human-wildlife conflict.

The 43 transported albatross eggs that could not be placed in foster nests on Kaua‘i have been placed in an artificial incubator for two months until they hatch.  The incubator automatically turns the eggs from side to side and is kept at a constant humidity.

Laysan Albatross eggs in the artificial incubator

Hatchlings will be placed with foster parents in the Kaena Point National Wildlife Refuge on O’ahu for their first week of life so they learn to imprint on albatrosses.  The chicks will then be fed by hand for about five months until they fledge on a diet of squid, fish and vitamins under the care of an avian husbandry expert.  Albatross decoys will be placed and vocalizations will be played in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge at the translocation site while the chicks grow to fledging.

Albatrosses usually return to the same locality where they were raised as chicks.  It is expected that by moving the eggs prior to hatching the chicks will imprint on the James Campbell Refuge and return there to breed, becoming the seeds of a new colony that they will establish in the future, away from aircraft and people.  The young birds will spend their first few years at sea and are expected to begin returning to the refuge (rather than to the PMRF) in three to five years and to start breeding within the refuge in five to eight years’ time.  It is intended to translocate eggs from Kaua’i for three to five years so as to establish a founder population for the new colony.

Over 99% of Laysan Albatrosses breed on the North-western Hawaiian Islands, where they are threatened by sea level rise associated with global climate change.  “Recent storm surges have wiped out thousands of albatross nests with eggs or young chicks,” noted acting refuge manager, Jared Underwood of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.   “This was one of the main reasons that made James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge an attractive location to receive the eggs because the refuge is located on a “high” island within the historical nesting range of the Laysan Albatross.”

An intensive, year-round predator control programme has been implemented in the JCNWR to reduce the impact from invasive mongooses and feral dogs, cats and pigs.  The actual translocation site will be protected against these alien predators by a fence.

“Support for this project from all the partners has been tremendous,” said Eric VanderWerf of Pacific Rim Conservation.  “It is amazing how quickly the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the American Bird Conservancy, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and permitting agencies have come together to get this project going.  Raising the chicks will require patience and innovation, but we are excited to begin this project and provide an additional safe place for albatrosses and other seabirds on O‘ahu.”

The translocation project is partnered by Pacific Rim Conservation, the US Navy, US Fish & Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, American Bird Conservancy and the Packard Foundation.

Read more on the egg translocation project here and here.

Click here and here to read of chick translocations conducted for two other species of albatrosses.

With thanks to Lindsay Young, ACAP North Pacific News Correspondent for information and photographs.

Selected Literature:

Young, L.C. & VanderWerf, E.A. 2014.  Adaptive value of same-sex pairing in Laysan albatross.   Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences  doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.2473.

Young, L.C., Vanderwerf, E.A., Granholm, C., Osterlund, H., Steutermann, K. & Savre, T. 2014.  Breeding performance of Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis in a foster parent program.  Marine Ornithology 42: 99-103.

Young, L.C., VanderWerf, E.A., Lohr, M.T., Miller, C.J., Titmus, A.J., Peters, D. & Wilson, L. 2013.  Multi-species predator eradication within a predator-proof fence at Ka‘ena Point, Hawai‘i.  Biological Invasions 15: 2627-2638.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 December 2014

Marco Favero and Juan Pablo Seco Pon (Laboratorio Vertebrados, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina) have published a commentary in the journal Animal Conservation on a feature paper in the same issue by Bronwyn Maree and colleagues.

A response to the commentary, and to that by Charlotte Boyd (click here), by two of the featured paper’s authors has also been published in the same journal issue.

The Favero & Seco Pon commentary concludes:

“Some of these small-scale fleets consist of thousands of boats operating in waters where seabirds range.  When the scale of these fleets is taken into account, even very rare (almost undetectable) by-catch events per boat may have a profound effect in some populations.  This is an important conservation issue that will challenge seabird scientists and conservationists in the near future.”

In response to the two commentaries, Ross Wanless and Bronwyn Maree consider that “regulations are seldom sufficient, and incentivizing change is a key ingredient to driving widespread change.”

Twin bird-scaring lines deployed behind a South African demersal trawler for hake

Photograph by Barry Watkins

References:

Boyd, C. 2014.  Minimizing seabird by-catch in industrial fisheries.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12179.

Favero, M. & Seco Pon, J.P. 2014.  Challenges in seabird by-catch mitigation.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12180.

Maree, B.A., Wanless, R.M., Fairweather, T.P., Sullivan, B.J. & Yates, O. 2014.  Significant reductions in mortality of threatened seabirds in a South African trawl fishery.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12126.

Wanless, R.M. & Maree, B.A. 2014.  Problems and solutions for seabird bycatch in trawl fisheries.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12183.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 December 2014

Charlotte Boyd (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, USA) has written a commentary in Animal Conservation on a previous publication on seabird bycatch in the journal.  She considers the best approach to mitigating seabird bycatch in commercial fisheries is one that includes incentives.

“Vessel owners will invest in new practices or technologies if they can increase their profits by doing so. The key to minimizing seabird by-catch in all fisheries is therefore to develop management frameworks that align fishers’ incentives with by-catch reduction targets.”

With thanks to Barry Baker for information.

At risk: Black-browed Albatrosses gather behind a South Atlantic trawler

Photograph by Graham Parker

References:

Boyd, C. 2014.  Minimizing seabird by-catch in industrial fisheries.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12179.

Maree, B.A., Wanless, R.M., Fairweather, T.P., Sullivan, B.J. & Yates, O. 2014.  Significant reductions in mortality of threatened seabirds in a South African trawl fishery.  Animal Conservation doi:10.1111/acv.12126.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 December 2014