A banner-raising ceremony to celebrate World Albatross Day was held during the morning tea at the Australian Antarctic Program’s Headquarters before all the tasty cakes were devoured. Mike Double, ACAP Advisory Committee Chair, is on the left holding the end of one of the banners

“Plastic Pollution” has been the theme for this year’s World Albatross Day with celebrations taking place around the world this week. Continuing a tradition since 2020 for the fourth year, the Australian Antarctic Program of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water held a tea party and raised a banner to mark the day at its headquarters in Kingston, Tasmania. This year a Bake an Albatross Cake competition was the highlight. Several entries were submitted including a chick surrounded by plastic debris, a trio of albatrosses in a sea of plastic, a chick being offered tasty plastic morsels, and the winning entry, a life-sized Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans with its wings spread made up entirely of cinnamon scroll cakes.

Ready, steady, choose your bun. A life-sized Wandering Albatross made entirely of cinnamon scroll cakes baked by Rob King was the prize winner. “Luckily our cake creations are biodegradable and safe to eat”

Jonathon Barrington, Australia’s National Contact Point for the Agreement, has written to ACAP Latest News: “Plastic pollution affects albatrosses with several Australian species impacted. In Australia’s waters plastics are found in beach-washed, dead albatrosses including seemingly innocuous plastics, such as party balloons. A newly described plastic-caused disease - Plasticosis - affects Flesh-footed Shearwaters Ardenna carneipes from Lord Howe Island in Australia and is of particular concern. This fibrotic disease may well affect other seabirds including albatrosses. We can all help by ensuring that plastic fragments and pieces do not end up in the ocean.”

Albatross chick on its nest surrounded by plastic debris, baked by Natalie Klein-Schiphorst

Three albatrosses swimming in a sea of blue plastic, baked by Alison Cleary

Albatross parents offer plastics to their chick, baked by Andrea Polanowski

Over in Hobart, the Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources and Environment also joined in celebrations of World Albatross Day 2023 on the 19th with an afternoon tea and a tasty albicake of their own.

The Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources and Environment “albicake” depicts a Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, endemic to Tasmania
Photographs from Jonathon Barrington and by Wendy Pyper

View photographs of all the cakes baked for the “Great Albicake Bake Off”, held as part of the inaugural World Albatross Day in 2020 here.

With thanks to Jonathon Barrington, International & Antarctic Connections, Australian Antarctic Program.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 21 June 2023

The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO)

The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) has a vacancy for an experienced Data Manager to join their team in Wellington, New Zealand. Candidates will possess excellent data/database management abilities, have a solid understanding of fisheries management and/or fisheries science and demonstrate strong interpersonal skills. 

An illustrative depiction of the Area of application of the SPRFMO Convention; SPRFMO website

In addition to the day-to-day data management responsibilities and interactions, this is an exciting and demanding time to be the SPRFMO Data Manager as the organisation has just gone through a process to solicit Request for Proposals for a new data base provider. This provides a great opportunity for the data base manager to seize the opportunity to enhance the SPRFMO database to address new and emerging data requirements, to facilitate the integration of our various data holdings, improve automated reporting and analysis, as well as investigate the application of new web tools/apps to simplify and streamline the data collection and reporting processes.

The deadline for applications is the 28 July 2023. 

Information on the position is available from the SPRFMO website at, https://www.sprfmo.int/news/current-news/vacancy-sprfmo-data-manager-2/.

21 June 2023

 
Marion’s 80th Overwintering Team displays its banner on the island, photograph from Michelle Risi (standing fourth from left)

The 2023/24 Overwintering Team (M80) on South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island posed this past week with a banner to mark yesterday’s World Albatross Day with its theme of “Plastic Pollution”. The whole team came out for the photograph of the banner, designed on the island by team member and seabird researcher, Michelle Risi. Michelle is a long-term supporter of ACAP; indeed, in 2018 she proposed that ACAP should initiate a World Albatross Day and she designed all ACAP’s posters for the day for its first three years.

At risk to mice: a Grey-headed Albatross on Marion Island; photograph and poster design by Michelle Risi

Four species of albatrosses breed regularly on Marion Island, all are categorized as globally threatened. These four species, Grey-headed Thalassarche chrysostoma, Light-mantled Phoebetria palpebrata, Sooty P. fusca and Wandering Diomedea exulans, have all been victims of attacks by the island’s introduced House Mice, leading to mortalities of both adults and chicks. As a consequence, the Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project was established to eradicate the mice, currently planned to take place in winter 2025. The project is a joint effort by the environmental NGO BirdLife South Africa and the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. Upon successful completion, the project will restore the critical breeding habitat of over two million seabirds, many globally threatened, and improve the island’s resilience to a warming climate. To support ACAP’s awareness raising, BirdLife South Africa on behalf of the MFM Project has sponsored the production of three posters in the ACAP Species Infographic series, for the Light-mantled, Sooty and Wandering Albatrosses; an infographic for the Grey-headed Albatross has been sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Program. All four infographics, by Thai illustrator, Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim, draw attention to the deleterious effects of Marion’s mice. The infographics may be freely downloaded from here at a high resolution to allow for printing professionally in two poster sizes (approximately A2 and A3). Please note they are only being made available by ACAP when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis being faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels, or for personal use. They should not be used for personal gain.

Making the banner: first computer design, then projecting onto a sheet for lettering by hand. From left: Michelle Risi, Zafar Monier and Tammy Eggeling, photographs by Chris Jones and Michelle Risi

With grateful thanks to Michelle Risi and Marion Island’s 80th Overwintering Team for their support. Team members Tammy Eggeling, Chris Jones and Zafar Monier helped Michelle make the banner.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 20 June 2023

 
A Laysan Albatross feeds brightly coloured pieces of plastic mistakenly ingested at sea to its chick by ABUN artist Lyn Lynch, after a photograph by Chris Jordan

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) has chosen the theme “Plastic Pollution” to mark the fourth World Albatross Day, being celebrated today, 19 June. The annual celebration occurs on the date the Agreement was signed in 2001. It aims to increase awareness of the continuing conservation crisis faced by ACAP’s 31 listed species of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

Albatrosses are affected by a range of pollutants, of which plastics, whether ingested and then fed to chicks or causing entanglements, are certainly the most visible and well known to the general public. Albatrosses and petrels face other significant pollutants, including heavy metals, (such as mercury) and POPs (persistent organic pollutants, such as insecticides).

Dr Mike Double, Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee, writes to ACAP Latest News: “Although bycatch in fisheries and invasive species at breeding sites remain the biggest threats, the impacts of the vast amount of plastic debris in our oceans surely contributes to the conservation crisis facing albatross species by damaging the digestive tract and likely reducing foraging efficiency, contributing to lethal or sublethal impacts.  Impacts of plastic debris are particularly severe in the albatrosses of the North Pacific where almost all chicks will ingest plastics in the food provided by their parents. However, in the southern hemisphere the amount of plastic debris is increasing and plastic is now commonly detected in the stomachs of beach-cast albatrosses.”

Plastic pieces removed from the stomach of a single Flesh-footed Shearwater Ardenna carneipes that failed to fledge, photograph from the Adrift Lab

As well as the world’s 22 species of albatrosses, other procellariforms are prone to ingest pieces of plastic found floating on the sea surface and mistaken for food. A notable example is the Flesh-footed Shearwater Ardenna carnepeis, shown to ingest very large amounts of plastic at one breeding locality at least (click here), with a new term “Plasticosis” coined to describe the damage caused. This shearwater has previously been identified as a potential candidate for ACAP listing (click here).

A new initiative for 2013: The World Albatross Day logo in Indonesian

Once more, ACAP’s World Albatross Day logo has been produced in the three official ACAP languages of English, French and Spanish, plus Portuguese. In addition, and for the first year, the logo has also been produced in Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions to mark the importance of Asian high-seas fishing fleets in working towards the conservation of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

“Not My Little Pony”.  A Northern Royal Albatross chick at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head, New Zealand avoids ingesting plastic (click here)

Two albatross species are being used to highlight the theme for this year’s World Albatross Day. These are the globally Endangered Northern Royal Albatross D. sanfordi, endemic to New Zealand, and the abundant and widespread Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris. In addition, coverage has been given once more to last year’s two featured species, the Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses of the North Pacific, which ingest more plastic than do the southern hemisphere species.

75 artworks from Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature have been combined in a collage in support of World Albatross Day 2023

ACAP has collaborated for the fourth year with Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) to produce 75 artworks by 31 participating artists that depict the effects of plastic pollution on the four featured albatross species for WAD2023. All these artworks have been combined with original music to produce a video to mark this year’s World Albatross Day; the individual artworks are also available in an ACAP Facebook Album. Six of these artworks by different ABUN artists have been made into posters in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

WAD2023’s 12 photo posters are also in Portuguese this year. A colour-banded Black-browed Albatross stands over its chick on Bird Island in the South Atlantic. Photograph by Erin Taylor, poster design by Bree Forrer

Twelve posters depicting the four featured albatrosses in all the nine language versions named above have been produced using photographs donated to ACAP by supporters, available from the ACAP website here and in albums in each language on Facebook.

The ACAP Species Infographic poster for the Black-browed Albatross in support of World Albatross Day 2023 has been sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Program; it is available in four language versions and three sizes

In addition, two new ACAP Species Infographics by illustrator Namasri Niumim have been created in the three official languages for the Black-browed and Northern Royal Albatrosses to mark WAD2023; joining those for Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses that were produced last year for WAD2022. The infographic for the Black-browed Albatross also comes in a Portuguese version, marking that the species is a regular non-breeding visitor to Brazilian waters. All 12 infographics produced to date can be downloaded from here.

The logos, artwork and photo posters and the infographics are all freely available for non-commercial use in the support of the conservation of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters. Parties to the Agreement, government environmental departments, educational facilities, NGOs and members the interested public are encouraged to print out and display ACAP’s artwork, infographic and photo posters that have been produced to mark this year’s World Albatross Day.

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels strives, through its 13 Parties, to conserve albatrosses and petrels by coordinating international activities to mitigate threats to their populations. In 2019 ACAP’s Advisory Committee declared that a conservation crisis continues to be faced by its 31 listed species, with thousands of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters dying every year because of fisheries operations. Raising awareness of this crisis via World Albatross Day is one-way ACAP is addressing the birds’ plight. Previous themes for World Albatross Day were “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020, “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” in 2021 and “Climate Change” last year.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 19 June 2023