Delegates attending the Thirteenth Meeting of the ACAP Advisory Committee gather for the official photo outside Queen Elizabeth House, Edinburgh, Scotland, photograph by Bree Forrer

Two-weeks of intense and productive talks concluded in Edinburgh, Scotland with the Thirteenth Meeting of the ACAP Advisory Committee (AC13) adopting its report last Friday. 

AC13 spent last week considering the recommendations put forward in the reports from its Working Group meetings held the previous week. The reports of the Seabird Bycatch (SBWG11) and Population and Conservation Status (PaCSWG7) Working Groups and the joint meeting of both Working Groups (Joint SBWG11-PaCSWG7) are now available on the ACAP website (see AC13 Docs 9, 11 & 12).  The report of the ACAP Taxonomy Working Group (AC13 Doc 10), which conducts its business online, was also considered by the Advisory Committee.

The report of the 13th Meeting of the Advisory Committee in the three official languages of English, France and Spanish will be published on the ACAP website.

The day before report adoption, delegates were treated to a superb day out to the Scottish Seabird Centre, a conservation and education charity located approximately an hour east of Edinburgh in the pretty seaside town of North Berwick. The centre manages several islands that are home to internationally important breeding seabird populations. 

AC13 Delegates aboard the boat ready to take in a wonderful afternoon spotting seabirds (left); and the iconic Bass Rock with its distinctive lighthouse looms in the distance (right). The rock appears white due to the thousands of Northern Gannets nesting and their guano staining the rock's surface, photographs by Bree Forrer

Delegates enjoyed a presentation from the centre and explored its interactive education facilities before heading out on a boat trip around the islands of Bass Rock and Craigleith. The iconic Bass Rock is a steep volcanic monolith which has supported up to 150 000 Northern Gannets, plus smaller numbers of European Shags, Common Guillemots (Common Murres) and Razorbills. Craigleith, one of the smaller islands in the chain is inhabited by a variety of seabirds, including the crowd favourite, the Atlantic Puffin.

Atlantic Puffins were high on the group's wish list of birds to see on the outing and delegates did not leave disappointed, photograph by Patricia Serafini

In May 2022, the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (sub-type H5N1) was confirmed on Bass Rock and thousands of Northern Gannets became infected and died. Staff at the Seabird Centre are hoping to carry out a census over the coming summer to gauge population numbers.

Northern Gannets crowd the volcanic rock of the Bass (as it is known locally), photograph by Bree Forrer

The outing, though sobering with the knowledge of the devastation caused by H5N1 in seabird colonies in Scotland and across the world, was thoroughly enjoyed by delegates who witnessed thousands of seabirds in their natural habitats. The day was a poignant reminder of the importance of continuing to strive for the conservation of albatrosses and petrels against the many threats they face.

29 May 2023

Layan Albatrosses, Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund, poster design by Bree Forrer

Continuing with its outreach to Asian high-seas fishing countries, the Albatross and Petrel Agreement is today releasing its set of 12 freely downloadable photo posters for this year’s World Albatross Day with its theme of “Plastic Pollution” in the Indonesian language, known as Bahasa Indonesia. This latest release follows versions in Japanese and Korean. Previously, the poster set has been made available in ACAP’s three official languages of English, French and Spanish, as well as in Portuguese. The ‘WAD2023’ logo is also available in Indonesian, and in the other six languages.

View and download the WAD2023 photo posters in Indonesian and in the other six languages here.  They are also available in individual language albums on the ACAP Facebook page.

Indonesia is not a Party to the Agreement, nor has a breeding population of an ACAP-listed species. However, it is an ACAP range state* by way of undertaking fishing that interacts with ACAP-listed species, notably through its high-seas longline fisheries for tuna in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (click here). Indonesia is a member of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). All these Regional Fisheries Management Organizations that manage high-seas tuna stocks (tRFMOs) have adopted seabird bycatch mitigation measures that apply to their member states.

ACAP has made its Seabird Bycatch Mitigation Fact Sheets available in Indonesian. An Indonesian version of the ACAP Seabird Bycatch ID Guide is also planned.

It is hoped the photo posters can be used within Indonesia to increase awareness of the conservation plight being faced by albatrosses and petrels and to aid the country in celebrating World Albatross Day on 19 June.

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

The photo poster set will be released in Simplified and Traditional Chinese in June, completing this year’s outreach to Asia in support of World Albatross Day on the 19th.

With grateful thanks for help with translations from Fransisca Noni Tirtaningtyas, Burung Laut Indonesia (Seabirds Indonesia) and Vivian Fu, East Asian-Australasian Flyway and to photographers Hob Osterlund and Erin Taylor.

* “Range State” means any State that exercises jurisdiction over any part of the range of albatrosses or petrels, or a State, flag vessels of which are engaged outside its national jurisdictional limits in taking, or which have the potential to take, albatrosses and petrels” [from the Agreement text].

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 25 May 2023

Tracks as on 13 May of juvenile Black-browed Albatrosses fledged from Bird Island in 2023; click here to view the most recent tracks

In a study that commenced in 2021, 26 fledging Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris on Bird Island in the South Atlantic were fitted in April this year with satellite transmitters in a project run by Richard Phillips of the British Antarctic Survey. The main aims of this study are to map the distribution of juvenile birds to determine overlap with fisheries and the main environmental drivers of their movements, and to assess the survival rate of juveniles in the critical months after they fledge.

The young birds are being tracked in near real-time using the Argos system. Nearly all the birds have been taking a north-easterly route towards southern Africa. As of 22 May several have reached the Benguela Current region off the coasts of Namibia and western South Africa. A few have continued into the Indian Ocean on the Agulhas Bank off South Africa’s Western Cape.

A Black-browed Albatross chick shortly to fledge from Bird Island in 2021 awaits its satellite tracker, photograph by James Crymble

“The population of adult albatross have been affected globally by longline and trawler fishing, with birds becoming trapped by fishing equipment, or swallowing baited hooks and plastic waste. However, bycatch of seabirds has been reduced to low levels around [Bird Island] following the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Bycatch has also been significantly reduced in South African and Namibian fisheries, due to concerted efforts by national fisheries bodies and BirdLife International. However, elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere, bycatch is still a major threat. Little is known about the travel patterns of juvenile and immature black-browed albatrosses, and ringing recoveries suggest they range more widely than the mature adults. The data from this group of recently fledged albatrosses stands to offer important new insights into the early lives of these prolific travellers” (click here). The Bird Island birds belong to one of 10 Priority Populations for conservation identified by ACAP.

A satellite-tracked juvenile Black-browed Albatross off Cape Town, South Africa; photograph by Estelle Smalberger

Intriguingly, one of the 19 juvenile Black-browed Albatrosses tracked in 2021 from Bird Island was photographed at sea off South Africa on 31 July 2021, with its back-mounted transmitter clearly visible (click here).

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 24 May 2023

 Dr Will Lockhart delivers his opening remarks to delegates of the Thirteenth Meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC13) confirming the UK's committment to the Agreement and encouraging Parties to work together towards its objectives

Dr Will Lockhart, Deputy Director, International Biodiversity and Wildlife, Department for environment, food and rural affairs welcomed delegates on Monday to ACAP’s Thirteenth Meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC13). The four-day meeting is being hosted for the first time by the United Kingdom in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.

Addressing delegates, Dr Lockhart welcomed Parties and Observers to the meeting and acknowledged the global conservation effort already underway, whilst recognising the challenges still facing ACAP to protect its listed albatross and petrels.

“A huge amount of valuable work is being undertaken across Parties to protect these special birds, “he said. “But many albatross and petrel populations are still as you know in deep crisis. And there is much more we can and should be doing to further support the conservation of these iconic species.”

He confirmed the United Kingdom’s commitment to the Agreement pointing to projects to eradicate rodents at breeding sites and the implementation of strong bycatch mitigation measures in fisheries. 

The meeting commences

Wider conservation efforts were also highlighted, such as the £3 billion the UK has earmarked for spending by 2025, “to protect nature internationally – through bilateral aid, contributions to multilateral aid programmes, or by helping generate new, sustainable and innovative forms of nature finance, including by working with businesses to ensure that they better price their dependencies on nature.”

He encouraged Parties to work together in the spirit of collaboration in order to realise and drive forward the Agreements’ objectives, noting the importance of engaging with the fishing industry.

“Our work can only be successful if we work together. In particular, we need to identify further actions that can be taken to strengthen collaboration with Regional Fisheries Management Organizations and CCAMLR, both of which are critical to the success of the Agreement, or to ensure that data collection can be improved so that the scale of bycatch and other pressures on ACAP species can be better understood and mitigated. We also need to drive our wider governments to make sure that they are living up to their commitments under the Agreement and doing our best to implement the best practices we develop in collaboration with each other. “

23 May 2023