Best practice mitigation: a bird-scaring line with its coloured streamers flapping in the wind, photograph from Projeto Albatroz

The Seventh Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MoP7) to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) held virtually over 9-13 May concluded with all Parties agreeing much work remains to be done in addressing threats to seabird populations.  The meeting was chaired by Gaia Puleston of Australia.

Reflecting on the task ahead in her opening address to MoP7, Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC, the Governor of the State of Tasmania, said: “The world is watching how you work together to conserve imperilled albatrosses and petrels.  The future of these species depends on your collective efforts.  I wish all participants at the Seventh Session of the Meeting of the Parties every success in ensuring there is a secure foundation upon which to advance the work of ACAP in the coming triennium.”

In 2019, ACAP's Advisory Committee declared a conservation crisis, which continues to be the most serious threat faced by its 31 listed species, with thousands of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters dying every year as a result of fisheries operations.

The implementation of ACAP’s Best Practice seabird bycatch mitigation advice by ACAP Parties, non-Party Range States and, critically, Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) was identified as essential for the conservation of these majestic seabirds.

ACAP has developed a comprehensive range of Best Practice Advice guidelines and factsheets containing proven mitigation measures that can be implemented by coastal States and distant water fishing nations to reduce seabird bycatch.  These are available in multiple languages and can be accessed through the ACAP website.

Encouragingly, a growing number of RFMOs and other bodies have adopted several ACAP best practice measures in their operations leading to the reduction of seabird bycatch from longline and trawl fishing.  Progress was also noted in work addressing land-based threats to seabirds, in particular programmes directed at the eradication of invasive species.

Dr Michael Double, who currently chairs the ACAP Advisory Committee (and was the MoP7 Vice Chair) in his report to the Parties, highlighted the urgent need to engage with RFMOs and other organisations in adopting ACAP best practice for fisheries to prevent further declines in the populations of albatrosses and petrels.  He stated “the Advisory Committee continues to recommend that Parties, Range States and RFMOs promote and implement best-practice seabird mitigation measures, improve the collection and reporting of seabird bycatch data, implement priority monitoring and tracking studies and continue schemes to eradicate invasive species at breeding sites.”  Improving this critical information is vital for the development of targeted future priority conservation actions.

The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on ACAP’s activities was noted, with progress of some ACAP activities slowed.  With the easing of restrictions across the globe, it is hoped that ACAP can resume key activities, including restarting its grants and secondments programmes and continued engagement with RFMOs.

ACAP’s Executive Secretary, Dr Christine Bogle, commented that “this Meeting of the Parties reiterated the commitment of ACAP Parties and partner organisations to strive to protect these unique birds from the threats that they continue to confront.”

The report of the meeting will be available in ACAP's three official languages of English, French and Spanish in due course (click here), from where the MoP7 documents considered at the meeting may be viewed.

ACAP Secretariat, 24 May 2022

A Black-footed Albatross between two decoys; photograph by Lindsay Young, Pacific Rim Conservation

The recently released Seabird Restoration Database owned and managed by the Hawaiian-based Pacific Rim Conservation is described as “a unique global product presenting practitioners with real world examples of active seabird restoration efforts from around the world.”

Active Seabird Restoration is defined on the project’s website as the “deliberate attraction or movement of seabirds to establish or enhance a colony. Social attraction uses stimuli such as sound and decoys to lure seabirds into a restoration site while translocation is the physical movement of seabirds from a source colony to a restoration site. In many cases, both methods are used to restore a seabird colony. The Seabird Restoration Database seeks to improve knowledge transfer among practitioners and enhance seabird conservation by documenting the methods and outcomes from social attraction and translocation activities applied to restore and recover seabird populations around the world”

The database’s website explains “Thanks to the generous support from the Packard Marine Bird Program, and the knowledge contributions of seabird experts from around the world, we built the Seabird Restoration Database, a first of its kind conservation database documenting the global effort to restore seabirds using active restoration techniques. Between 2020-2021 we collated data from the literature, reports, databases and consulted with over 500 seabird experts to determine the species, locations, methods, and outcomes from active seabird restoration efforts. The database now contains over 800 records of ongoing, planned, complete, and incomplete active restoration efforts, including those with under achieved outcomes. Project justifications include both restoration goals and trials/experiments applied to inform future conservation activities.”

Read more about the database here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 May 2022

In support of World Albatross Day on 19 June 2021 ACAP released three infographics for the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena, Critically Endangered Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata and the Vulnerable Wandering Albatross D. exulans.  The last species was co-published with the Mouse-Free Marion Project, with the support of the NGO, BirdLife South Africa.  All three infographics were designed and illustrated by Namasri 'Namo' Niumim.  Later in the year a fourth infographic was produced by Namo, this time for the globally Endangered and Nationally Critical Antipodean Albatross D. antipodensis.  This infographic, of a species endemic to New Zealand, was co-published with that country’s Department of Conservation, which covered the costs of its production.  All four infographics are available in English, French and Spanish versions.

Two more infographics in the growing series produced by Namo have now been produced in English for the Endangered Grey-headed Albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma and the Near Threatened Shy Albatross T. cauta.  They have been co-published with and sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Division.  French and Spanish versions are to follow.

English and Portuguese language versions of infographics are available to download here, whilst French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under, Infographies sur les espèces and Infographía sobres las especies.

The vision of ACAP is, in time, to produce infographics for all 31 ACAP-listed species; efforts are currently being directed at producing infographics for the 22 species of albatrosses, primarily in support of future World Albatross Days.  At the time of writing, three more albatross infographics are in varying stages of production.

With thanks to Namasri Niumim for her artistic work and to Jonathon Barrington for arranging the collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Division.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 May 2022, updated 22 May 2022

White-chinned Petrel ashore; photograph by Peter Ryan

Anaïs Dasnon (Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers en Bois, France) and colleagues have published open access in the Journal of Applied Ecology on the effects of bycatch mitigation measures on the demography of Vulnerable White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis breeding on Possession Island, Crozet Islands.

The paper’s abstract follows:

1. “The impact of industrial fisheries on marine biodiversity is conspicuous in large pelagic vertebrate's fisheries bycatch. In seabirds, this led to the decline of many populations since the 1980s following the rise of global fishing effort. Bycatch mitigation measures were implemented since the 2000s, but their effects on the concerned seabird populations remain poorly quantified and understood.
2. We studied the effects of bycatch mitigation measures on the demography of the white-chinned petrel, one of the most bycatch impacted seabirds whose populations suffered dramatic declines before the implementation of mitigation measures. To do so we (a) built multi-event capture–recapture models to estimate the demographic parameters of a population from Possession Island (southern Indian Ocean) over 30 years, (b) assessed the effect of climate and fishery covariates on demographic parameters, (c) built a population matrix model to estimate stochastic growth rate according to the management in fisheries bycatch and (d) estimated changes in breeding population density using distance sampling data.
3. The population declined from the 1980s to the mid-2000s, while trawl and longline fisheries occurred with no bycatch mitigation measures. The negative effects of fishery bycatch through additive mortality and of rat predation on breeding success were likely the main drivers of this decline.
4. Both modelled population growth rate and observed breeding densities showed an increase since the mid-2000s. We explained this trend by the improvement in survival probability BASDF probability with the local control of the rat population and changes in sea ice conditions on foraging grounds.
5. Synthesis and applications. We provide a holistic approach to assess the effects of management measures by analysing datasets from sampling methods commonly employed in seabird studies. Our conclusions should encourage the eradication of invasive predatory species in seabird breeding areas and the strengthening of bycatch mitigation measures for the vulnerable seabird species, especially in international waters, but also the development of such measures considering the other marine large pelagic species threatened by fisheries bycatch (sharks, rays, turtles and marine mammals) since it could be crucial to avoid populations' extinction.”

With thanks to Anaïs Dasnon.

Reference:

Dasnon, A., Delord, K., Chaigne, A. & Barbraud, C. 2022.  Fisheries bycatch mitigation measures as an efficient tool for the conservation of seabird populations.  Journal of Applied Ecology  doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14189.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 May 2022