Nine albatrosses for nine infographics, artwork by Namo Niumim

Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim, originally from Bangkok, is a graduate of the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design  Currently working back in her home country, she has previously resided in New Zealand and Tasmania.

 
Namo Niumim

For two years Namo, who works primarily in gouache, has been ACAP’s “Illustrator in Virtual Residence”, working on a series of infographics that depicts aspects of the biology and the conservation threats faced by ACAP-listed species.  To date nine albatross infographics have been produced in English, the most recent for the Endangered Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca, with French and Spanish versions following.  Most have been sponsored by and co-published with government departments or environmental NGOs based in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.  Currently, sponsorships have been obtained to produce a further six infographics, including for three ACAP-listed petrels

 

Most of the infographics have been produced in support of World Albatross Day, held annually since 2020 on 19 June, the date the Agreement was signed in 2001.  ACAP’s vision is over the next few years to seek sponsorships that will allow infographics to be produced by Namo for all the 31 ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

Namo also illustrates cats; the picture here is a prized possession of the ACAP Information Officer, who received it as a gift from the ACAP Executive Secretary to mark his entry into his fourth quarter century.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 June 2022

Spectacled Petrels on Inaccessible Island, by ABUN Co-founder Kitty Harvill, after a photograph by Peter Ryan

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) & Steffen Oppel have published open access in Afrotropical Bird Biology: Journal of the Natural History of African Birds on winter observations on Gough Island seabirds, including ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.  The report of the Vulnerable single-island endemic Spectacled Petrel Procellaria conspicillata flying over Gough seems to be of particular interest. “Fairly common offshore from Gough, and occasionally flying over the island, especially from mid-April to mid-May.  Previous field workers on Gough have reported Spectacled Petrels flying over the island in April (D. Fox and C. Taylor, pers. comm.), possibly exploring for new breeding sites as the population on Inaccessible Island continues to expand (Ryan et al. 2019).  However, it is unclear why such prospecting would not occur earlier in the year, as the species lays in late October (Ryan 2007).”

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Relatively little has been reported about the seabirds of Gough Island, central South Atlantic Ocean, from autumn and winter.  We report ad hoc observations on the abundance, phenology and moult of seabirds at Gough Island from March to June 2021, and during the voyages between the island and Cape Town, South Africa. At least 43 species of seabirds were recorded: 1 penguin, 8 albatrosses, 5 southern and 1 northern storm petrel, 22 petrels and shearwaters, 1 gannet, 3 terns and 2 skuas.  The results are presented as an annotated species list as well as a daily log of species for the voyages to and from the island.  More species were seen per day at sea in June than in March, but fewer individuals were recorded in oceanic waters, mainly due to the large numbers of Great Shearwaters Ardenna gravis in March.”

Reference:

Ryan, P., & Oppel, S.  2022.  Notes on the seabirds of Gough Island and at sea between Gough and Cape Town, March–June 2021. Afrotropical Bird Biology: Journal of the Natural History of African Birds doi.org/10.15641/abb.v2i.1090.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 June 2022

A Tristan Albatross stands over its chick, photograph by Peter Ryan

Conservation organisations struggle to directly assist all threatened species, so deciding where to spend limited resources is a common problem.  The rate at which a species is decreasing is often a good indicator as to how urgent it is to conserve it.

Albatrosses are among the largest flying birds in the world, and they can get incredibly old.  A female Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis named Wisdom who was first banded >65 years ago is still breeding today.  Albatrosses achieve this long life by reproducing very slowly – they often need 5-15 years before they can start breeding.  In the largest species, a breeding pair can only raise one chick every two years because it takes almost 12 months for the chick to grow large enough to fly, and parents need a long rest between raising chicks.

This adult Tristan Albatross did not survive attacks by mice, photograph by Peter Ryan

Despite being amongst the largest birds, albatrosses can be threatened by some of the smallest mammals – mice.  On several islands such as Marion (South Africa) or Midway (USA), introduced non-native House Mice Mus musculus have started to eat albatross chicks and sometimes even adults.  As a consequence, the albatross species breeding on those islands have a low breeding success as chicks are lost to hungry mice.

Although this problem has been known for two decades, the consequences of mouse predation have so far been difficult to evaluate due to the long lifespan of albatrosses.  For example, the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena has lost on average half of each season’s chicks to mouse predation since monitoring began in 2004.  Yet, over the same period, the breeding population has remained remarkably stable at ~1500 pairs every year, leaving conservationists puzzled what the impact of mice might be, and whether albatrosses would benefit from an ambitious operation to eradicate mice from their main breeding island.

A new paper published this week in the Journal of Applied Ecology provides a compelling answer.  A consortium of researchers funded by the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) used a sophisticated population model that accounts for all the young albatrosses, and adults taking a break from breeding, that roam the Southern Ocean and therefore cannot be counted by ornithologists.  The paper’s authors found that the total population of the Tristan Albatross has in fact decreased by >2000 birds since 2004 – despite the stable number of breeding pairs.  Extrapolating 30 years into the future, the researchers further concluded that eradicating mice from their main breeding island would most likely result in a Tristan Albatross population that was two to eight times larger in 2050 than if the mice remained.

Anton Wolfaardt, Project Manager of the Mouse-free Marion Project writes: “This new study is incredibly important for Marion Island, where mice also kill albatrosses. It confirms the importance of eradicating mice on Marion to restore and secure a positive conservation future for the island’s globally important albatross populations.”

The population projections come with large uncertainty though – mostly because it is very difficult to know whether young albatrosses are still alive.  After fledging, albatrosses can spend 2-20 years at sea when they cannot be accounted for.  This uncertainty renders the estimates of population size somewhat imprecise, and when extrapolating the population 30 years into the future, the range of uncertainty spans several thousand birds.  Nonetheless, the new estimates are the most robust yet and provide a deal of new information for guiding management decisions.

Besides the persisting problems of albatross bycatch in fisheries, this study gives us hope that some albatross populations can be restored with technically feasible management actions that can be implemented now if governments honour their commitments under the Convention of Migratory Species and financially support these efforts.  Overall, the conclusions from the study support the decision that investing in mouse eradication on islands where mice kill albatrosses is likely to be a highly effective strategy to restore populations of these ocean wanderers.

Read a report of the study in The Applied Ecologist.

Reference:

Oppel, S., Clark, B.L., Risi, M.M., Horswill, C., Converse, S.J., Jones, C.W. Osborne, A.M., Stevens, K., Perold, V., Bond, A.L., Wanless, R.M., Cuthbert, R., Cooper, J. & Ryan, P.G. 2022.  Cryptic population decrease due to invasive species predation in a long-lived seabird supports need for eradication.  Journal of Applied Ecology doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14218.

Bethany Clark, BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK, 20 June 2022

“Snuggle Sweet”.  A Laysan Albatross pair, photograph by Hob Osterlund, poster design by Michelle Risi

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement has chosen the theme “Climate Change” to mark the third World Albatross Day, celebrated today.  This follows the inaugural theme “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020 and “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” last year.  The annual celebration, marked on 19 June, aims to increase awareness of the continuing conservation crisis faced by ACAP’s 31 listed species of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

A storm is on the way.  Black-footed Albatross by ABUN artist Grace Innemee for WAD2022, poster design by Michelle Risi

Some albatrosses are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change.  This year’s featured species are the Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and the Laysan P. immutabilis.  Both these Near Threatened albatrosses have most of their breeding populations on the low-lying atolls of the USA’s Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  The atolls - and their breeding seabirds - are all at risk from predicted sea-level rise and increases in the number and severity of storms that result in flooding, both considered a consequence of climate change.  Storm floods have even caused at least one small sandy islet to disappear into the sea, losing breeding sites for several thousand albatross pairs (click here); elsewhere in the island chain, as on Midway Atoll, storms have caused flooding of albatross nests and loss of chicks close to the shore.

Efforts are underway to protect albatrosses from these threats. Two of these efforts are described in guest articles in ACAP Latest News that form part of seven daily news posts for ‘WADWEEK2022”, commencing on the 13th of June.  The Hawaii-based environmental Pacific Rim Conservation talks about its pioneering works to combat climate change by creating new seabird colonies safe from sea level rise in Hawaii and in Mexico.  The South African Mouse-Free-Marion Project describes it aim to eradicate the island’s albatross-killing House Mice that have burgeoned over the whole island, helped by a warming and drying climate.

ACAP has once more collaborated with Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) to produce artworks for WAD2022, this time depicting Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses.  From the over 100 artworks received, ACAP has chosen nine by different artists to create downloadable posters to mark ‘WAD2022’.  In addition, 12 similarly-designed posters have been produced using photographs donated to ACAP by its supporters.  Along with the two infographics designed by illustrator Namasri Niumim for the Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses, these are all available for downloading for non-commercial use, with French and Spanish versions to follow soon.  An ACAP ‘WAD2022’ logo in the three official languages, as well as in Portuguese, is also available.

At risk to climate change: a storm surge could easily wash away this Black-footed Albatross chick, photograph by Lindsay Young, poster design by Michelle Risi

ACAP’s Executive Secretary, Dr Christine Bogle, commented that “it is tragic that albatrosses, already being killed in their thousands by fishing operations, must also suffer from the impacts of climate change.  Strengthened international cooperation is needed to overcome these threats.”  ACAP will continue to work for the world’s albatrosses in the years ahead.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 June 2022