Jaime Ramos and Leonel Pereira have co-edited a book with the title Seabird Biodiversity and Human Activities to be published this month.  The book has 15 chapters by different authors.  Click on the chapter titles listed below to view their authorships and read their individual abstracts.

ACAP Latest News intends to feature selected chapters of special interest to the Albatross and Petrel Agreement once the book has been published.

The book’s overall abstract follows:

“Seabirds are global travellers connecting oceans and seas all over the world, and facing multiple threats at local and global scales. Seabirds are long-lived top predators, reflecting changes at lower trophic levels, and are good models to assess ecological changes produced by human societies. Thus, world-wide collaborations are needed to understand seabird ecology and to develop effective conservation measures benefitting both humans and seabird populations.

This book provides a modern overview on seabird biodiversity studies: it begins by covering the most up-to-date techniques to study seabirds, and then focus on pragmatic issues related with interactions between seabirds and humans, the use of seabirds as ecological indicators and conservation of seabirds. It gives an updated insight on all these topics and highlights gaps that need further development for a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between seabirds and human actions.

This book covers the response of the seabird research community to a biodiversity crisis aiming to contribute towards environmental sustainability. It should provide inspiration to a wide range of professionals and students, including the much needed world-wide collaboration between research groups and practitioners. In this way seabird research and conservation provide an inspiration for the solution of global issues such as climate change.”

Table of Contents

An Introduction to Seabirds and Their Study

Conventional and Modern Approaches to Study Seabird Trophic Ecology and Diet

A Physiological Toolbox to Explore the Relationships Between Seabirds and Their Changing Environments

Tracking Seabirds for Conservation and Marine Spatial Planning

Seabird and Fisheries Interactions

Urban Gulls with Humans

Seabirds and Marine Renewable Energy Sources

Seabirds and Biotoxins

Seabirds as Indicators of Forage Fish Stocks

Seabirds as Indicators of Oceanographic Changes

Seabirds as Indicators of Metal and Plastic Pollution

Antarctic Seabirds as Indicators of Climate Change

Light Pollution as a Seabirds' Conservation Threat

Eradication and Control of Invasive Mammal Species as a Seabird Conservation Tool

Identifying and Establishing Marine Protected Areas Worldwide

Reference:

Ramos, J.A. & Pereira, L. (Eds) 2022.  Seabird Biodiversity and Human Activities.  Boca Raton: CRC Press.  270 pp.  doi.org/10.1201/9781003047520.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 June 2022

UPDATE:

The Tristan da Cunha Marine Protection Zone came into force on 10 August 2021 when promulgated in the MARINE PROTECTION (TRISTAN DA CUNHA) ORDINANCE, 2021.

"An ORDINANCE to make provision for the protection of the marine waters of Tristan da Cunha; to declare a Marine Protection Zone and provide for the adoption of a Marine Management Plan; and for connected or incidental purposes."

The Ordinance confirms that fishing by bottom trawling in any area within the fishery limits is prohibited.  This will also apply to the four Seamount Fishing Zones (defined areas shallower than 3000 metres).

Witht thanks to Jonathon Hall, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK

The Tristan da Cunha Marine Protection Zone, map from the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project

A 687 247-km² Marine Protection Zone (MPZ) with no fishing or other extractive activities permitted within 91% of its total area has been announced around the Tristan – Gough Islands in the South Atlantic by the Island Council of Tristan da Cunha.  The island group forms part of the United Kingdom’s Overseas Territory of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.  Sustainable fishing will be permitted in the local waters of the islands by the Tristan community (commercial Tristan Rock Lobster fishery, subsistence fin fishing) and on parts of four seamounts.  Information received by ACAP Latest News is that benthic trawling will be banned within the MPZ, including over those portions of the seamounts where sustainable fishing will be allowed and that 100% observer coverage will be required on licensed vessels.  Formal legislation for the MPZ is to follow in 2021 (click here).

The Tristan MPZ becomes the world’s 11th largest marine protected area (MPA) according to the World Database on Protected Areas compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (click here) and is also stated to be the "the fourth-largest fully protected marine reserve on the planet".  The declaration comes out of a commitment made by the UK Government in 2016 to establish "Blue Belt" protection for four million square kilometres of ocean around its Overseas Territories (UKOTs) by 2020.  It follows from a number of workshops, meetings and marine research (including seabird surveys) conducted within Tristan's 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The territorial waters and EEZ around the islands of Gough, Inaccessible, Nightingale (with its islets of Middle and Stoltenhoff) and Tristan that form the group support large breeding seabird populations, including of six ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.  Three of these are endemic to the island group; one of them, the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena, is especially at risk of extinction from attacks by introduced House Mice on Gough (click here).

|An incubating Tristan Albatross on Gough Island, photograph by Kalinka Rexer-Huber

These six ACAP species are not restricted to the new MPZ in their foraging ranges, travelling over much of the South Atlantic and beyond in international waters - where they remain at risk to fisheries bycatch.  Nevertheless, they will now be fully protected from bycatch by fiushing vessels while within the "no take" part of the MPZ.  It is stated that satellite surveillance will help to detect any Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activity and that “the UK has a duty to protect the wildlife found in all of its Territories and will be responsible for long-term monitoring and enforcement of this vast Zone”.

The Tristan da Cunha Marine Protection Zone follows on from similar large MPAs declared by the UK Government around  Ascension,  British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago, disputed by Mauritius), Pitcairn Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur)*.  With the Tristan MPZ these MPAs total some 3.84 million square kilometres (click here).

With thanks to Antje Steinfurth.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 November 2020, updated 01 June 2022

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

Peter Ryan, at sea in his natural habitat

Professor Peter Geoffrey Ryan, Director of the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology since 2014 at the University of Cape Town, was awarded BirdLife South Africa’s Gill Memorial Medal at the organisation’s AGM, held virtually on 28 May.  Peter is the only South African A-rated ornithologist, an author and co-author of many bird books, including on seabirds (see below), and an accomplished bird photographer.

The Gill Memorial Medal is awarded for outstanding lifetime contributions to ornithology in southern Africa.  The inaugural award was presented 1960 and to date has been awarded 26 times; only four recipients can be said to have concentrated their studies on seabirds.

The citation for Peter’s award says in part “He has made particularly important contributions to the fields of seabird ecology, marine plastic pollution and its impacts on seabirds, mitigation of seabird bycatch by fisheries, and evolution in oceanic island birds.  Peter has also led important work on the systematics and phylogeography of continental African birds, and on the effects of energy infrastructure (such as wind turbines and power lines) on land birds.”

Peter Ryan has also received the Gilchrist Memorial Medal of the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) in 2017 for his contributions to marine science and has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa.  He is set to retire from the ‘Fitztitute’ at the end of the year.  His citation, written by colleague Claire Spottiswoode (herself a recipient of the Gill Memorial Medal) ends with stating Peter “plans to remain active in research and, knowing him, we can be reassured that he will be more active than ever.  As a community we will no doubt continue for decades to come to be inspired (and more than a little awed) by his knowledge, productivity, and insight.”

Reflecting my advanced years, I am pleased to say I have known (or at least met) all 26 Gill Memorial Medal recipients, co-authoring scientific publications with a number of them over five decades.  Surely most have been co-authored with Peter, who I have much valued as a colleague on many island field trips and as a caring friend since his schoolboy days (when presciently I told him on a seabird island that one day he would become Director of the FitzPatrick Institute).

Selected Publications:

Ryan, P.G. (Ed.) 2007.  A Field Guide to the Animals and Plants of Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island.  Newbury: Pisces Publications.  162 pp. [ACAP review].

Ryan, P.[G.] 2017.  Guide to Seabirds of Southern Africa.  Cape Town: Struik Nature.  160 pp.  [ACAP review].

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 May 2022

Eric VanderWerf and Lindsay Young band a Laysan Albatross

The annual Ralph W. Schreiber Conservation Award of the American Ornithological Society, honouring extraordinary conservation-related scientific contributions by an individual or small team has been presented this year to Lindsay Young and Eric VanderWerf of the Hawaii-based environmental NGO, Pacific Rim Conservation.  The award honours extraordinary conservation-related scientific contributions by an individual or a small team.  The award, which consists of a framed certificate and an honorarium, is named after Ralph Schreiber, a prominent figure in American ornithology known for his enthusiasm, energy and dedication to research and conservation, notably of the Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis.

The award’s citation reads:

“Drs. Lindsay Young and Eric VanderWerf of Pacific Rim Conservation are being recognized for the sustained success of their conservation actions combined with their publication, individually and together, of a significant body of research on bird conservation and the biology of birds (notably on the Laysan Albatross and Hawaiʻi ʻElepaio). Their long-term study of Hawaiian seabirds and land birds, combined with planning and execution of effective conservation actions, have helped to protect vulnerable breeding birds in Hawaiʻi. Conservation projects led by Pacific Rim Conservation encompass a range of techniques including acoustic survey and population monitoring, habitat restoration, chick fostering and translocation, social attraction, predator-proof fencing, and predator eradication.  Their diverse conservation projects on multiple islands have reduced predation on, and improved habitat for, multiple species of breeding Hawaiian seabirds and land birds and established new breeding colonies of several vulnerable seabird species. Drs. Young and VanderWerf are the authors of multiple scientific articles, book chapters and reports, and co-authors of a forthcoming book, Conservation of Marine Birds (July 2022; Elsevier), on the factors influencing seabird conservation.”

ACAP Latest News has featured the conservation efforts of Pacific Rim Conservation on numerous times over the last decade (click here), especially in combating the effects of climate change on ACAP-listed Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses.

The 2022 award was also given to David Ainley, well-known penguin researcher and Editor of Marine Ornithology.

On a personal note, the ACAP Information Office knew the late Ralph Schreiber (1942-1988) from a couple of international conferences and a field trip to study Great White Pelicans P. onocrotalus together on South Africa’s Dassen Island in 1979.  He remembers him as a larger-than-life character with a booming voice, and one who died far too young in his 40s.  I am sure he would have been pleased to know the award named after him has gone this year to Eric and Lindsay for their work conserving seabirds in the North Pacific.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 May 2022