Black-footed Albatrosses nesting on the shores of Midway Atoll, a low-lying Hawaiian island vulnerable to climate change and the catalyst behind the translocation project which is aiming to establish a new colony on Mexico's remote Guadalupe Island. Photograph courtesy of Pacific Rim Conservation

The establishment of a new colony of globally Near Threatened Black-footed Albatrosses Phoebastria nigripes on Mexico’s Guadalupe Island has been given a boost with the arrival of 36 fertilised eggs from Hawaii’s Midway Atoll. 

The dramatic move is part of an ongoing conservation effort to ensure the long-term survival of Black-footed Albatrosses whose population is at risk to climate change due to 97% of their breeding grounds being low-lying atolls in the USA’s North-western Hawaiian Islands. 

The project is managed by an international group of organisations including Pacific Rim Conservation (PRC), Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas (GECI), and Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, with coordinated support from the federal governments of both countries. 

The project’s translocation team has been in action since early January when they first collected viable eggs from nesting pairs on Midway. The viable eggs were then transported to Guadalupe Island and placed with nesting pairs of Laysan Albatrosses P. immutabilis whose egg had died. Once hatched, the Laysan pairs will raise the chicks as their own until they fledge.

Ninety-three Black-footed Albatrosses have so far successfully fledged from Guadalupe Island as part of the programme, with the first translocated albatrosses expected to return to the island by 2026 according to Pacific Rim Conservation.

ACAP Latest News has been reporting on the project since the first translocations took place in 2020, and an in-depth article about the project is also available at the Audubon website, here.  

24 January 2024

The latest ACAP Species Infographic released in English last month and the fourteenth in the series, is for the Near Threatened Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea.  It is the first to be produced for an ACAP-listed petrel, the previous 13 infographics all being for albatrosses.  It is now available from today in all three official ACAP languages of English, French and Spanish.  The Grey Petrel infographic has been sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Program.

The ACAP Species Infographic series has been designed to help inform the public, including school learners, of the threats faced by albatrosses and petrels and what is being and can be done to combat them.  They serve to complement the more detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments, the concise and illustrated ACAP Species Summaries and the ACAP Photo Essay series.  English and Portuguese* language versions of all the infographics produced to date are available to download here.  French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under Infographies sur les espèces and Infografía sobre las especies.

All the 14 infographics produced to date may be freely downloaded 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 for personal use or when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels – when ACAP will be pleased to receive a mention.  They should not be used for personal gain.

One more ACAP Species Infographic is currently in production, for the Vulnerable White-chinned Petrel P. aequinoctialis, which will also be produced in Portuguese.  A further five species have been sponsored, with work on them to commence this year.

The ACAP Species Infographics have all been created by Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim from Bangkok.  Namo 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.

With thanks to ‘Pep’ Arcos, Jonathon Barrington, Karine Delord, Johannes Fischer, Graham Parker, Richard Phillips and Peter Ryan for their help.

*Being produced for the six ACAP-listed species that regularly visit waters off Brazil.  To date, those produced are for the Tristan Albatross D. dabbenena and the Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 23 January 2024

The new predator-proof fence in the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, photograph by US Fish & Wildlife Service

Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis are breeding again in the North Pacific.  The vast majority breeds on the low-lying atolls of the North-Western Hawaiian Islands where they at risk to flooding caused by storms, considered to be more of an issue with climate change-induced sea level rise.  However, on the inhabited high Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Oahu the few relatively small colonies are safe from sea level rise, acting as a level of insurance for the Near Threatened species. News is in on the fortunes of Laysan Albatrosses in two of these colonies that are protected by predator-proof fences.

Kauai

The record number of 153 pairs of Laysan Albatrosses breeding in the 2023/24 season – 20 more than in the previous season - in the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on the Hawaiian island of Kauai will have an enhanced chance of a high breeding success.  This is due to the recent completion of a 3.4-km-long predator-roof fence surrounding 68 ha that will keep feral cats and pigs, stray dogs and rodents down to, it is stated, the size of a baby House Mouse, away from the birds.  In the 2022/23 season pigs gained entry and destroyed nearly 70 albatross nests, prior to completion of the fence (click here).  Any remaining predators caught within the fenced area are now being removed.

UPDATE: The total occupied nest count was 157. 131 eggs have survived as hatching time approaches. The "natural decline is due to infertile eggs, abandonment of nests, and predation". Information from the Facebook page of  the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge.

A feral pig approaches an incubating Laysan Albatross at night in the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on 23 December 2022, trail camera photograph by Pacific Rim Conservation

More information comes from USFWS Volunteer Louise Barnfield in the December issue in Wild Times, newsletter of the Kilauea Point Natural History Association.

“Last week, Kīlauea Point NWR participated in the annual mōlī (Laysan albatross) egg swap with a team of biologists from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), located on the west side of Kauaʻi.  Due to the potential for airstrikes, mōlī in the PMRF colony are a risk to aircraft and to themselves.  Therefore, their biologists are employing multiple approaches as they work to reduce the size of their colony.  For this year’s egg swap, 23 fertile eggs were removed from the PMRF mōlī colony and transported to Kīlauea Point NWR where they replaced 23 non-viable eggs within the Refuge’s two colonies.  Through a process called “candling”, biologists can identify eggs that are non-viable – either because they were not fertilized or are damaged.  They can then “swap” the eggs and our adoptive nesters will then get to raise ex-PMRF chicks, which will imprint upon the safe colonies at Kīlauea Point NWR and eventually return to our hatching sites, rather than PMRF.”

 
A Laysan Albatross incubates within the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve, photograph by Pacific Rim Conservation

In complete contrast, the construction of a wrought iron security fence elsewhere on Kauai has led to the death by entanglement of a colour-banded (white V389) Laysan Albatross, known as Hoʻokipa (click here).

"Hoʻokipa, the first Laysan albatross to return to nesting within an ecological restoration area makai of the Turtle Bay golf course, died last month after getting stuck in an iron fence near her new nest at Marconi Point"

Oahu

Over on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Laysan Albatrosses are also doing well behind a predator-proof fence around the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve.  The environmental NGO, Pacific Rim Conservation reports on its Facebook page that there are “106 mōlī nests and counting at Ka'ena Point- a new record!  2023 marks the 20th year that we have monitored Laysan Albatrosses on O'ahu”.  Laysan Albatrosses also breed within the translocation site protected by a predator-proof fence in Oahu’s James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge. A more recent Facebook post by Pacific Rim Conservation has a record of 156 occupied nests for Kaena Point and the nearby Kuaokala Game Management Area combined.

A colour-banded Laysan Albatross rises on its egg on Isla Guadalupe, December 2023, photograph by Felix Jimenez Roja, GECI

FOOTNOTE.  Across the Pacific in Mexico, Isla Guadalupe is also having a record year, according to the Mexican NGO Conservación de Islas (GECI) on its Facebook page: "The end of the year is near and Guadalupe Island is painted white thanks to the arrival of the Laysan Albatross. So far we have registered over 400 nests on the main island breaking the historic record on the island".  In 2009 a census yielded 457 pairs - but this seemed to include the nearby Islote Zapato and Islote Negro, with perhaps 50 pairs each.

 John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 18 January 2024, updated 21 January 2024

Short-tailed Albatrosses George (left) and Geraldine brood their latest chick on Midway Atoll, 26 December 2023, photograph by Nick Minnich

The lone Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus pair well known as George and Geraldine on the USA’s Midway Atoll, North-Western Hawaiian Islands are currently caring for their latest chick in their sixth breeding attempt since 2018/19.  The chick is believed to have hatched on 24 December 2023.  “Jon Plissner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently studying footage captured by the field camera … to determine the exact date and time of hatching.”  The 2023/2024 chick is the fifth to be hatched by George and Geraldine.  So far, they have fledged four chicks.  No chick was produced in the 2021/22 breeding season as the egg did not hatch.  Read more here.

A flattened eggshell, indicative of a hatched egg, can be discerned just outside the nest and in front of George, 26 December 2023, photograph by Jon Plissner/USFWS

Geraldine feeds her two-week old chick, her fourth, c. 10 January 2024, photograph by Nick Minnich

Regular sightings of a young colour-banded Short-tailed Albatross (Red AA08) near its parental nest that it fledged from in 2019 continue to be made.  This is George and Geraldine’s first fledgling, one of two seen back on Midway.  Another Short-tailed Albatross has been recorded this season near the forest’s edge on the north-east side of Midway’s Sand Island.

Wisdom (Red Z333, left) with an unbanded male on Midway Atoll, 25 December 2023, photograph by Nick Minnich

Meanwhile Wisdom, the 70-something and oldest-known Laysan Albatross P. immutabilis, was again spotted on 24 and 25 December displaying with an unbanded male. It was first recorded this breeding season on  03 December last year (click here).

News from the Friends of Midway Atoll where you can watch a video of Wisdom interacting with the unbanded bird.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 16 January 2023