Lima Cathedral in Peru. Photograph by Cristian Loayza

The Fourteenth Meeting of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatross and Petrel's Advisory Committee (AC14) will be held in Lima, Peru, from 12 to 16 August 2024.

Meeting Circular 1, which has been released and is available online, contains information on the meeting location and dates, meeting agenda, submission of documents, applications for Observer status.

Meetings of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group, and the Population and Conservation Status Working Group will precede AC14, SBWG12 from Monday 5 to Wednesday 7 August, and PaCSWG8 on Friday 9 August. 

A joint SBWG12/PaCSWG8 meeting will be held on Thursday 8 August, to discuss cross-cutting issues. The working group meetings will be preceded by a Workshop on seabird bycatch data and at-sea threat prioritisation, to be held on Sunday 4 August. 

A Heads of Delegation meeting will be convened on Sunday 11 August in the late afternoon/evening. The time for this meeting will be advised closer to the meeting date.

The deadlines for the submission and distribution of meeting documents for AC14 and the Working Group meetings, and deadlines for submission of requests for Observer status to attend AC14 can be found in Meeting Circular 1, here. French and Spanish versions are also available at the website.

Further details such as information on the venue and hotel(s), and information on registration will be provided in subsequent Ciculars. 

20 December 2023

A Flesh-footed Shearwater in flight, photograph by Mike Double

Joseph Hollis (Bird Group, Natural History Museum, Tring, UK) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution on using automated image analysis to study a collection of 3793 plastic fragments ingested by Near Threatened Flesh-footed Shearwaters Ardenna carneipes on Lord Howe Island.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Plastics are now ubiquitous in the environment and have been studied in wildlife and in ecosystems for more than 50 years. Measurement of size, shape and colour data for individual fragments of plastic is labour-intensive, unreliable and prone to observer bias, particularly when it comes to assessment of colour, which relies on arbitrary and inconsistently defined colour categorisations. There is a clear need for a standard method for data collection on plastic pollution, particularly one that can be readily automated given the number of samples involved.

This study describes a new method for standardised photography of marine plastics in the 1–100 mm size range (meso- and macro-plastics), including colour correction to account for any image-to-image variation in lighting that may impact colour reproduction or apparent brightness. Automated image analysis is then applied to detect individual fragments of plastic for quantitative measurement of size, shape, and colour.

The method was tested on 3793 fragments of debris ingested by Flesh-footed Shearwaters (Ardenna carneipes) on Lord Howe Island, Australia, and compare results from photos taken in two separate locations using different equipment. Photos were acquired of up to 250 fragments at a time with a spatial resolution of 70 μm/pixel and were colour-corrected using a reference chart to ensure accurate reproduction of colour. The automated image analysis pipeline was found to have a 98% success rate at detecting fragments, and the different size and shape parameters that can be outputted by the pipeline were compared in terms of usefulness.

The evidence shown in this study should strongly encourage the uptake of this method for cataloguing macro-scale plastic pollution, as it provides substantially higher quality data with accurate, reliable measurements of size, shape and colour for individual plastics that can be readily compared between disparate datasets.”

Reference:

Hollis, J.R., Henderson, G, Lavers, J.L., Rea, E., Komyakova, V. & Bond, A.L. 2023.  Quantitative photography for rapid, reliable measurement of marine macro-plastic pollution.  Methods in Ecology and Evolution. doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.14267.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 19 December 2023

New Zealand has the greatest number and diversity of seabird species, 90% of which are threatened or at risk of extinction. This includes the Antipodean Albatross Diomedea antipodensis (pictured), listed as Endangered by the IUCN. Photograph by Kerry-Jayne Wilson

Each year thousands of albatrosses and petrels die through entanglements with fishing gear and swallowing baited hooks and drowning. A new “Seabird-Safe Fishing Toolkit” aims to tackle the problem.

The project, which has been welcomed by the fishing industry, Governments and NGO’s, is being developed by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ocean and Fisheries Working Group (OFWG) and was presented to a recent APEC roundtable by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (NZDOC) and the Southern Seabirds Trust.

The toolkit facilitates direct engagement with the fishing industry and equips them with essential information to help reduce seabird bycatch. This includes, the ocean areas important to threatened seabirds, access to distribution maps for all ACAP species, information on seabird bycatch mitigation options (including ACAP’s Best Practice Advice guidelines), as well as information on fisheries monitoring tools for verification.

Igor Debski is the Convenor of ACAP's Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBWG) and was Lead Technical Advisor in the development of the toolkit. Commenting on the project, he said:

“The toolkit represents a new and exciting approach to improve the implementation of ACAP’s Best Practice Advice by engaging directly with the vessel-to-market supply chain. Improved bycatch mitigation in fisheries is a key action needed to address the conservation crisis faced by ACAP-listed species.”

ACAP recommends that the most effective approach to reduce or avoid seabird bycatch in longline fisheries is through the simultaneous use of line weighting to sink baited hooks as close to the vessel as possible to reduce their availability to seabirds, bird scaring lines to deter birds from baited hooks, and setting longlines at night.

The Agreement’s comprehensive range of Best Practice Advice guidelines and factsheets containing proven mitigation measures are available in multiple languages and are accessible through the ACAP website.

ACAP’s Advisory Committee endorsed and encouraged support for the development of the toolkit at its meeting in May (AC13), the plans for which were presented to the Eleventh Meeting of the SBWG (SBWG11). Sebastian Jiminez and Dimas Gianuca, the ACAP SBWG Convenors, along with Ed Sullivan, an SBWG member, are also involved in the development of the toolkit as members of the expert reference groups for the project. 

Development of the tollkit will take place over 2024 and will be presented to the APEC Oceans and Fisheries Working Group in August 2024.

18 December 2023

“Faces of Seabird Conservation” is the theme of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) next year in February, and a special exhibition is planned for the event which will celebrate the "people who love and work with seabirds".

Organisers are putting a final call-out for the public to get involved and submit a profile of a seabird scientist they feel should be featured in the exhibition. The exhibiton style is based on the famed Humans of New York project which combines candid photos with short first-person vignettes highlighting personal experiences.

Profiles submitted to the exhibition should adhere to the following specifications as requested by PSG:

Overall guidelines

• Profiles and photos should be created and submitted by someone other than the subject. In other words, you can’t interview yourself, but you are welcome to ask someone else to photograph and interview you! 
• Interview subjects can include people who work with seabirds in any capacity: not only PSG members and those in traditional academic, agency, or NGO positions, but anyone from any walk of life. Think journalists, artists, educators, guides, volunteers, boat captains, technicians, elected officials, local community members, tribal partners, administrators, and anyone else for whom seabird conservation is an important part of their life and work.
• Please provide the subject’s name and e-mail so that we can verify that we have their permission to use their story and image. Subjects will be able to choose whether or not they would like their name to be shared along with their profile.

Photos

• Photos may be vertically or horizontally oriented and show all or part of the subject’s body.
• The setting should be visible and preferably outdoors (i.e., not a plain or studio backdrop) and can include materials related to the story or meaningful to the subject.
• Photos should be sufficiently high resolution to be printed at up to 8x10 inch dimensions.

Vignettes

• Written vignettes should be in the first person (I, me) and should be no more than 400 words in length (preferably shorter). Longer entries will be accepted but may be edited.
• The vignette should describe a specific personal story, philosophical statement, or biographical detail, rather than covering the subject’s entire life or career. You may condense a longer interview as long as you maintain the subject’s words and voice.
• Interviews can be conducted in any language. If your profile is not in English, please submit the original along with an English translation if possible.

Submissions received on or before 31 December 2023 will be considered for inclusion in the exhibit at the 2024 Annual Meeting. Further information on the "Faces of Seabird Conservation" project, including examples, a link to example interview questions, and the profile submission link, can be found, here. If you have any questions, please contact, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The 51st Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group (PSG2024) is being held in Seattle, Washington, United States, 21-23 February 2024. Further information about the meeting can be found at the PSG2024 meeting page, here.

15 December 2023