Archives

{mosimage} 

On Thursday 4 September 2008, an expedition will sail from Cape Town, South Africa for Gough Island in the South Atlantic to continue a demographic study of the Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena. 

The Tristan Albatross, an ACAP-listed species, is endemic to the United Kingdom's Tristan da Cunha Group, of which Gough (see also http://www.btinternet.com/~sa_sa/gough_island/gough_island.html) is a part.  The albatross has been recently recategorized as Critically Endangered due to fatal attacks of chicks by "killer" House Mice Mus musculus - which result in very low breeding success that is insufficient to sustain the population.  Gough Island is a nature reserve, and with Inaccessible Island in the Tristan Group is also a World Heritage Site.

The expedition is a joint one, managed on behalf of the Tristan Agriculture and Natural Resources Department by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (the UK Partner of BirdLife International) and South Africa's University of Cape Town.  Funding for the island work has been received from the Overseas Territories Environment Programme (OTEP). 

The team will be led by Dr Richard Cuthbert (RSPB), with support from John Cooper (UCT) and Trevor Glass (Tristan Conservation Officer) and will place two South African field workers, Henk  Louw and Paul Visser, on the island for a full year to study aspects of the bird's biology, as well as to conduct needed research on the susceptibility of mice to an eradication exercise by dropping poison bait from helicopters (see http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/projects/tristandacunha/publications.asp).

The expedition will be travelling on South Africa's Antarctic research/supply vessel, the S.A. Agulhas, which visits the island every year to relieve the six-person team that runs South Africa's weather station on Gough.

Information from John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, posted 3 September 2008