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The near-endemic and Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena of Gough Island suffers annually from fatal attacks on its chicks by introduced House Mice Mus musculus. Click here to watch a graphic video of one such night-time attack which led to the chick dying the next day.

In recent years, annual counts of incubating birds have been made over the whole island as part of a project jointly administered by the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town and the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).  Based on the last three surveys (2008-2010) the annual population of this biennially-breeding species has been around 1800 pairs, with an observed range of 1764-1826 pairs.  No total count could be made in 2011 due to a shortage of manpower following a medical evacuation.

This year's whole-island count, undertaken by Karen Bourgeois and Sylvain Dromzée scanning from vantage points, garnered only 1421 occupied nests, the second lowest total since annual counts commenced in 2004.  However, a more accurate census of 206 marked nests occupied by incubating birds in the three long-term demographic study sites in the southern part of the island suggests little change over the last half-decade.

There is no reason to assume that hungry mice will not start attacking post-guard chicks come the otherwise lean winter months this year, leading once more to too few birds fledging to sustain the species' population.  Eradication of mice from the whole of Gough therefore remains the essential prize to ensure the continued survival of the Tristan Albatross.

A Tristan Albatross guards its downy chick on Gough Island

Research on Tristan Albatrosses and plans to eradicate mice from Gough Island are supported by a grant to the RSPB from the UK's Overseas Territories Environment Programme and the UK Government's Darwin Initiative programme, and logistically by the South African Department of Environment Affairs.

Thanks to Richard Cuthbert for information and Ross Wanless, BirdLife South Africa for his video.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 April 2012, updated 3 May 2012