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The Global Seabird Programme of BirdLife International publishes an annual newsletter entitled SeaChange that includes short articles on its activities in helping save seabirds around the World.

The latest 12-page issue of SeaChange (Number 8, for August 2012) has been published to coincide with the Fifth International and Albatross Conference (IAPC5) to be held in a little over a week's time in Wellington, New Zealand.  Articles cover activities of BirdLife's Albatross Task Force: expanding into Peru, testing novel mitigation measures to reduce longline hooking rates, and considering the effects of gill nets on diving seabirds.

Other news reports on a collaborative effort between Japan, New Zealand and South Africa to produce a photographic identification guide for seabird corpses to be used by on-board observers.  Species highlighted in the newsletter include the ACAP-listed Black Petrel Procellaria westlandica and Cory's Shearwater Calonectris diomedea, a potential candidate for listing within the Agreement.

Identifying drowned seabirds: this is a Whie-chinned Petrel
Photograph by Nicolas Gasco

An update on plans to eradicate the "killer mice" of Gough Island and save the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena is given by Richard Cuthbert, RSPB Conservation Scientist, who co-manages seabird research on the island with Peter Ryan of the FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town.

All the earlier issues of SeaChange are also available on-line.

With thanks to Orea Anderson, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for information.

John Cooper, ACP Information Officer, 5 August 2012