An Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross tends its chick in the Falaises d'Entrecasteaux colony on Amsterdam Island, watercolour by ABUN artist, Silvia Abramant, after a photograph by Dominique Filippi

For the sixth year, ACAP is collaborating with with the international collective Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) to produce artworks in support of World Albatross Day on 19 June.  This year ACAP’s theme for WAD2025 is “Effects of Disease”, featuring the Endangered Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis, endemic to France’s Amsterdam Island in the southern Indian Ocean, and the Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri.  Both species are at risk from several diseases on Amsterdam Island.  ABUN Project #49 commenced on 01 April and will run until 31 May.

Silvia Abramant in her studio working on a botanical illustration

Most pleasant to report that within 24 hours the first painting had been submitted by Brazilian artist Silvia Abramant.  This might well be a record!  ACAP Latest News got in touch with Silvia to learn more about her and her art.  She writes that she lives in São Paulo, Brazil, has been painting for over 20 years and worked as an art teacher, following professional training at the Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo and taking courses in botanical illustration. She says watercolour is her favourite medium.  “I love drawing the peace of nature and being able to contribute through art and conservation”.

Albatrosses at sunset, artwork by Silvia Abraman for World Albatross Day, 19 June 2020, from a photograph by Dimas Gianuca

Silvia is no stranger to painting for ACAP, going back to the inaugural World Albatross Day in 2020, with two of her previous works illustrated here.

White-capped Albatross by Silvia Abramant for World Albatross Day, 19 June 2020, from a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

With the first artwork for ABUN Project #49 arriving the day after launching, ACAP has high hopes of quite a few more artworks arriving in support of albatross conservation over the next two months.  Get your brushes out!

With thanks to Silvia Abramant and Marion Schön, Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 07 April 2025

Succumbed to HPAI.  Corpse of a Wandering Albatross chick in the Goney Plain long-term monitoring colony, Marion Island, November 2024, photograph by Rhiannon Gill

“My worst day was checking areas of Prinsloomeer and the Goney Plain monitoring colony on 20 November 2024 and coming across carcass after carcass.  I counted 53 carcasses of Wandering Albatross chicks and two still alive but ill, both of which later died.  I removed 18 metal bands from corpses of chicks I had banded earlier in the breeding season”- Rhiannon Gill, Marion Island Field Researcher

I feel Rhiannon's pain at finding so many dead chicks in a single day. In the late 1970s/early 1980s I, along with colleagues, set up long-term monitoring colonies for Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans and Northern Giant Petrels Macronectes halli on Marion Island.  Since then these study colonies have resulted in many scientific papers being published, as well as quite a few MSc and PhD degrees being awarded.  As well as threats to the study birds from pelagic longline fisheries in the Southern Ocean, they are at risk from attacks by the island’s introduced House Mice.  Now the birds, as well as other species on the island, face a new threat, from the High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) virus.  In November last year came the news that the HPAI virus was suspected to be killing Wandering Albatrosses on Marion.  Due to the infrequent visits by ships to the sub-Antarctic island, it has taken until last month to bring samples back to South Africa for analysis.

Close to fledging: another 2023/25 Wandering Albatross chick that succumbed to the HJPAI virus on Marion Island, photograph by Rhiannon Gill

The South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has now confirmed the presence of the HPAI H5N1virus on Marion Island, affecting at least six seabird species.  Excerpts from the DFFE media release follow:

“The presence of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus on Marion Island has been confirmed.  Samples collected between September and December 2024 were all shipped back to mainland South Africa, via the S.A. Agulhas II, in February 2025.  In March, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing confirmed infection in six bird species, comprising Wandering Albatross, King Penguin Aptenodytes patagonicus, Brown (Subantarctic) Skua Stercorarius [Catharacta] antarcticus, Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus, Northern Giant Petrel and Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca.

Among Wandering Albatrosses, chicks were mostly affected, with at least 150 of approximately 1900 chicks from the [2024/25] cohort having died.  Much smaller numbers of affected giant petrels (at least 20 Southern and four Northern) and Sooty Albatrosses (five) have been observed.  The deaths of adult seabirds are of greater concern than chicks, because most species only start to breed at 3 to 10 years of age, and most affected species raise at most one chick per year.”

Also at risk to HPAI: Albatross Valley on Prince Edward Island with its densely breeding Wandering Albatrosses, photograph by Bruce Dyer

Visits to nearby Prince Edward Island are limited to one every four years to limit human impacts.  The last survey was undertaken in November 2023, so it is unknown whether HPAI has arrived.  However, it seems likely, given that banded Marion birds, including Wandering Albatrosses, giant petrels and skuas, have been seen on Prince Edward.

Having spread around much of the globe since 2021, HPAI (H5N1) has now been detected in seabirds on a number of sub-Antarctic islands, including the French Crozets, where interchanges of banded Wandering Albatrosses with both Marion and Prince Edward Islands have occurred, allowing the potential spread of the HPAI virus.

Together, South Africa’s Marion and Prince Edward Islands support approximately half the world’s population of Wandering Albatrosses.  The presence of this new threat is placing the globally Vulnerable species at increased risk.  At least Prince Edward Island is thankfully free of Marion’s albatross-killing mice.

Read a media article about the Marion Island HPAI announcement here. ACAP’s theme for World Albatross Day on 18 June 2025 is “Effects of Disease”

With thanks to Rhiannon Gill, Marion Island Field Researcher, South African Polar Research Infrastructure.

References:

Brown, C.R. & Oatley, T.B. 1982.  Bird ringing at Marion and Pr9ince Edward Islands, 1977-1982.  South African Journal of Antarctic Research 12: 45-48.

Cooper, J. & Weimerskirch, H. 2003.  Exchange of Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans between the Prince Edward and Crozet Islands: implications for conservation.  African Journal of Marine Science 25: 519-523.

Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment 2024.  Protocol for the Management of High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) for the South African National Antarctic Programme. [Cape Town]: Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.  25 pp.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels. 01 April 2025

A Laysan Albatross with a protruding plastic ribbon on Kure Atoll, photograph by Isabelle Beaudoin

Isabelle Beaudoin, a seabird biologist currently on Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, writes a weekly post on her observations and thoughts for the Facebook page of the Kure Atoll Conservancy.  In her latest contribution she narrates how she saved a Laysan albatross Phoebastria imuutabilis chick from a likely death, as given in full below.

”On a sombre but resolved note, yesterday I came across a mōlī  (Laysan albatross) chick on the camp beach path that had a bright orange ribbon, about 4’ [1.2 m] long, trailing out of its bill.  The chick was alert, alive and well, but I knew in a heartbeat what that ribbon was attached to at its other end.  I very quickly snapped a few documenting photographs, before gently tugging on the ribbon, hoping against hope that what it was attached to was not lodged in the digestive tract.  To my great relief, I felt some give, and on the second tug, out slithered from the chick’s bill a bright orange rubber balloon, about 4 inches [10 cm] long.   The ugly thing now lay on the sand next to the chick, with its long trailing ribbon, at the end of which a loop still existed where it had no doubt been tied to a child’s wrist.  The orange balloon was Mickey-Mouse shaped, and still had black writing that read ‘Tokyo Disney Resort’, along with a black Mickey-Mouse icon.  I paused to remember the moment, disgusted.  I was very glad I’d been able to remove this piece of garbage from the albatross, and that the balloon had not made its way further down into the digestive tract, blocking it."

The Mickey Mouse balloon and attached ribbon from the Tokyo Disney Resort after removal, photograph by Isabelle Beaudoin

The waters surrounding Japan fall within the at-sea range of the Laysan Albatross but it is impossible to guess quite how far the ballon travelled from the Tokyo Disney Resort before being mistaken as a food item by one of the chick’s parents.  However, it is a reminder of the widespread (and international) problem of plastic pollution and the regular ingestion of balloons and other plastic items by ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.  In 2023 “Plastic Pollution” was ACAP‘s theme for World Albatross Day on 19 June.  Sad to see the problem still persists.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels. 03 April 2025

Header design by Marion Schön, after photographs by Laurie Smaglick Johnson and Kirk Zufelt

For the sixth year running, ACAP is pleased to collaborate once more  with Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN).  For Project #49 the collective’s artists are being requested to produce artworks featuring the Endangered Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis, endemic to France’s Amsterdam Island, and the Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri.  The artworks will be in support of ACAP’s theme “Effects of Disease” for this year’s World Albatross Day on 19 June (WAD2025), the sixth to be held.  The project commenced on 01 April and will run until 31 May.,.

Both species are at risk from Pasteurella multocida that causes avian cholera and Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (causing erysipela) on Amsterdam Island.  As for other albatrosses on islands in the Southern Ocean, they are also at risk to the Highly Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus.

Photographs of the two albatrosses are available to view in an ABUN Facebook album to guide and inspire the artists.  The two albatross species will also feature in this year’s World Albatross Day with a photography competition, posters and infographics.

With thanks to Marion Schön, Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 02 April 2025