Registration for the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group to be held over 23-27 February 2026 is now open.  In an effort to reduce carbon footprint and engage a wider variety of scientists from around the world, the conference will be held fully online.

The theme for the meeting is “Seabirds: Connecting Oceans, Islands, and People.”

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John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 10 October 2025

Sooty Albatrosses on Amsterdam Island, photograph by Jeremie Demay

Camille Schatz (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) and colleagues have published open access in the ornithological journal Oikos on analysing long-term recapture data sets for four populations of Sooty Phoebetria fusca and Light-mantled P. palpebratq Albatrosses breeding on three French islands in the southern Indian Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The variability in responses to environmental change between populations remains poorly quantified and understood.   This shortcoming has major consequences, as variation and flexibility of life-history traits between populations contribute to the estimation of the adaptive potential, which is necessary for predicting the responses of interconnected populations to environmental change.  Here, we use 20–50 years of capture-mark-recapture data from four populations of two closely related species in the southern Indian Ocean, the sooty albatross Phoebetria fusca and the light-mantled sooty albatross Phoebetria palpebrata, to analyze their demographic responses to environmental changes across an oceanic basin scale.  We assessed the role of climate and oceanographic conditions as bottom–up forcings and fisheries bycatch as a top–down forcing on survival and three reproductive parameters in each population.  We found expected demographic responses: negative effects of fishing effort on survival and breeding success, positive effects of wind velocity on breeding success, negative effects of warm sea surface temperature anomalies, and positive effects of sea ice concentration.  Furthermore, our results highlight differences between populations, revealing three main outcomes.  First, the two populations situated at the edge of their distribution seemed more affected by variations in oceanographic conditions than counterparts situated within the core of their ranges.  Second, the two northernmost populations experiencing lower wind speed, had their breeding success affected by meridional wind speed. Third, a large-scale climate index had opposite effects on demographic parameters of the two populations situated in the western and eastern parts of the southern Indian Ocean.  This comparison of the variation in demographic responses to environmental conditions at the inter-population level, sheds light on our limited understanding of the processes that account for life-history trait variation between populations and suggests that local environmental conditions and large-scale climate patterns may drive the diversity of local ecological responses across species' ranges.”

With thanks to Karine Delord.

Reference:

Schatz, C., Delord, K., Joubert, D., Peretou, S., Sun, R. & Barbraud, C. 2025.  Inter-population variation in demographic responses to environmental changes: insights from four seabird populations.  Oikos doi.org/10.1002/oik.11364.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 09 October 2025

WorldView-3 30-cm resolution satellite image of Minami-kojima and Kita-kojima, Senkaku Islands, western North Pacific Ocean on 27 November 2020, with inset showing primary (P) and secondary (S) nest count areas of Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus; ©2020 Maxar Technologies (read more here)

Morten Frederiksen (Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark) and colleagues have reviewed open access in the ICES Journal of Marine Science technological advances in monitoring seabird populations.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Monitoring of seabird population size and demography has for decades relied on observer-based methods. While such methods have allowed the accumulation of extensive, standardized time series, while typically involving both volunteer and professional observers, they often suffer from uneven coverage across species and locations, as well as limited replicability. Technological advances, in the form of, for example, visual and/or thermal imagery collected either by permanently situated automated cameras or remote-sensing technology, acoustic data loggers, or automated presence/absence biotelemetry systems, show great potential for overcoming the limitations of observer-based methods and extending coverage of monitoring programmes to more difficult circumstances and species. However, there are challenges and risks associated with the introduction of technology-based monitoring such as initial costs, data storage, post-processing of the large amounts of data, and potential alienation of experienced fieldworkers. We review the issues that agencies responsible for seabird monitoring should consider before introducing technology-based monitoring to complement existing methods, and we provide a set of recommendations and potential future research directions.”

Reference:

Frederiksen, M., Layton-Matthews, K., Bennett, S., Funder Castenschiold, J.H., Cruz-Flores, M., Edney, A.J., Fauchald, P., Franklin, K.A., Guímaro, H.R., Hereward, H.F.R., Johnston, D.T., Merkel, B., Molværsmyr, SW., Sauser, C., Snell, K.R.S. & Humphreys, E.M. 2025.  Opportunities and challenges for new technologies in seabird population monitoring.  ICES Journal of Marine Science, 82, doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaf115.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 08 October 2025

The steep slopes of Inaccessible Island, photograph by John Cooper

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) has published in Ostrich Journal of African Ornithology on the petrel populations of rarely visited Inaccessible Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha group in the South Atlantic.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Petrels that breed in burrows and return to their colonies after dark are among the mostj poorly studied seabirds. Brown Skuas Stercorarius antarcticus (family Stercorariidae) are major predators of burrowing petrels at many seabird breeding islands in the Southern Ocean, so monitoring the diet of skuas can provide insights into petrel population trends. Regurgitated pellets and other prey remains indicate that petrels comprise 94% (monthly range 91–97%) of all prey items in the pellets and other prey remains on Inaccessible Island, Tristan da Cunha. Other seabirds (0.7%), land birds (1.0%), subantarctic fur seals Arctocephalus tropicalis (0.5%) and marine animals (3.5%) make up the remainder of the Brown Skua diet. At least 12 species of petrels are eaten, including two species that are not known to breed on Inaccessible Island, but five taxa comprised over 98% of all petrels eaten: Fregetta storm petrels (44%), White-faced Storm Petrels Pelagodroma marina (23%), Broad-billed Prions Pachyptila vittata (21%), Great Shearwaters Ardenna gravis (6%) and Common Diving Petrels Pelecanoides urinatrix (5%). Pellets containing 2 or 3 avian prey items (15% of pellets) were more likely to contain conspecifics than heterospecifics, indicating either local differences in prey distribution or individual dietary specialisation. The prey composition changed seasonally linked to the phenology of the prey species, with White-faced Storm Petrels more common in the skua diet in spring, and Fregetta storm petrels in summer. Fur seals and Great Shearwaters have become more important in the skua diet, reflecting known or suspected increases in the populations of these species on the island, whereas the populations of Common Diving Petrels and Subantarctic Shearwaters Puffinus elegans may have decreased. Modal tarsal length of Fregetta storm petrels changed from 37 mm in 1987/89 to 39 mm in 2009, suggesting a possible increase of F. tropica relative to F. grallaria in the skua diet. However, overall there has been little change in the diet of Brown Skuas on this island over the last four decades.”

Reference:

Ryan, P.G. 2024.  Long-term changes in petrel populations on Inaccessible Island, Tristan da Cunha, inferred from the diet of Brown Skuas Stercorarius antarcticus.  Ostrich Journal of African Ornithology 95: 163-171.

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