UPDATE:  Seven Black Petrel chicks were banded within the sanctuary this year according to the online HARATUA May at Glenfern Sanctuary newsletter:  " We have several takoketai [Black Petrel] burrows within the sanctuary and final burrow checks in May found seven healthy chicks ready to fledge. We were lucky to get the help of Nikki McArthur and Samantha Ray (pictured) from Wildlife Management International who helped band the young birds."

Read an earlier posting in ALN on the effects of a storm within the Glenfern Sanctuary.

The ACAP-listed and globally and nationally Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni was first recorded breeding in the mid 1990s within the Glenfern Sanctuary, an Auckland Council Regional Park since 2016, on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island.

Situated on the island’s west-coast Kotuku Peninsula, the 83-ha sanctuary falls within a 240-ha fenced area.  The 2.1-km predator-proof fence, built in 2008 and extended in 2010, is largely effective in keeping out introduced mammals such as feral cats, dogs and pigs from the peninsula, although at low tide cats occasionally gain access around either end of the fence where it reaches the sea.  Since 1994 Black Rats, Pacific Rats (Kiore) and a small number of House Mice have been controlled with a current network of up to 1560 rat traps and the regular use of tracking cards to detect rodent presence on the peninsula.  In 2009 two aerial bait drops from a helicopter using Brodifacoum eliminated European Rabbits on the peninsula within the fence.  Econode SmartTraps targeting feral cats are set all year round.  This season three cats have been trapped within the sanctuary. Two pest-detection dogs are also utilized.

Within the fenced area on the peninsula there are 88 known seabird burrows, at least 27 made by Black Petrels, with 13 of them currently occupied.  More burrows may exist.  Sarah Matthew of the Glenfern Sanctuary writes to ACAP Latest News “we are in the process of increasing our monitoring to get a better understanding of breeding success.  To date monitoring efforts have been [on] locating new burrows and checking for occupancy. This year we will visit all burrows three times to help us understand how many chicks fledge successfully.”  Cook’s Petrel Pterodroma cookii (globally Vulnerable) also breed within the sanctuary.

A Black Petrel chick in its burrow within the Glenfern Sanctuary

An Econode SmartTrap

Photographs from the Glenfern Sanctuary

Elsewhere on Great Barrier Island the Black Petrel breeds in numbers around the summit of Mount Hobson, as well as on nearby Little Barrier Island (click here).

The Glenfern Sanctuary is open to the public during daylight hours with access via a 2-km track through woodland with guided tours available.  Read more about the sanctuary and its activities in its online monthly newsletter.

With thanks to Sarah Matthew, Glenfern Sanctuary for information and photographs

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 April 2019, updated 02 May & 02 June 2019

"Kalama's Journey: One Mōlī's Story Among Millions" has received a bronze Telly Award in the Nature and Wildlife Category.  The eight-minute film was written and produced  by author and photographer, Hob Osterlund, a resident of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands.  Hob founded the Kauai Albatross Network and is a Fellow of the Safina Center.  Rosemary Rawcliffe of Frame of Mind Films and Carl Safina (author of the 2002 book  Eye of the Albatross. Visions of Hope and Survival) acted as Executive Producers.

Kalama starts to lose her down

Previously, ACAP Latest News wrote:

“Kalama, a globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis chick on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, became well known by being the subject of a live-streaming “albicam”, hosted and operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  The video takes the watcher through the hatching, rearing and fledging of an albatross chick reared by an all-female pair.  The audio discusses the problems of sea-level rise and the importance of Kauai’s breeding albatrosses protected from climate change by nesting at altitude on bluff and cliff tops” (click here).

"The Telly Awards is the premier award honouring video and television across all screens. Established in 1979, The Telly Awards receives over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. Entrants are judged by The Telly Awards Judging Council - an industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies, and major television networks, reflective of the multi-screen industry The Telly Awards celebrates."

Hob Osterlund is the author of Holy Mōlī: Albatross and other Ancestors.  Click here for the ACAP Latest News review of her book.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 May 2019

One of the female parents incubates Kalama's egg

Photographs by Hob Osterlund

Tim Guilford (Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK) and colleagues have published open access in the 2019 volume of the journal Seabird on how Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus react to artificial light at night

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Understanding the detrimental effects of anthropogenic light on nocturnally mobile animals is a long-standing problem in conservation biology.  Seabirds such as shearwaters and petrels can be especially affected, perhaps because of their propensity to fly close to the surface, making them vulnerable to encountering anthropogenic light sources.  We investigated the influence of light pollution on adult Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus at close range in foggy conditions.  We recorded collisions with a building at a breeding colony for six consecutive pairs of intervals in which the house lights were left on as normal for 135 seconds, then turned off for 135 seconds.  The relationship between lighting condition and collision frequency was highly significant, with a collision rate in the presence of lighting around 25 times that in its absence.  Our results show that birds were clearly affected by the lights, by being either directly attracted, or disorientated during flight close to the structure.   This could have been due to the light source itself, or an indirect effect of the all-round reflective glow in the fog perhaps interfering with visual or magnetic control inputs on both sides of the bird simultaneously.  Our results suggest a mechanism by which the screening of artificial lights close to shearwater breeding areas, at least during foggy nights, could lead to improved welfare and survival at breeding colonies.”

The building used for the experimental light source on Skomer Island - from the publication

Guilford, T., Padget, O., Bond, S. & Syposz, M.M. 2019.  Light pollution causes object collisions during local nocturnal manoeuvring flight by adult Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus.  Seabird 31: 48-55.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer 30 May 2019

Thomas Clay (School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK) and colleagues have published open access in the Journal of Animal Ecology on utilizing albatross and petrel bio-tracking data from South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* to identify “hot spot” overlaps with southern-hemisphere fisheries

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Incidental mortality (bycatch) in fisheries remains the greatest threat to many large marine vertebrates and is a major barrier to fisheries sustainability. Robust assessments of bycatch risk are crucial for informing effective mitigation strategies, but are hampered by missing information on the distributions of key life‐history stages (adult breeders and non‐breeders, immatures and juveniles).

Using a comprehensive biologging dataset (1,692 tracks, 788 individuals) spanning all major life‐history stages, we assessed spatial overlap of four threatened seabird populations from South Georgia, with longline and trawl fisheries in the Southern Ocean. We generated monthly population‐level distributions, weighting each life‐history stage according to population age structure based on demographic models. Specifically, we determined where and when birds were at greatest potential bycatch risk, and from which fleets.

Overlap with both pelagic and demersal longline fisheries was highest for black‐browed albatrosses, then white‐chinned petrels, wandering and grey‐headed albatrosses, whereas overlap with trawl fisheries was highest for white‐chinned petrels.

Hotspots of fisheries overlap occurred in all major ocean basins, but particularly the south‐east and south‐west Atlantic Ocean (longline and trawl) and south‐west Indian Ocean (pelagic longline). Overlap was greatest with pelagic longline fleets in May–September, when fishing effort south of 25°S is highest, and with demersal and trawl fisheries in January–June. Overlap scores were dominated by particular fleets: pelagic longline—Japan, Taiwan; demersal longline and trawl—Argentina, Namibia, Falklands, South Africa; demersal longline—Convention for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) waters, Chile, New Zealand.

Synthesis and applications.  We provide a framework for calculating appropriately weighted population‐level distributions from biologging data, which we recommend for future fisheries bycatch risk assessments. Many regions of high spatial overlap corresponded with high seabird bycatch rates recorded by on‐board observers, indicating that our approach reliably mapped relative bycatch risk at large spatial scales. Implementation of effective bycatch mitigation in these high‐risk regions varies considerably. Although potential bycatch risk appears to have decreased since the early 2000s, albatross and petrel populations from South Georgia and elsewhere are still declining, emphasizing the need for much improved observer coverage and monitoring of compliance with bycatch regulations.”

Wandering Albatross in the Drake Passage - one of the species studied; photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Reference:

Clay, T.A., Small, C., Tuck, G.N., Pardo, FD., Carneiro, A.P.B., Wood, A.G., Croxall, J.P., Crossin, G.T. & Phillips, R.A. 2019.  A comprehensive large‐scale assessment of fisheries bycatch risk to threatened seabird populations.  Journal of Applied Ecology https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13407.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 May 2019

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.