The deadlines for both Abstract Submissions and Early Bird Registrations for the 6th International Albatross and Petrel Conference (IAPC6) have been extended to 10 April 2016 due to numerous requests from potential participants.

IAPC6 will be held in Barcelona Catalonia, Spain, from 19-23 September 2016.  The venue for the conference will be the historic Paranimf (Paranymph) of the University of Barcelona in the City Centre.

We invite you to submit your abstract and to register at http://iapc6.info where you can also find all information relative to the conference programme, keynote speakers and all linked events.

Read more here.

Jacob González-Solís, Raül Ramos, Gaia Dell’Ariccia, Virgínia Morera, Marta Cruz, Joan Ferrer & Laura Zango, IAPC6 Organizing Committee, 01 April 2016

Bruce Young (NatureServe, Arlington, USA) and James Zook have published in the journal Revista de Biología Tropical on seabirds seen in Costa Rican waters, including the ACAP-listed Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni and Pink-footed Shearwater Puffinus creatopus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Although the Eastern Tropical Pacific is well known for its diverse fauna, the seabirds occurring off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast have received little scientific attention.  With seabirds now the fastest declining avian group, a better understanding of seabird diversity and abundance in this region is urgently needed.  We report on observations of Costa Rica’s Pacific seabirds made during 19 days of observations on 11 offshore trips from 2006-2010.  We provide, for the first time, spatially and seasonally explicit information on the distribution of 41 species of seabirds (nine families).  Species diversity is higher during the dry-wet season (36 species) and wet-dry season transitions (36 species) than during the dry season (19 species). The fauna included three threatened species (Pterodroma phaeopygia, Procellaria parkinsoni, andPuffinus creatopus) and two near-threatened species (Psueudobulweria rostrata and Thalasseus elegans), highlighting the importance of Costa Rican waters for the conservation of seabirds.”

Black Petrel at sea, photograph by Biz Bell

Click here for a record of an ACAP-listed Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata in Costa Rican waters.

Reference:

2016.  Observation frequency and seasonality of marine birds off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  Revista de Biología Tropical 64 (Suppl. 1): S235-S248.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 March 2016

The Ninth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC9) will be held in La Serena, Chile over 9-13 May 2016.

Meeting documents and information papers for AC9 are now being posted to this website (click here).  These include the meeting agenda and a list of confirmed participants as well as financial and other reports from the ACAP Secretariat.

Waved Albatross, photograph by John Cooper

The meeting will be run by the Advisory Committee’s Acting Chair, Mark Tasker of the United Kingdom.  The Chair will be supported by the ACAP’s Secretariat consisting of Marco Favero, Executive Secretary, Wiesława Misiak, Science Officer and John Cooper, Information Officer, along with Juan Pablo Seco Pon and an interpretation team.

AC9 will be preceded by the Seventh Meeting of the Advisory Committee’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group from 2 to 4 May and the Third Meeting of the AC’s Population and Conservation Status Working Group on 5 and 6 May.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 March 2016

The European Commission has proposed that all relevant fishing vessels in the European Union implement measures to stop the accidental catching of seabirds in their fishing gear (click here)

The International Council for the Exploration of Sea (ICES) Working Group on Seabird Ecology (WGSE) has estimated that more than 200 000 seabirds die every year as a result of contact with the EU fishing fleet in EU and non-EU waters, including the ACAP-listed and Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus (click here).

The following text is taken from the proposed measures to reduce incidental catches of seabirds in the Mediterranean Sea, home of the Balearic Shearwater:

“Vessels fishing with longlines in the Mediterranean Sea shall use at least two of the following mitigation measures: bird scaring lines, weighted lines, setting the longline gear during the hours of darkness with the minimum of deck lighting necessary for safety” (see page 39).

Balearic Shearwater, photograph by Daniel Oro

In 2012, the European Commission published a Seabird Plan of Action in an effort to codify the actions needed from different national, regional and EU institutions to solve the issue of seabird bycatch across the EU. The new legislation now needs to be negotiated between the Council (i.e. Member States) and the European Parliament this year before it becomes enforceable law.

Read more on the EU Plan of Action here.

With thanks to the Miguel McMinn.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 March 2016