North West Island, Australia, the site of a successful house mice eradication operation

After a two-year campaign, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service has managed to successfully eradicate the invasive House Mice from a significant seabird breeding island off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  A popular tourist destination located within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, North West Island is home to more than 70% of the east-coast Wedge-tailed Shearwater population. Surveys of the Wedge-tailed Shearwater conducted between 2016 and 2019 showed a 40 per cent decline in the island's population.  Although not an ACAP-listed species, Wedge-tailed Shearwaters face similar threats to their survival as those listed: accidental death in fishing gear, introduced predators, diseases, habitat loss, human disturbance, pollution and climate change.

Aerial baiting was chosen for the eradication due to its precision and cost efficiency

A feasibility study for an eradication campaign, offering several management options and technical advice was completed in 2013, with the campaign beginning in earnest in 2020. The operation consisted of three aerial drops of 12 kg of bait per hectare, spaced 21 days apart and was carried out by an air and ground team. The island remained closed for a further 60 days to visitors to ensure sufficient breakdown of bait pellets to a point at which they posed no health risks to humans.

A Queensland Parks and Wildlife Ranger checks for mouse prints on an ink trap

The campaign was declared a success after two years of ink-trap monitoring showed no indication of House Mice on the island. However, bait stations will continue to be maintained for detection and early control should the mice return. 

A three and a half minute video about the campaign, produced by Australia’s public broadcaster the ABC, is shown below.  It is also available to watch from here.

From infestation to eradication: This Great Barrier Reef Island is mice free

All photographs courtesy of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.

Posted 9 September 2022, updated 12 September 2022

Gently does it: Tatiana Neves releases the rehabilitated Black-browed Albatross at sea; photograph by Emanuel Ferreira

A juvenile Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris was received by the wildlife rehabilitation organization R3 Animal after rescue from the shore at Praia da Armação (Armacao Beach), Florianópolis, Brazil on 31 July by the Bacia de Santos Beach Monitoring Project (Projeto de Monitoramento de Praias da Bacia de Santos).  Upon admission, the bird was found to be thin, extremely dehydrated and with ectoparasites present.

On discovery; photograph by Josiele Felli

Following health checks and medication over three weeks of rehabilitation it was released at sea near Xavier Island, Florianópolis, when it was photographed taking to flight from the water.  Aboard the release vessel was a team from the NGO Projeto Albatroz, including its founder and general coordinator, Tatiana Neves, who was given the honours of making the actual release.

After release: on the water and taking off; photographs by Nilson Coelho

Tatiana writes (in translation) “It was magic for me! After 33 years dedicating my life to the conservation of these birds, I'd never had the opportunity to release a live albatross.  A beautiful day, a beautiful rehabilitation job and a magnificent animal.”

Tatiana Neves with ACAP’s then Information Officer, John Cooper, Florianópolis, Brazil, when attending the Eleventh Meeting of the ACAP Advisory Committee (AC11), May 2019

Tatiana Neves is a long-time supporter of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement, having attended many of its meetings since its inception as a member of the Brazilian Delegation or representing her NGO.  After serving as a coordinator of an ACAP working group, she is currently the Vice-Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee.  It has been a great pleasure working with Tati on albatross conservation all these years.  Now retired from the ACAP Secretariat, I will miss our annual meetings around the world.

John Cooper, ACAP News Correspondent, 08 September 2022

A Northern Giant Petrel and chick; photograph by Janine Schoombie

The ACAP-listed Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli has been included in the Sixty-third Supplement to the Check-list of North American Birds, a publication of the American Ornithological Society. The supplement has been published in the journal, Ornithology. The inclusion of the Northern Giant Petrel is owing to its sighting by a fisherman off the coast of Ocean Park, Washington, U.S.A. 

First published in 1886, the Check-list is compiled by the AOS’s North American Classification Committee (NACC), the official authority on the names and classification of the region’s birds and is updated every summer. 

Access the full Check-list Supplement, here.

REFERENCE:

Chesser, R.T., Billerman, S.M., Burns, K.J., Cicero, C., Dunn, J.L., Hernández-Baños, B.E., Jiménez, R.A., Kratter, A.W., Mason, N.A., Rasmussen, P.C., Remsen Jr, J.R., Stotz, D.F., Winker, K. Sixty-third supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s Check-list of North American Birds, Ornithology, Volume 139, Issue 3, 7 July 2022, ukac020, https://doi.org/10.1093/ornithology/ukac020

White-capped Albatross by ABUN artist Lee Finke for ACAP; after a photograph by Graham Parker

Graham Parker (Parker Conservation) and colleagues have reported to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation via its Conservation Services Programme (CSP) on field work carried out over 2021/22 on Antipodean Diomedea antipodensis gibsoni and White-capped Thalassarche Albatrosses on the sub-Antarctic Adams and Disappointment Islands, Auckland Islands group.

The report’s summary follows:

“This report details the mark-recapture methods and findings for Gibson’s albatross and white-capped albatross at the Auckland Islands.  We present data on the size of the Gibson’s albatross nesting population on Adams Island in 2022 and update estimates of survival, productivity, and recruitment and foraging range to help identify causes of current population size and trends.  For white-capped albatrosses the focus is on estimating adult survival, documenting a study set up to quantify productivity, and drone trials to assess the suitability of drones for quantifying the breeding population size.

Gibson’s albatross. The survival rate of adult females and males has recuperated somewhat from the dramatically low survival rates recorded 2006–08.  However, at 92% the 10-year average survival rate for both sexes remains 4% lower than before the population crash in 2005, and is probably incompatible with population recovery given limited chick production.  Nesting success and chick production for the 2020 and 2021 cohorts could not be determined since we could not visit the island in 2021.  Mark-recapture models have shown a gradual but steady continuing decline in the Gibson’s albatross breeding population.  This is now starting to be reflected in the trend of nest counts as well: estimated island-wide nest numbers showed slow improvement 2008–13, but these gains have stalled with a current growth rate or lambda of 1.1.  The island-wide estimate of Gibson’s albatross nests in 2021–22 (4,434 nests) remains half the size of the pre-crash nesting population.  Transmitting GPS trackers were fitted on 39 breeding birds, along with 23 GLS loggers.  Together, survival, breeding numbers and recruitment show the slow Gibson’s albatross population recovery recorded over the decade 2007–16 has stalled.

White-capped albatross. Banded white-capped albatrosses were resighted at a rate of 0.25 in the study colony of 679 banded birds.  Adult survival was estimated as 89% (95% CI 86–91), taking into account different detection rates of nesting birds and those not on nest during colony visits.  This is similar to but more precise than the last estimate in 2020 (90%, 86–93).  Ten nest cameras were deployed to take time-lapse images of 61 active nests, which should provide data on productivity and refine our understanding of breeding-season timings.  Drone trials indicate that animal responses to a small drone are minimal, and the photographs obtained from programmed-grid overflight at 30–70 m over nests are suitable for counting apparently nesting birds.  Nest contents of apparently nesting birds were also quantified and whole-colony ground counts conducted, illustrating that ease of fitting in drone survey—and the ground-truthing needed to refine the accuracy of later counts from images—around other colony work.”

Access a Power Point presentation by the authors on their research from here.

Reference:

Parker, G.C., Elliott, G., Walker, K. & Rexer-Huber, K. 2022.  Gibson’s albatross and white-capped albatross in the Auckland Islands 2021–22.  Dunedin: Parker Conservation.  26 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP News Correspondent, 06 September 2022