The Butterfly Art Project was founded in 2010 in greater Cape Town to train and mentor Community Art Facilitators who provide psychosocial support to children in under-resourced South African communities through art therapeutic classes.  The project’s art classes help children develop healthy coping mechanisms for processing stress and healing from trauma.  It aims to encourage creativity and healing through art to build strong communities of active, artistic and stable citizens that can recognise and utilise opportunities.  This year, 249 facilitators are serving over 10 200 children in 112 communities.

This year’s theme for the project is entitled Trial of Courage, focusing on print making via the linocut process.  Albatrosses were chosen as the theme’s inspiration, taking note of how introduced House Mice on South Africa's sub-Antarctic Marion Island had become a threat, both to the island’s albatrosses and to their environment.  Sanet Visser, a Community Art Facilitator based in Vrygrond, has written to ACAP Latest News explaining that the project asked children in the participating schools whether they knew albatrosses shared with us the same danger to health caused by mice.  She went on to say that the children enjoyed the process of producing artworks via lino printing; three of which are illustrated here. The children's art will be on display in a Cape Town shopping mall from Mandela Day on 18 July to 31 July.

Read more about the Butterfly Art Project on its Facebook page.

With thanks to Sanet Visser, Community Art Facilitator, Vrygrond and Robyn Adams, Communications Officer, Mouse-Free Marion Project.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 July 2022

A pair of Wandering Albatrosses on Marion Island, the male (left) is incubating on the nest; photograph by Alexis Osborne

Mia Momberg (Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa) and colleagues have published online in Ibis International Journal of Avian Science on whether wind, vegetation, and geological characteristics affect nest-site selection by globally Vulnerable Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans at Marion Island.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Several factors may drive bird nest-site selection, including predation risk, resource availability, weather conditions, and interaction with other individuals. Understanding the drivers affecting where birds nest is important for conservation planning, especially where environmental change may alter the distribution of suitable nest sites. This study investigates which environmental variables affect nest-site selection by the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans, the world’s largest pelagic bird.  Here, wind characteristics are quantitatively investigated as a driver of nest-site selection in surface nesting birds, in addition to several topographical variables, vegetation, and geological characteristics. Nest locations from three different breeding seasons on sub-Antarctic Marion Island were modelled to assess which environmental factors affect nest-site selection. Elevation was the most important determinant of nest-site selection, with Wandering Albatrosses only nesting at low elevations. Distance from the coast and terrain roughness were also important predictors, with nests more generally found close to the coast and in flatter terrain, followed by wind velocity, which showed a hump-shaped relationship with the probability of nest occurrence. Nests occurred more frequently on coastal vegetation types, and were absent from polar desert vegetation (generally above ~ 500 m elevation). Of the variables that influence Wandering Albatross nest location, both vegetation type and wind characteristics are likely to be influenced by climate change, and have already changed over the last 50 years. As a result, the availability of suitable nest sites needs to be considered in light of future climatic change, in addition to the impacts that these changes will have on foraging patterns and prey distribution. More broadly, these results provide insights into how a wide range of environmental variables, including wind, can affect nest-site selection of surface nesting seabirds.”

Reference:

Momberg, M., Ryan, P.G., Hedding, D.W., Schoombie, J., Goddard, K.A., Craig, K.J. & Le Roux, P.C. 2022.  Factors determining nest-site selection of surface-nesting seabirds: A case study on the world’s largest pelagic bird, the Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans).  Ibis International Journal of Avian Science  doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13111.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 July 2022

The Mouse-Free Marion Project is working towards the eradication of the island’s albatross-killing House Mice.  This week the project released the second issue of its quarterly newsletter (No. 2, July 2022), available from the MFM website here.

In the issue, the MFM Operations Manager Keith Springer writes a personal essay on how proper planning is key to ensuring a successful eradication operation.  The MFM Project Manager, Anton Wolfaardt explains the urgent need to ensure a mouse-free Marion Island. The newsletter also describes how the project marked last month’s World Albatross Day, which included co-publishing with ACAP an infographic for the Endangered Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca.  The albatross is threatened by Marion Island’s mice - as the infographic below depicts.

The MFM Project also produced a poster (see below) illustrated in the newsletter to mark WAD2022 that shows the four breeding albatrosses of Marion Island.  All are threatened by mice.

Join the mailing list to stay up to date on future news from the MFM Project.  It can also be followed on Facebook and Instagram.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 July 2022

Kitty Harvill holds the book she illustrated on Wisdom, the world’s oldest known albatross

Kitty Harvill, Co-founder of Artist and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) and valued ACAP supporter, is to be recognized for her contribution to art and wildlife with Artists for Conservation’s (AFC) top honour: the Simon Combes Conservation Artist Award.  The AFC bestows the award annually to individuals for exemplifying the achievements and dedication of the award's namesake.  The award was established in 2006 and has become the world's most prestigious conservation award for visual artists.  Simon Combes was a prominent member of the AFC until his tragic passing in 2004, when he was killed in an encounter with a Cape Buffalo near his home.

“Kitty is a rare kind of inspiring artist and conservationist, and an extraordinary role model of resourcefulness, creativity, persistence and passion." explains AFC President and Founder, Jeff Whiting (click here).  Kitty writes to ACAP Latest News " I will be receiving the award in person in Vancouver, Canada on the opening night of the four-day AFC Festival over 22-25 September, celebrating this year's annual international exhibition."

 
“Lost in a Rising Sea” watercolour by Kitty Harvill in support of WAD2022 and its theme of Climate Change; after a photograph by Koa Matsuoka, poster dresign by Michelle Risi

Over three years, ACAP has received more than 500 individual artworks, music videos and collage posters from ABUN in support of World Albatross Day on 19 June to use in creating awareness of the conservation crisis faced by the 31 species of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters listed by the Agreement; many of the works painted by Kitty herself.  The works have been used to create World Albatross Day posters, in the ACAP Species Summary series, and regularly to illustrate articles posted to ACAP Latest News.  Kitty Harvill writes to ACAP’s Information Officer: “I'm so very pleased that ABUN has had the privilege of supporting the important work that ACAP is doing”.

A collage of the 22 ACAP-listed albatrosses painted by Kitty Harvill for World Albatross Day 2020
A Grey Petrel chick painted in acrylics by Kitty Harvill for ACAP's "Petrels in Peril" project in 2021; after a photograph taken on Marion Island by Ben Dilley 

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement looks forward to collaborating once more with Kitty and her ABUN artists early next year in support of World Albatross Day 2023.  A theme for the day, and the two species of albatrosses the artists will be asked to illustrate, are currently under consideration, with an announcement expected in a few months’ time.

Artists for Conservation is the world's leading group of artists supporting the environment.  Founded in 1997, the non-profit organization comprises a membership of 500 of the world's most gifted nature artists from 27 countries across five continents.

With thanks to Kitty Harvill.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 July 2022