A Wedge-tailed Shearwater in its burrow on Oahu, photograph from Pacific Rim Conservation

“Moon, high and deep in the sky
Your light sees far,
You travel around the wide world,
and see into people's homes.
Moon, stand still a while
and tell me where is my dear.
Tell him, silvery moon,
that I am embracing him.
For at least momentarily
let him recall of dreaming of me.
Illuminate him far away,
and tell him, tell him who is waiting for him!
If his human soul is, in fact, dreaming of me,
may the memory awaken him!
Moonlight, don't disappear, disappear!

“Song to the Moon”, in translation, from the opera Rusalka by Antonin Dvorak

Patricia Janečková performs “Song to the Moon”

David Hyrenbach (Hawai’i Pacific University, Oahu, Hawaii, USA) and colleagues have published in ‘Elapiao, Journal of the Hawaii Audubon Society, on an unusually high fallout of fledging Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Ardenna pacifica.  “Working with USFWS, we documented unusually high wedge-tailed shearwater fallout in O'ahu (Hawai'i) during the 2011 fledging season using standardized road surveys.”

Reference:

Hyrenbach, K.D., Urmston, J. & Swindle, K. 2022.  Road surveys detect unusually high Wedge-tailed Shearwater fallout in SE O’ahu during the 2011 fledging season.  ‘Elapiao 82(1): 1-5.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 January 2022

The Action Plan for Australian Birds is a once in a decade review of how Australia’s birds are faring, and the actions needed for their protection.  It brings together data collected by experts and citizen scientists across the country to provide a snapshot of how threatened birds are, why, and what is needed to improve their situation.  The 2020 Action Plan, a collaboration between Charles Darwin University and BirdLife Australia, provides an overview of the risk of extinction of all birds occurring in Australia and its territories.  Written by more than 300 experts, the book has been edited by Stephen Garnett and Barry Baker.  The 2020 Action Plan reveals that around one in six Australian birds are in peril.  The major drivers of their decline are the result of human activities and climate change (click here).

In contrast, the eight ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels that breed within Australia have been doing better than have many Australian birds.  All but one, the Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, breed in the sub-Antarctic.  The removal of introduced mammals from Australia’s sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island has led to the national downlisting (improvement) of both Black-browed T. melanophris and Light-mantled Albatrosses Phoebetria palpebrata from Endangered to Least Concern, and Grey-headed Albatrosses from Critically Endangered to Endangered.  The population of Black-browed Albatrosses in Australia is estimated as over 1000 mature adults and there is no evidence of a decline or an identified threat, hence a Least Concern categorization at the national level, matching the species’ global status.  The equally abundant Light-mantled Albatrosses has a global status of Near Threatened.  The Australian breeding population of Grey-headed Albatrosses is a smaller one, less than 250 mature adults, and therefore it qualifies as Endangered (also globally Endangered).

One of the few.  A colour-banded male Wandering Albatross stands over its nest at Petrel Peak, Macquarie Island, prior to egg laying; photograph by Kate Lawrence

Grey Petrels Procellaria cinerea that breed on Macquarie with an increasing, but still small, population have been downlisted from Endangered to Near Threatened (as globally).  The Northern Macronectes halli and Southern M. giganteus Giant Petrels have both remained at Least Concern, as they do at the global level.  Against the above trends among ACAP species, the tiny population of Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans that breeds on Macquarie has remained as Critically Endangered (globally Vulnerable).

The Shy Albatross that breeds on three Tasmanian islands, considered nationally Vulnerable in 2010, is now categorized as Near Threatened, due to low breeding success on Pedra Branca and indications of decreased juvenile recruitment on Albatross Island suggesting steep declines are plausible in the next three generations.  Its global status is also Near Threatened.

Reference:

Garnett, S.T & Baker, G.B. (Eds) 2021.  The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020.  Clayton South: CSIRO Publishing.  816 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer & Barry Baker, Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, 11 January 2022

 
At-sea track of a transoceanic immature Amsterdam Albatross after fledging from Amsterdam Island, southern Indian Ocean, tracked up to age ~3 years

Karine Delord (Centre d′Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) and colleagues have published in the journal Marine Policy on the implications for conservation of a juvenile Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis (Endangered) travelling eastward to the Chilean coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

"Albatrosses are amongst the most globally-threatened species and fisheries bycatch is one of the major conservation issues worldwide. Among the albatrosses the Amsterdam albatross is listed as one of the most endangered species.  Within the current National Plan of Actions framework, the present study outlines the first results of a multi-year survey evaluating juvenile dispersal and immature at sea distribution using geolocation and conservation implications.  Here we report the first evidence of an Amsterdam albatross wandering for extensive periods outside the Indian Ocean, in the Pacific Ocean.  This unprecedented and novel finding is discussed in terms of overlaps with fisheries and conservations issues.   This study brings new insights on movements of vagrant stages of an endangered species, paving the way for refined assessments updates of species vulnerability to ongoing anthropogenic threats while providing basic conservation guidance. This makes it possible to point out the responsibility of the various management bodies both for the high seas regional fisheries management organisations and for exclusive economic zones."

An Amsterdam Albatross at sea; photograph by Kirk Zufelt

With thanks to Karine Delord.

Reference:

Delord, K., Poupart, T., Gasco, N., Weimerskirch, H. & Barbraud, C. 2022.  First evidence of migration across the South Pacific in endangered Amsterdam albatross and conservation implications.  Marine Policy 136. doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104921.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 January 2022

Black-footed Albatross, artwork by Colleen Laird‎ of Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature for ACAP; after a photograph by Vicki Miller

In coordination with NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council convened a workshop in November 2017 to explore the potential drivers and implications of the higher albatross interaction rates observed in 2015–2016 in the Hawaii longline fishery.  The workshop explored oceanographic variability, shifts in fishery effort and distribution, changes in albatross at-sea distribution, and demography and population trends for Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and Laysan P. immutabilis Albatrosses.

The report’s long Executive Summary ends:

“In particular, tracking studies at the main breeding sites are needed to determine the degree to which birds overlap and interact with fisheries. While tracking has occurred at three breeding sites (French Frigate Shoals, Midway Island, and Kure Atoll), birds from several sites in the Northwestern (Laysan Island) and the main Hawaiian Islands (Necker, Nihoa, and Kaula Islands) have not been tracked.  Workshop participants also stressed the need for continued population monitoring at Midway Island to update the uninterrupted time series of breeding and reproductive success data. They also indicated the importance of resuming breeding population counts at French Frigate Shoals and Laysan Island, two colonies that were historically surveyed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) but are no longer monitored.”

Read more here.

Reference:

Hyrenbach, K.D., Ishizaki, A., Polovina, J. & Ellgen, S. (Eds). 2021.  The Factors Influencing Albatross Interactions in the Hawaii Longline Fishery: Towards Identifying Drivers and Quantifying Impacts.  U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NOAA-TM-NMFS-PIFSC-122.  163 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 January 2022