"Examples of Flesh-footed Shearwater boluses containing anthropogenic debris on Lord Howe Island. Panels A/B and C/D show the same bolus intact (top
panel) and separated into components in the lab (bottom panel). Photo: S. Stuckenbrock".  From the publication

Alex Bond (Bird Group, The Natural History Museum, Tring, UK) and colleagues have published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin showing that 100% of examined boluses from Flesh-footed Shearwaters Ardenna carnepeis (Near Threatened) from Australia's Lord Howe Island contained plastic items.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Plastic production and pollution of the environment with plastic items is rising rapidly and outpacing current mitigation measures.  Success of mitigation actions can only be determined if progress can be measured reliably through incorporation of specific, measurable targets.  Here we evaluate temporal changes in the amount and composition of plastic in boluses from Flesh-footed Shearwaters during 2002–2020 and assess their suitability for measuring progress against national and international commitments to reduce plastic pollution.  Plastic in the shearwater boluses showed a generally decreasing pattern from 2002 to 2015 and increasing again to 2020.  The colour and type of plastics in boluses was comparable to items recovered from live and necropsied birds, but a much smaller sample size (~35 boluses/year) was required to detect changes in plastic number and mass over time. We therefore suggest shearwater boluses are a low-effort, high-statistical power monitoring tool for quantifying progress against environmental policies in Australia.”

The problem: Flesh-footed Shearwaters ingest large amounts of plastic, photograph by Ian Hutton

With thanks to Janine Dunlop, Niven Librarian, FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town.

Reference:

Bond, A.L., Hutton, I. & Lavers, J.L. 2021.  Plastics in regurgitated Flesh-footed Shearwater (Ardenna carneipes) boluses as a monitoring tool.  Marine Pollution Bulletin doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112428.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 May 2021

Elisa (now aged four) holds her poster prize with her older sister, Constanza

Last year ACAP collaborated with Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) to support the inaugural World Albatross Day on 19 June (‘WAD2020’) by producing line drawings for a colouring-in competition aimed at children (click here).  The total of 124 entries received (see ACAP's Facebook album) were assigned to five age classes which were then judged by an international panel of artists.  Winners in each category received an on-line certificate to print out but were also promised an albatross poster in the mail.  COVID-19 then got in the way making international post between countries problematic, notably between Australia (from where the ACAP Secretariat was undertaking the mailings) and countries in South America.

Elisa’s winning entry

Waiting patiently on the mail for more than half a year in her home in Ñuñoa, Santiago de Chile after winning the three-to-five-year category with her colourful Campbell Albatross has been Elisa Ahumada López, then aged three.  Good news that at long last she has now received her poster, smiling proudly with her older sister Constanza in the photo above.  The poster depicting all the World’s albatrosses is by ABUN artist Di Roberts.  A high-resolution version suitable for printing (along with other WAD2020 posters) is available online from the ACAP website here.

The Campbell Albatross photographed by Kirk Zufelt off North Cape, New Zealand from which Lea Finke made the line drawing that Elisa coloured in

With thanks to Elisa’s mother, Paula Carolina López Molina, for permission to use the photograph of her daughters.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 May 2021

Photograph of the vagrant Black-browed Albatross by cell phone through a 30-70x telescope, from Per-Magnus Åhrén

An adult-plumaged Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris (Least Concern) was photographed at a distance flying at sea in the narrow sound of Öresund between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden on 25 April 2021.  The bird was also seen the next day in the same area with no winds when it was attacked by nine White-tailed Sea Eagles Haliaeetus albicilla. It was not seen after that despite concerted searches by many birders on both sides of the sound.

Reportings of Black-browed Albatrosses (possibly of the same individual) have been made in the North Sea and surrounding waters over the last four to five years.

Read a summary of vagrant Southern Hemisphere albatrosses in the Northern Hemisphere here.

Information from the Pelagics. Seabirds Birding Worldwide Facebook page.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 May 2021

A fortunate chick this time: the plastic pony lies on the nest’s edge, photograph by Theo Thompson

That albatrosses mistake floating plastic debris for food items, swallow them and later regurgitate them to their chicks must now be well known.  Probably the most reported cases are from Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis (globally Near Threatened) of the North Pacific which feed their chicks everything from cigarette lighters, toothbrushes, bottle tops, toy soldiers and action figures, as well as miscellaneous plastic fragments, as illustrated by a number of artworks and displays made from plastic objects collected from around nests or from within the decaying corpses of chicks (click here).  This problem has been brought to a wider audience by Chris Jordan in his evocative documentary Albatross filmed on Midway Atoll.  It seems Southern Hemisphere albatrosses are less affected by ingesting plastic, although they are certainly not immune as has been regularly reported in ACAP Latest News over the last decade.

The latest example of ingested plastic comes from the intensively managed mainland colony of Northern Royal Albatrosses Diomedea sanfordi (globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon) at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head on New Zealand’s South Island.  Biodiversity Ranger Sharyn Broni reports on the Royal Albatross Centre Facebook page.  “This 9 cm long plastic pony was found at one chick’s nest on Tuesday during morning rounds.  We believe a parent regurgitated this for a chick, it may have been in fish that it caught. Fortunately, the chick did not take it.”  Previous plastic items found associated with Taiaroa’s albatrosses have included bottle caps, squid lures, fishing floats, a container tab and the handle of an infant formula scoop. 

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 May 2021