Black Petrel chick by Maureen Bennetts of ABUN for ACAP, after a photograph by Biz Bell

The Live Ocean Foundation has worked to help conserve the ACAP-listed and Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni, endemic to just two islands off New Zealand’s North Island  With only around 5000 breeding pairs remaining, the Black Petrel is considered to be one of New Zealand’s most at-risk seabirds, facing threats from fishing bycatch, predation, light pollution and habitat loss.  The project wished to raise funds for 20 GPS trackers to follow fledgling Black Petrels on their first migration and uncover why so few return.  

“This project aims to reverse the decline of the tākoketai black petrel population through tracking their migration, international collaboration, and advocacy.  By supporting long-term research, developing mitigation strategies, and building partnerships across the Pacific Flyway, Live Ocean and its partners aim to rebuild the population to enable future translocation into historic habitats.”

Biz Bell of Wildlife Management International writes “The ultimate goal is to chart a course for recovery and protection of this on the brink species, so that we might see their return to some former nesting sites right around the North Island.”

By the end of December, thanks to 100+ donors and matched funding from the BNZ Foundation, funding for over 49 GPS trackers for Black Petrels had been secured.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 06 January 2026 (updated)

The latest ACAP Infographic, for the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus (Least Concern), the 21st to be produced in the series, is now available in the ACAP official languages of French and Spanish, as well as in English.  It has been sponsored by the Australian Antarctic Division.  It is the fourth to be produced for an ACAP-listed petrel, following those for the Least Concern Northern Giant Petrel M. halli, the Near Threatened Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea and the Vulnerable White-chinned Petrel P. aequinoctialis.  The other 17 infographics are all for albatrosses.  It is also being produced in Portuguese, reflecting it is a regular visitor to Brazilian waters.

The ACAP Species Infographic series is designed to help inform the general public, including school learners, of the threats faced by albatrosses and what is being and can be done to combat them.  They serve to complement the more detailed and referenced ACAP Species Assessments, the concise and illustrated ACAP Species Summaries and the ACAP Photo Essay series.

The infographics produced to date may be freely downloaded at a high resolution to allow for printing professionally in two poster sizes (approximately A2 and A3).  English and Portuguese language versions of infographics are available to download here, whilst French and Spanish versions can be found in their respective language menus for the website under Infographies sur les espèces and Infographía sobres las especies.

Please note they are only being made available for personal use or when engaging in activities that will aid in drawing attention to the conservation crisis faced by the world’s albatrosses and petrels – when ACAP will be pleased to receive a mention.

The infographics are created by Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim from Bangkok.

With grateful thanks to ‘Pep’ Arcos and Maëlle Connan for the careful writing and editing texts in their home languages.

John Cooper, Emeritus ACAP Information Officer, 05 January 2026

 Southern Giant Petrel breeding on the Frazier Islands, East Antarctica, photograph by Jeroen Creuwels

Colin Southwell (Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Diversity and Distributions on mapping seabird colonies in Antarctica, including of the ACAP-listed Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Aim

To map presence, absence and ignorance of Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy at the spatial resolution of ice-free habitat sites to identify knowledge gaps and inform management and conservation.

Location

East Antarctica between longitudes 30° E and 150° E.

Methods

We develop a unifying spatial and inferential framework to compile and interpret observations of Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy. The spatial framework allowed consistent geo-referencing of observations at the spatial resolution of habitat sites. The compilation included published papers and datasets, unpublished reports, research station logs and unpublished field notes. Where possible, observations and inferences were validated by the ‘experts’ who originally collected data. The inferential framework categorised levels of uncertainty for inferring occupancy and distinguished knowledge of occupancy from ignorance.

Results

After a century of observations, there are still knowledge gaps in seabird breeding occupancy along large sections of the East Antarctic coastline and across most of continental East Antarctica where breeding habitat is available. The spatial extent of knowledge and ignorance is strongly dependent on the level of certainty used to infer absence. Observations are clustered close to permanently occupied research stations, most of which are located on the coast, and biased in favour of species that are most emblematic of Antarctica or those with a less secure conservation status. The spatial and temporal coverage of observations in recent decades would be insufficient to effectively detect change in most species' breeding occupancy distributions across their range into the future.

Main Conclusions

Our compilation and mapping of occupancy data contributes to practical conservation measures to mitigate impacts of human activities including aviation and fisheries on seabirds in Antarctica, and serves as a foundation to strategically improve future environmental management and conservation. We urge future occupancy monitoring to explicitly report the location of search effort and potential absence in addition to presence and to aim to close spatial knowledge gaps.”

Read a popular article on the publication here.

Reference:

Colin Southwell, Louise Emmerson, Nat Kelly, Dale Maschette, John Arnould, Christophe Barbraud, Jeroen Creuwels, Robyn Delaney, Karine Delord, John Gibson, Ken Green, Mark Hindell, Harold Heatwole, Peter Hodum, Cindy L. Hull, Akiko Kato, Nobuo Kokubun, Anna Lashko, Gary Miller, Ian Norman, Frederique Olivier, Anant Pande, Graham Robertson, Marcus Salton, Akinori Takahashi, Jan van Franeker, Simon Ward, Barbara Wieneke & Eric J. Woehler  2025.  Mapping Antarctic seabird breeding occupancy from a century of observations to inform environmental management and conservation.  Diversity and Distributions 31(9).  e70066.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 02 January 2026

Laysan Albatrosses breed on a coastal bluff on Kauai – safe from predicted sea level rise, photograph by Hob Osterlund

By far the largest part of the global breeding population of the Laysan Albatross or mōlī Phoebastria immutabilis is to be found on the low-lying atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  In addition, smaller numbers breed on the inhabited Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Oahu, considered safe from sea level rise.  Information is to hand that the numbers breeding on Kauai this season are the highest known.

Hob Osterlund, Kaua’i Albatross Network writes on Facebook “good news for the Mōlī Class of 2026: this year on Kauaʻi we have a total of 458 nests, which is an all-time high for the years weʻve been counting [the previous high was 400].  Of course this number is tiny compared to the hundreds of thousands at Kuaihihelani (Midway Atoll), but we have three things albatross will need as Kuaihelani gets submerged by sea level rise: elevated bluffs, an absence of mongoose, and people who care”.

Laysan Albatrosses within Kauai’s Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge are also doing well, with a total of 194 occupied nests counted for the 2025/26 season, 40 more nests than in the previous season, according to the Facebook page of the Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges.  These birds are now protected from feral pigs and other pests by predator-proof fencing (click here).

Other news from Kauai is that the Kīlauea Point NWR participated in the annual Laysan Albatross egg swap with the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF).

“The project is led by a team of Biologists from PMRF, located on the west side of Kauaʻi, and supported by our partners at Pacific Rim Conservation, along with the Refuge Biologist and FWS volunteers.  “Due to the potential for airstrikes, mōlī in the PMRF colony are a risk to aircraft and to themselves.  Therefore, their biologists employ multiple approaches as they work to reduce the size of their colony, while making investments in the success of other nesting sites across Kauaʻi.  Through the project, fertile eggs are removed from the PMRF mōlī colony and transported to Kīlauea Point NWR where they replace non-viable eggs within our Refuge’s two colonies.  Through a process called “candling”, biologists can identify eggs that are non-viable – either because they were not fertilized or are damaged. They can then “swap” the eggs and our adoptive nesters will get to raise ex-PMRF chicks, which will imprint upon the safe colonies at Kīlauea Point NWR and eventually return to our hatching sites, rather than PMRF.” (from Wild Times of December 2025, the online newsletter of the Friends of Kauai Wildlife Refuges).

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 01 January 2026, updated 04 January 2026