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The current state of play for BOTYT2026-NZ

With only nine days left for voting, the ACAP-listed and Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi is now eighth on the leader board for New Zealand’s annual Bird of the Year competition (BOTY2026-NZ).  Respectable, maybe, as the highest-scoring procellariform seabird out of 70-odd candidates.  But still a long way off the podium!

You can vote for the Northern Royal Albatross, and for its two fellow ACAP-listed species, the Vulnerable Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni and the Endangered Westland Petrel P. westlandica, among the package of five candidates required to be chosen here.  Voting closes on 20 September, with the winner to be announced the next day.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 11 September 2026

At-sea distribution of three monitored Black-browed albatross populations (marked by triangles) during the breeding and non-breeding seasons. For each colony, the distribution contours encompass 90% of the kernel utilization distribution, from the publication

Francesco Ventura (Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts, USA) and colleagues have published in the journal Biological Conservation on the population dynamics of immature Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris.

An immature Black-browed Albatross with a tracking device, photograph by Estelle Smalberger

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Demographic assessments are essential for effective biological conservation management, allowing early detection of population declines and timely allocation of resources to avoid possible crises.  For species with slow life-history strategies like seabirds, only the breeding adults are monitored routinely.  The dynamics of immatures, often unobservable from fledging to recruitment, are less well understood and typically not accounted for in conservation status assessments.

Here, we quantify the importance of changes in the survival and abundance of immatures in shaping the past and forecasted dynamics of a long-lived marine top-predator.  We use integrated population models (IPM) incorporating the dynamics of immatures, based on multi-decadal demographic monitoring of the black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) at three globally important breeding sites.

The populations showed differences in breeding and survival rates, highlighting a degree of life history flexibility in response to the environment.  Using a retrospective sensitivity analysis, we consistently identified immature survival as the key contributor to population growth rate.  At all sites, even those with increasing or stable breeding populations, the total population has been declining, largely due to decreases in immature survival.  Although not directly apparent from counts, this decline is already underway and is projected to emerge at the level of the breeding population over the coming three generations.  This contrasts with a model focusing solely on counts of breeding adults, which mostly indicate an overall population increase.

Collectively, our findings highlight that conservation assessments must account for the dynamics of subadult stages, or risk providing an inaccurate picture of population status.”

With thank to Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey,

Reference:

Ventura, F., Che-Castaldo, C., Catry, P., Delord, K., Kuepfer, A., Mohring, B., Oppel, S., Phillips, R.A., Rouby, E., Ummenhofer, C.C., Weimerskirch, H., Wood, A.G., Barbraud, C. & Jenouvrier, S. 2026.  Flying under the radar: the demographic importance of immatures in long-lived seabird populations.  Biological Conservation 323, 112102.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 10 September 2026

Seabird bycatch in surface longline fleet, March years, from the article

The use of ship-borne cameras coupled with best-practice mitigation measures has reduced seabird mortality in New Zealand’s surface longline fishery, as described in a recent news article.

“The number of seabirds caught by the surface longline fleet has fallen to its lowest level in five years, just 18 months after new conservation requirements came into effect.  Across the whole sector, however, bycatch levels rose to their highest since at least 2019 in the year to March.

In 2024, Fisheries New Zealand mandated that the surface longline fleet follow international best practice in either fitting hook-shielding devices to their lines to prevent seabirds from being accidentally hooked or adopting three alternative measures: weighted branch lines, setting lines at night and using tori (or bird-scaring) lines.”

Read the whole article here.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 09 September 2026

Four representative global utilization distributions (UDs) for (A) non-breeding adult Chatham Albatrosses (B) non-breeding adult Black Petrels, (C) non-breeding adult Wandering Albatrosses and (D) non-breeding adult Salvin’s Albatrosses. The green line outlines the IATTC Convention Area, while the areas north of the northern black dashed line and south of the southern black dashed line represent where two mitigation methods are required by the IATTC.  From the publication

Daniel Crear (Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, La Jolla, California, USA) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Fisheries Research on albatross and petrel overlap with Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) pelagic longline fisheries in the eastern Pacific as determined by tracking.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Bycatch in fisheries is a major threat to seabird populations worldwide, including in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO). Pelagic longline fisheries targeting tuna and swordfish globally account for tens of thousands of seabird mortalities annually.  However, regional overlap patterns remain poorly quantified.  To quantify spatial overlap with industrial and small-scale coastal longline fisheries in the EPO, we collated tracking data from 1993 to 2022 for albatrosses (12 species) and petrels (4 species) of high conservation concern.  Utilization distributions (UDs) were calculated for each species split into breeding and non-breeding phases and according to age class and tag type, and overlaid with three pelagic longline effort datasets: industrial fisheries logbook data, Global Fishing Watch set-level data, and data on small-scale coastal fisheries.  We also examined overlap of species UDs with the area where seabird bycatch mitigation is mandated by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC).  Species with the highest fisheries-overlap, a proxy for exposure risk, included non-breeding adult black (Procellaria parkinsoni) and white-chinned petrels (P. aequinoctialis), Chatham (Thalassarche eremita), Buller’s (T. bulleri), Antipodean (Diomedea antipodensis antipodensis), and Salvin’s (T. salvini) albatrosses, and breeding waved albatrosses (Phoebastria irrorata).  The IATTC mitigation area appeared to encompass most core habitat in the EPO for seabird species considered, with the notable exception being more tropically foraging black petrels, which largely occurred outside this area. Within this area, it is critical that mitigation measures follow the best available science, are updated as new science becomes available, and observer coverage is sufficient to monitor seabird bycatch rates and evaluate compliance.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips.

Reference:

Crear, D.P., Clay, T.A., Carneiro, A.P.B., Fischer, J.H., Debski, I., Anderson, D.J., Awkerman, J.A., Baylis, A.M.M., Bell, E.A., Campioni, L., Catry, P., Clavelle, T., Deppe, L., Elliott, G., Hedd, A., Landers, T.J., Montevecchi, W.A., Nicholls, D.G., Parker, G.C., Phillips, R.A., Ponchon, A., Rexer-Huber, K., Robertson, C.J.R., Rowley, O.C., Shaffer, S.A., Stanworth, A., Thompson, D.R., Walker, K. & Lopez, J. 2026.  Albatross and petrel overlap with pelagic longline fisheries in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.  Fisheries Research 302, 107861.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 08 September 2026