The albatrosses of southern Africa, Gough and the Prince Edward Islands

Following on from his poster depicting the albatrosses of New Zealand, illustrator Jamie Watts has produced another in his albatross series.  This time he has painted the 16 species  recorded at sea in the waters of southern Africa (Namibia and South Africa) as well as those that breed or have been recorded as vagrants on Marion and Prince Edward Islands in the southern Indian Ocean and Gough Island in the South Atlantic.  The adult birds are illustrated standing and in flight.

The 16 species were chosen following the coverage of albatrosses in Peter Ryan’s Guide to Seabirds of Southern Africa (click here for the ACAP Latest News review).

Jamie’s albatross posters (and his others including of penguins and marine mammals) are available for purchase from JamieWattsArt in two size options (50 x 70 cm and 61 x 91 cm).  They are professionally printed on high-quality A3 satin matt photo paper from 12 to 20-megapixel, hand-produced originals and are mailed in a tube.

Click here for a list of all 22 species of albatrosses with links to their global threatened status.

With grateful thanks to Jamie Watts, who is kindly allowing his posters to help promote this and next years’ World Albatross Day, held on 19 June.

Reference:

Ryan P.[G.] 2017.  Guide to Seabirds of Southern Africa.  Cape Town: Struik Nature.  160 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 November 2020

An inquisitive Tristan Albatross painted by Lea Finke, from the photograph below by Michelle Risi

Recent news from the United Kingdom's Gough Island in the South Atlantic is that the Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena has had yet another poor breeding season due to the depredations by introduced House Mice.  Now a decision made earlier this week by the Board of Trustees of the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has given the go ahead for the mouse eradication exercise on Gough next year.

In a blog yesterday, the RSPB writes:

“Over the last nine months, our team has continued to work at pace, planning to ensure we are in the best position possible, ready for this decision.  Almost the entire team of experts we had in place for 2020 (more than 60 people from four different continents) have made themselves available next year, and we have helicopters, ships and other contractors lined up ready to deploy.

We are acutely aware that the Covid-19 pandemic has introduced greater challenges to an already difficult operation.  While we cannot predict what the world will look like next year, we have factored as much mitigation as possible into our planning and we believe we can mobilise the teams safely to and through South Africa to ensure they can arrive on Gough to carry out the operational phase.

Our trustees, board members and programme team all agree that waiting until 2022 will not bring any better chances of success, that the restoration of Gough needs to happen as soon as possible and that we are in a position where we are confident we can see this through next year.”

Tristan Albatross, photograph by Michelle Risi

This year’s intended eradication by the RSPB’s Gough Island Restoration Programme (GIRP) was cancelled due to restrictions on international travel coming from the COVID-19 pandemic.  The RSPB is now hoping it can work round any continuing pandemic restrictions by delivering COVID-19-free field teams, and all the required equipment, to the island next year.  So is ACAP!

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 December 2020

A Manx Shearwater among the flowers, photograph by Chris Perrins

Christopher Perrins (Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK) and colleagues have published open access in the annual journal Seabird on a census of Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus on three islands off the coast of Wales.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“We present the results of a census of the Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus nesting on the three Pembrokeshire islands of Skomer, Skokholm and Midland (formerly Middleholm), Pembrokeshire, undertaken in 2018. The breeding population estimates were largely in line with those made in 2011–2013, but differed markedly from 1998; this difference seems to be due to the different methods used in 1998 rather than any marked change in population size. Despite attempts to refine the estimation of response rate to call playback, the error of the population estimates remains large, illustrating the logistical and analytical challenges of making seabird censuses using call playback. Nonetheless, the population estimates are large and the spatial distribution of occupied burrows is consistent between censuses, and thus Wales may hold more than half of the world’s breeding population of Manx Shearwaters.”

Reference:

Perrins, C., Padget, O., O’Connell, M., Brown, R., Büche, B., Eagle, G., Roden, J., Stubbings,^, E. & Wood,^, M.J. 2019.  A census of breeding Manx Shearwaters Puffinus puffinus on the Pembrokeshire Islands of Skomer, Skokholm and Midland in 2018.  Seabird 32: 106-118.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 November 2020

 "The left pair is the Torishima-type Short-tailed Albatross, while the two on the right are the Senkaku-type Short-tailed Albatross. This is the first case of cryptic species found in an endangered bird species" - from the Endangered Species Research Facebook Page

Masaki Eda (Hokkaido University Museum, Sapporo, Japan) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Endangered Species Research on whether the Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus should be two species, with consequent implications for the threatened status of the two cryptic populations.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The occurrence of cryptic species within a threatened taxon is rare, but where they do occur, understanding species boundaries is essential for planning an effective conservation strategy. The short-tailed albatross Phoebastria albatrus is a Vulnerable seabird that mainly breeds on Torishima and the Senkaku Islands in the western North Pacific. Although it has been tacitly regarded as a single management unit with 2 breeding sites, the species is known to comprise 2 genetically separated populations (Senkaku-type and Torishima-type). However, morphological examination of birds from both populations has not been conducted owing to the difficulty in accessing the Senkaku Islands. In this study, we examined the morphological differences between immigrants from the Senkaku Islands to Torishima (Senkaku-type) and native birds on Torishima (Torishima-type) and found significant differences in morphological characteristics between the 2 bird types. In general, Torishima-type birds were larger than Senkaku-type birds, whereas Senkaku-type birds had relatively longer beaks. Based on the morphological differences found in this study as well as genetic and ecological differences revealed in previous studies, we believe that Senkaku- and Torishima-type birds should be classified as different cryptic species. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of cryptic species being identified in a threatened avian species.”

Reference:

Eda, M., Yamasaki, T., Izumi, H., Tomita, N., Konno, S.,Konno, M., Murakami, H. & Sato, F. 2020.  Cryptic species in a Vulnerable seabird: short-tailed albatross consists of two species.  Endangered Species Research doi.org/10.3354/esr01078 doi.org/10.3354/esr01078.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 November 2020