The mission of the international non-profit organization Oikonos – Ecosystem Knowledge is to study and protect imperilled ecosystems by engaging diverse communities through innovative scientific and artistic collaborations.  Its area of interest is concentrated in the Pacific, where it works with seabirds in Chile, California, Hawaii and Washington.

Michelle Hester is a co-founder of Oikonos and its Executive Director.  She brings over 25 years of research and applied conservation experience throughout the Pacific to the organization.  Her research focuses on island ecology, seabird prey dynamics and habitat restoration with an emphasis on inter-disciplinary approaches.  She has written this month to ACAP Latest News about some of the work of her organization:

“Oikonos works with partners to conserve albatrosses through bycatch, marine debris ingestion and at-sea tracking research in the North Pacific.  We also honour albatrosses as powerful teaching ambassadors.  The classroom programme "Winged Ambassadors: Ocean Literacy Through the Eyes of Albatross" has inspired over 320 000 students in 38 countries.  It is hopeful to learn that anyone can take individual and collective actions to ensure these majestic charismatic birds continue to traverse our oceans and our imaginations.  We support World Albatross Day on 19 June."

Oikonos' senior management team meets below a Sue Scott artwork made from lighters swallowed by Laysan Albatrosses

Michelle Hester is front row second left; Veronica López is front row, fourth left

Michelle expands on Oikonos’ innovative classroom programme which provides a hands-on experience: “Albatrosses, charismatic and threatened seabirds, are ambassadors for a clean ocean because they traverse vast oceanic regions searching for floating food.  Along their journeys, albatross ingest plastic trash and feed it to their chicks.  As part of the digestive process, the chicks throw up pellets, known as “boluses” to rid themselves of fish bones, squid beaks and alarmingly our plastic trash.  Exploring the contents of albatross boluses has proven to be an impactful, and often life-changing experience for students of all ages because students witness, touch and examine the marine debris that animals are consuming.”  Michelle adds it’s hoped to get a World Albatross Day banner displayed in a classroom with students engaged with the project.

A  bolus containing pieces of plastic (above)

A Black-footed Albatross chick with regurgitated boluses at its feet (right)

Oikonos and its partners carry out necropsies on albatrosses killed by U.S. fisheries, studying such aspects as diet, plastic ingestion and gender-biased mortality (click here).  Working with other collaborators, at-sea GPS tracking of Black -footed Albatrosses Phoebastria nigripes (globally Near Threatened) has been undertaken from Kure Atoll, the westernmost island in the Hawaiian Archipelago.

Students dissect albatross boluses, removing and counting plastic fragments and squid beaks; photograph from Malama Pupukea Waimea with parental permission

A significant link between Oikonos and ACAP is that its Fishery Bycatch and Isla Mocha Programme Manager is Veronica López who has attended ACAP meetings as part of the Chilean Delegation and currently serves as Chair of ACAP’s World Albatross Day Intersessional Group.  Vero is also involved with research and conservation of another ACAP-listed species, the globally Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus – a Chilean endemic.  In addition she serves the Grupo de Trabajo de Aves Marinas de Chile (Chilean Seabird Working Group) as its President.  The group made up of scientists advises SUBPESCA (Subsecretaría de Pesca y Acuicultura) on issues related to seabird bycatch.

View Oikonos' 2018/19 Annual Report here.

With thanks to Michelle Hester, Veronica López and Ilana Nimz.

References:

Marrero, M., Hester, M., Hyrenbach, K.D., Michael, P., Adams, J., Keiper, C., Stock, J., Collins, A., Vanderlip, C., Alvarez. T. & Webb, S. 2012.  Ocean literacy through the eyes of albatross.  Current. The Journal of Marine Education 28: 26-30.

Nevins, H.M., Beck, J., Michael, P.E., Hester, M., Peschon, J., Donnelly-Greenan^, E. & Fitzgerald, S. 2018.  Demographics of Laysan Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed P. nigripes Albatross caught as bycatch in Alaskan groundfish and Hawaiian longline fisheries. Marine Ornithology 46: 187-196.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 January 2020

A juvenile Southern Royal Albatross Diomedea epomophora (globally Vulnerable) found in an emaciated condition on Whirinaki Beach near Napier on New Zealand’s North Island last week has died after two days in captivity despite urgent treatment at the Massey University’s Wildbase Hospital in Palmerston North.  Its stomach was found to contain a flattened 500-ml plastic water bottle as well as balloon fragments. (click here).

According to the New Zealand Department of Conservation’s Facebook page the autopsy suggests starvation was the likely cause of death, with the plastic items obstructing the stomach.

The juvenile albatross in captivity (top), the recovered plastic bottle (left) and balloon fragment (right); photographs from the New Zealand Department of Conservation.

ACAP Latest News has reported on many occasions of balloons and plastic objects swallowed by albatrosses of various species, including by closely related Southern Royal Albatross D. sanfordi chicks at Taiaroa Head, but never such an item as a half-litre plastic water bottle.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 January 2020, correction made 09 September 2020

Albatross Task Force - Chile makes a dual-language WAD2020 banner to take to sea, photograph by Diego Segovia

In response to the global conservation crisis being faced by albatrosses, countries across the globe need to step up to the challenge of implementing measures to reduce the impacts by invasive species at their colonies and to reduce fisheries bycatch at sea.  The 13 Parties to the Albatross and Petrel Agreement have encouraged the use of mitigation measures such as bird-scaring lines in longline and trawl fisheries to help protect albatrosses at sea through the implementation of fisheries regulations.  However, fisheries bycatch does not only occur in the jurisdictional waters of ACAP Parties, but also beyond them on the High Seas.

The experience of BirdLife International’s Albatross Task Force (ATF) - the world’s first international team of bycatch experts dedicated to saving the albatross by working on vessels and promoting the use of mitigation measures in fisheries – has highlighted the fact that many fishing fleets remain unaware of the role bycatch mitigation measures can play in saving albatrosses from extinction.  Since 2006 ATF teams have been working directly with small-scale fishers and fishing companies worldwide to raise awareness and demonstrate the effectiveness of mitigation measures to fishing crews and thereby increase compliance with their use.

Mitigation kit including an award-winning ‘Tamini Tabla’ tow device used during mitigation trials in south-central Chilean waters, photograph by ATF-Chile

A bird-scaring line gets deployed behind a demersal trawler, south-central Chile, photograph by  ATF-Chile

CODEFF (Comité Pro-Defensa de la Fauna y Flora, BirdLife International’s partner in Chile) volunteers and observers with a trawler bird-scaring line they have made

Photograph by ATF-Chile

In Chile the ATF has been working with trawl fleets since 2011.  In 2018, an important knowledge transfer took place in the form of an “at-sea classroom” involving both local researchers and deck crews working in the Humboldt Current System.

New regulations for trawl fisheries were subsequently introduced in Chile in 2019, with the aim to reduce their impacts on seabirds (click here).  Moving forward, the ATF will continue to work with fisheries in Chilean waters to navigate towards best practices being applied on board.

As the industry transitions towards more seabird-safe fishing practices in the face of the new regulations, the team’s work is primarily focused around increasing awareness about the correct use of mitigation measures.  Additionally, Chile’s ATF team is using its World Albatross Day 2020 banner – the very first to be taken to sea - to help raise awareness of the plight of albatrosses amongst those working at-sea in Chilean waters.  Gaining recognition among fishers of the need to conserve albatrosses is undoubtedly a powerful sign that the tide of our collective attitude and commitment is changing.

ATF-Chile's WAD2020 banner is deployed by crew members aboard the Chilean trawler PAM Bonn in south-central Chile on 20 December 2019

Photograph by Christian Ibieta, ATF-Chile

Have a great 2020 for all and a great WAD2020 across all the seas of the world!

With thanks to Nina da Rocha, Christian Ibieta, Diego Segovia, Association of Industrial Fisheries of Chile (Asociación de Industriales Pesqueros, ASIPES) and the PacificBlu fishing company.

Cristián G. Suazo, Albatross Task Force – Chile, 21 January 2020

Ben Dilley (FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa and colleagues have published in the open-access journal Marine Ornithology on a burrowing petrel survey of the Nightingale Island group in the South Atlantic.  Two islets are recommended for nature reserve status.

Islets off Nightingale Island: Middle and Stoltenhoff behind

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Nightingale is a group of three small, uninhabited islands in the central South Atlantic Ocean. The islands are free of introduced mammals and are largely pristine, supporting two endemic land birds as well as globally important populations of several species of seabirds. Seven species of burrow-nesting petrels are known to breed on the islands, including roughly 40 % of the world's population of Great Shearwaters Ardenna gravis. We estimated burrow densities by systematically searching for their burrows in 5×5-m quadrats across the main island in the austral summer of 2015. A total of 1789 petrel burrows fell within the 75 sample quadrats with an average density of 0.95 burrows∙m^-2, suggesting that upwards of four million petrels breed on the main island. Burrow densities and occupancy rates were extrapolated by species for each habitat type to generate population estimates: Great Shearwaters 2.34 million burrows (1.82 million pairs, 95 % CI 1.67-1.97 million); Broad-billed Prions Pachyptila vittata a minimum of 83 000 burrows (with many more pairs breeding in rock crevices, total estimate 100 000-500 000 pairs), White-faced Storm Petrels Pelagodroma marina 17 800 burrows (11 700 pairs, 95 % CI 4 700-16 600), Soft-plumaged Petrels Pterodroma mollis 12 100 burrows (estimated 8 000-10 000 pairs), Fregetta Storm Petrels F. grallaria/tropica 6 600 burrows (estimated 5 000 pairs), Common Diving Petrels Pelecanoides urinatrix 3 900 burrows (estimated 5 000 pairs), and Subantarctic Shearwaters Puffinus elegans an estimated 1 000 pairs. Although Great Shearwater burrow densities and occupancies were lowest in the areas historically used for exploitation of chicks and eggs (ongoing, but now monitored), these results suggest the great shearwater population on Nightingale Island has remained relatively stable since the first estimates in the 1950s.”

Great Shearwaters at sea

Reference:

Dilley, B.J., Davies, D., Mitham, A., Glass, T., Repetto, J., Swain, G. & Ryan, P.G. 2019.  Population estimates of burrow-nesting petrels breeding at the Nightingale Island group, Tristan da Cunha Archipelago.  Marine Ornithology 47: 267-275.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 January 2020