A Black-browed Albatross feeds its chick on Heard Island, photograph by Roger Kirkwood

During the 2025/26 austral summer, the Australian Antarctic Program will undertake two voyages to Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) using Australia's icebreaker, RSV Nuyina equipped with two helicopters and temporary field huts.  It will be first research visit to Heard Island in more than 20 years.  Surveys of breeding seabirds will include the ACAP-listed Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris and Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus.

“High pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) has not yet reached Australia, Australian Antarctic Territory nor - to anyone's knowledge - either of Australia’s two sub-Antarctic island groups, Macquarie Island or HIMI.  However, affected animals have been found on the French Kerguelen and Crozet sub-Antarctic islands, which are only 450 km from HIMI.  Wildlife ecologist Dr Julie McInnes and her team are heading to Heard Island to survey seabird populations, map breeding colonies, and monitor signs of bird flu, working in collaboration with the seal survey team.”

Strict protocols will be in place to safeguard the environment, and all activities will be implemented in accordance with environmental permits.

Read more about the Heard Island 2025/26 survey here.

 John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 20 August 2025

People's Choice in the 1st annual Art Contest held by the Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.  Artwork by Brett Higgins

The Friends of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (FOMA) held its first art contest during June this year with submissions received up until the end of the month.  Everyone (including those living outside the USA) was welcome to participate.  “The goal of the contest is to solicit creative artwork that captures the cultural, historical, biological, or a mix thereof, essence of Kuaihelani (Midway Atoll) to share with our FOMA followers as well as to create merchandise, such as shirts, hats, stickers, posters, and note cards.  Revenue generated from sales will be used to support conservation, outreach, historical research, and/or cultural support on behalf of Kuaihelani."

1st Place: Ian Gonzalez

Design entries had to be contestants' original, hand-drawn creations and not be traced or copied from photographs or other artists' works.  No photography or Artificial Intelligence (AI) computer-generated art was accepted.  Judging was on the basis of design, depiction of native species within the lands and waters of Midway Atoll, if wildlife are portrayed, artistic composition, and suitability for reproduction on merchandise.

A total of 31 artworks was submitted,  judged by FOMA President Wayne Sentman, FOMA Vice President Helen Dunlap, FOMA volunteer Keelee Martin, Hawaiian artist and author Patrick Ching and Assistant Professor of Hawaiian language J. Hauʻoli Lorenzo-Elarco  Additionally, followers of the Friends Facebook group could vote for their favourite from 10 short listed artworks in a “People’s Choice Award".

2nd Place: Yun-Xuan Lin

FOMA writes “We are excited to see all the beautifully created artwork in honour of Kuaihelani (Midway Atoll).  Congratulations again to the winners: 1st Place: Ian Gonzalez; 2nd Place: Yun-Xuan Lin and Peoples' Choice: Brett Higgins.” All received a cash prize.  Applicants are being gifted a one-year Friends of Midway Atoll membership, giving access to FOMA annual meetings and will receive its regular newsletters.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 19 August 2025

Low-lying Midway Atoll (Sand Island left, Eastern Island right) is at risk to being overwashed by tsunamis

ACAP Latest News reported last month on the tsunami that reached both Kure and Midway Atills in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands following an earthquake on 29 July 2025.  News is now in from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the impact of the tsunami on Midway’s biota, including its Laysan Albatrosses, Phoebastria immutabilis, which seem have largely escaped harm.  Nearly all the Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes chicks had fledged prior to the tsunami.

A few days after the tsunami waves hit Midway, the staff conducted post-tsunami assessments of Sand Island and Eastern Island.  The below summary details observations of the tsunami impacts.

Sand Island:

• Limited overwash occurred on Sand Island, the dunes on North Beach were hardly impacted.  There was no evidence of overwash into the vegetation along West Beach, and minimal intrusion into Rusty Bucket area was found.
• Beaches that often have been found to shift in extent and shape after storms seemed largely unchanged across Sand Island.

Eastern Island:

• Eastern and Spit presented more significant evidence of overwash leading to impacts to wildlife and habitat with water extending inland up to 150 ft, though the vast majority of shoreline presented intrusion of 50 ft or less.
• The heavily vegetated isthmus between Split and Eastern Island did not wash over, sparing the thousands of sooty tern chicks present there at the time.
• Water still moved through stands of coastal vegetation with enough energy to dislodge and concentrate groundcover vegetation, primarily alena (Boerhavia repens), mauka (upland) of the shrubs and create wrack lines in which albatross and other chicks became buried or entangled.
• It is unlikely that any individuals of threatened or endangered birds were killed as a result of the tsunami. This includes Laysan ducks and the newly translocated Laysan finches.
• No turtles were found washed ashore, and the refuge's last mom-pup monk seal pair of the season were seen together, still nursing, at their usual spot of the north shore between Eastern & Spit two days following the event.
• Nearly all black-footed albatross chicks had already fledged prior to the tsunami.
• The scale of the effects on albatross chicks is difficult to assess. FWS staff freed ~80 entangled or entrapped albatross [presumed Laysan] chicks during the first two days after the tsunami.
• Many areas that over washed had been occupied by sooty tern chicks of varying ages and dozens of red-tailed tropicbird chicks. An unknown number of chicks from these two ground-nesting species were impacted. However, due to the time of year and mobility of chicks, the majority of sooty tern subcolonies were unscathed.  Most overwashed areas, even those closest to the beach, had numerous chicks present again shortly after the event, suggesting that many if not most were able to survive.
• A few sooty tern chicks and adults were also freed from entanglement/entrapment, and a handful of smaller tropicbird chicks were found in open areas, displaced from their nests under naupaka vegetation.
• Low winds during the second half of July this year delayed fledging for a large percentage of Laysan albatross. As a result, an unusually large number of chicks moved to and were congregated along the shorelines at the time of the wave, unable or unwilling to fly off. This makes it difficult to assess the true impacts of the tsunami on Laysan Albatross.
• In summary, Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge estimates that a few hundred albatross chicks and sooty tern chick, as well as a few dozen tropicbird chicks were impacted buy the tsunami.  We do not believe that any population-level impacts occurred for any of the species on Midway Atoll as a result of the tsunami.”

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 18 August 2025

An ACAP-listed Antipodean Albatross, artwork by Lenina Villela of Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for World Albatross Day 19 June 2020

It will soon be that time again and New Zealanders will be scurrying to vote for their favourite birds as Forest & Bird’s iconic Bird of the Year competition (BOTY2025) returns next month.  Operated in a light-hearted way, but with a serious underlying message, the competition aims to highlight the conservation issues facing some of New Zealand’s best known, and some of its least known, birds.  This year, 70 species have been chosen, many of them, but not all, considered to be globally threatened.

New Zealand’s BOTY competition has been running since 2005.  In some years it has thrown up intriguing results with hints of skullduggery and claims of foul (fowl?) play surfacing.  As Forest & Bird itself admits on its BOTY page “In 2025, we’re celebrating 20 years of ruffled feathers as everyone’s favourite event on the conservation calendar reflects on two decades of creativity and controversy.”

In 2021 the winner was not even a bird, but one of New Zealand’s only two non-marine native mammals, the Long-tailed Bat Chalinolobus tuberculatus (the other is also a bat).  Proponents argued that its lack of feathers (or presumably its inability to lay eggs) was outweighed by its ability to fly.  I suppose I could add that every albatross has a bat inside it!  Two years later the American late show comedian John Oliver punted the Australasian Crested Grebe, leading to unprecedented levels of international voting for it and allowing it to win by a mile, thereby arousing much consternation in Aotearoa (the Land of the Long White Cloud).  The 2024 competition was less controversial, with the beleaguered Yellow-eyed Penguin winning for a second time (the first time in 2019).

An ACAP-listed Westland Petrel, watercolour by ABUN artist Helen Worthington, after a photograph by Frank Valckenborgh

You will be able to cast your preferential ballot  at birdoftheyear.org.nz.  Five procellariiform seabirds are included, two of them ACAP-listed species.  They are the Endangered Antipodean Albatross Diomedea antipodensis, the Endangered Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica. the Endangered Hutton’s Shearwater Puffinus huttoni, the Vulnerable Cook’s Petrel Pterodroma cookii and the Fairy Prion Pachyptila turtur (Least Concern).

An Antipodean Albatross feeds its chick on Antipodes Island, photograph by Keith Springer

The Antipodean Albatross or Toroa already has its Campaign Team in place, with Ahaan Halwai as its Manager, saying “We are a determined group of neurodivergent individuals set on making Toroa bird of the year and prove they are the best bird (as we have always known) and WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL WE HAVE WON!!!!”

Read more about the Antipodean Albatross, a regular BOTY combatant, and how it came second in BOTY2020 (its best position to date) from here.  The Antipodean Albatross (and all 22 albatross species) were featured by Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN) for the inaugural World Albatross Day on 19 June 2020 with its theme of “Eradicating Island Pests”.  View its ACAP Species Infographic in three languages from here.

So far it seems the Westland Petrel or Tāiko (and the other three contesting procellariiforms) do not have Campaign Teams touting their winning credibility.  No albatross (or any procellariform seabird for that matter) has won the competition since its inception in 2005, so let’s see if 2025 can be a turn around with the globally Endangered Toroa on the top step for once.

Voting (instructions coming soon) will open on Monday 15 September 2025 and close on Sunday 28 September 2025.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 15 August 2025