Monitoring the population of Northern Royal Albatrosses (pictured) was one area of focus for the research on New Zealand's Chatham Islands. Photograph by David Brooks

A collection of reports on albatross research conducted on the Chatham Islands has been published by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation.

The Publications:

Motuhara seabird research field trip December 2022 (PDF, 182K)

Trail-camera assessment of the fates of Northern Royal Albatross and Northern Buller’s Mollymawk chicks: 2021 breeding season, Motuhara (PDF, 3,132K)

POP2022-05 Northern Buller’s albatross GLS tracking and comparison with Southern Buller’s albatross (PDF, 5,392K)

POP2022-06 Northern Royal Albatross tracking from Motuhara, Chatham Islands, and Taiaroa Head in 2021 (1,364K) 

A summary of each report follows:

“The field work has been undertaken on Motuhara Island, a privately owned island east of Chatham Island with some of the most significant albatross colonies in New Zealand. Mike Bell (Toroa Consulting Ltd) visited the colony in December 2022 to collect tracking tags of northern Buller’s albatross/mollymawk (Thalassarche bulleri platei), download trail camera footage from cameras left out over the previous 12 months, carry out banding of birds for demographic studies and conduct counts of albatrosses and northern giant petrels (Macronectes halli).

The trail camera footage from 2021 for northern royal albatross (Diomedea sanfordi) and northern Buller’s albatross was analysed by Peter Frost (Science Support Services). This was looking at breeding success at monitored nests, timing and causes of nest failures, activity levels across the daily cycle to inform aerial survey techniques and other observations relevant to the behaviour of the birds across the nesting cycle. Dates of departure of chicks are provided. Climate related issues on the colony are assessed in the report.

Global location sensing tags (GLS) were applied to northern Buller’s albatross as well as southern Buller’s albatross (Thalassarche bulleri) on the Snares Island (Tini Heke). Johannes Fischer has analysed the tracking datasets (n=69 from northerns and n=28 from southerns) to show patterns of annual movements, migration routes and core foraging zones both within the New Zealand EEZ and the high seas and when the birds reach South American waters off Chile and Peru. There are temporal differences in the timing of breeding with a four month difference in peak breeding: northerns departing earlier and returning earlier than southerns, reducing spatial and temporal overlap in their foraging ranges here and off South America. Northerns largely remain north and east of the Chatham Rise whereas southerns are common off southern and western South Island, and off Otago and Canterbury. Some birds reach the seas off Australia.

The satellite tracking of northern royal albatross in 2021 is reported by Samhita Bose. This species had tags applied on Motuhara and the birds stayed exclusively within the New Zealand EEZ during chick rearing. After breeding failure or at the end of the season the birds migrated to the seas off western and eastern South America (Chile, Patagonia and Argentina). Issues with the loss of aerials on tags on some tags were identified with this project. Also a pair of northern royals and their chick from Taiaroa Head were tracked in 2021 and the results presented in this report. The male from this pair made the only visit to the Tasman Sea of the 33 birds involved in this study.”

Publication information

Bell, M. 2023. Motuhara seabird research: field trip report December 2022. Report prepared by Toroa Consulting Limited for the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation. 4 p.  

Frost, P., Bell, M., Taylor, G. 2023.  Trail-camera assessment of the fates of Northern Royal Albatross and Northern Buller’s Mollymawk chicks: 2021 breeding season, Motuhara. Report prepared for the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation. 25 p. 

Bose, S., Bell, M., Taylor, G. 2023.  Northern Royal Albatross tracking from Motuhara, Chatham Islands, and Taiaroa Head in 2021. POP2022-06 final report prepared for the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation. 9 p.  

Fischer, J.H., Bell, M., Frost, P., Sagar, P.M., Thompson, D.R, Middlemiss, K.L., Debski, I., Taylor, G. 2023. Year-round GLS tracking of Northern Buller’s albatross and comparison with Southern Buller’s albatross. POP2022-05 final report prepared for the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation. 16 p.

23 August 2023

Tracks from four different Westland Petrel adults across the annual cycle (two males and two females)

A news article on a study of the ACAP-listed and globally Endangered Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica, endemic to New Zealand, follows.

“A Department of Conservation team, with field work led by Westport based biodiversity ranger, Kate Simister, has been funded to conduct three years of research into Westland petrels / tāiko. The funding comes from the Conservation Services Programme, which monitors the impact of commercial fishing on protected species, studies species populations and looks at ways to mitigate bycatch.

The new funding has allowed the work programme to expand to cover a range of new projects not previously attempted with this species. These include:

1.      Understanding burrow occupancy rates in this species to determine how burrow mapping and nest counts can be related to numbers of breeding pairs. In particular how the status of apparent non-breeding birds occupying nest sites changes over time (e.g. are these pairs skipping breeding attempts, failed breeders or do these birds lack a partner?)

2.      Investigating the diving behaviour of Westland petrels using time-depth records to determine their risk profile from fisheries methods such as surface and bottom long-lines.

3.      Carry out multi-year tracking of adult birds using Global Location Sensing tags to determine extent of time spent within the New Zealand EEZ and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

4.      Track juvenile birds to determine if they migrate to seas beyond New Zealand.

5.      Testing of different tag attachment methods for GPS or Argos passive integrated transponder tags.

The study, currently in the third year of field work and the winter breeding season of tāiko, has recently shared a progress report. The report includes some fascinating early findings and when, complete, will provide extensive data for further analysis through an MSc student programme and new scientific papers.

Findings include dive depth and foraging locations as well as their migration to South America.

For the detail, methodology and early findings, the interim report is available here.”

A Westland Petrel in flight, photograph by Raja Stephenson

Text from the website of the West Coast Penguin Trust.

22 August 2023

 An Argentinian side trawler; photo by Leo Tamini

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reissued a vacancy announcement for a Senior Fishery and Aquaculture Officer (P-5) at the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (RLC) in Santiago, Chile.

Details from the announcement follow:

“The Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (RLC) is responsible for leading FAO's response to regional priorities for food security, agriculture and rural development through the identification, planning and implementation of FAO's priority activities in the region.

Reporting Lines
The Senior Fishery and Aquaculture Officer reports to the Regional Programme Leader, with functional guidance of the Director, Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI) at headquarters.

Technical Focus
Provides integrated advice on fisheries policy, management and governance, and sustainable aquaculture development in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.

Key Results
Leadership and technical policy expertise for the planning, development and implementation of regional programmes of work, projects, products, services in accordance with regional objectives and the FAO Strategic Framework and in alignment with the Organization's Gender Policy.”

The complete job description and the link to apply can be found at the FAO website, here.

The deadline for applications is 30 August 2023.

21 August 2023

A Wandering Albatross soars over the ocean; photo by Trevor Hardaker

The flight responses of 294 Wandering Albatrosses to winds have been analysed in a new study by Natasha Gillies (School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK) and colleagues. The research published open access in, Journal of Animal Ecology, examines the relationship between the personality trait of boldness and behavioural plasticity in flight decisions to varied wind conditions.

The paper’s abstract follows:

1. “Behavioural plasticity can allow populations to adjust to environmental change when genetic evolution is too slow to keep pace. However, its constraints are not well understood. Personality is known to shape individual behaviour, but its relationship to behavioural plasticity is unclear.
2. We studied the relationship between boldness and behavioural plasticity in response to wind conditions in wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans).
3. We fitted multivariate hidden Markov models to an 11-year GPS dataset collected from 294 birds to examine whether the probability of transitioning between behavioural states (rest, prey search and travel) varied in response to wind, boldness and their interaction.
4. We found that movement decisions varied with boldness, with bolder birds showing preferences for travel, and shyer birds showing preferences for search. For females, these effects depended on wind speed. In strong winds, which are optimal for movement, females increased time spent in travel, while in weaker winds, shyer individuals showed a slight preference for search, while bolder individuals maintained preference for travel.
5. Our findings suggest that individual variation in behavioural plasticity may limit the capacity of bolder females to adjust to variable conditions and highlight the important role of behavioural plasticity in population responses to climate change.”

Reference:

Gillies, N.,  Weimerskirch, H.,  Thorley, J.,  Clay, T. A.,  Martín López, L. M.,  Joo, R.,  Basille, M., &  Patrick, S. C. 2023.  Boldness predicts plasticity in flight responses to winds. Journal of Animal Ecology, 00,  1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13968

18 August 2023