The Sixth Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MoP6) to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels is being held this week in the Nombolo Mdhluli Conference Centre, Skukuza Rest Camp, Kruger National Park, South Africa from Monday, 7 May to Friday, 11 May 2018.  A Heads of Delegation meeting was convened on Sunday in the evening to discuss the week's proceedings.  The HoD meeting was well attended by 12 of the 13 Parties to the Agreement, as well as by two Range States, Canada and the USA.  The meeting was chaired by Nathan Walker, Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee, supported by ACAP's Executive Secretary, Marco Favero.

Nombolo Mdhluli Conference Centre

Heads of Delegation meeting underway with Nathan Walker, Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee on the head table along with Marco Favero, ACAP Executive Secretary

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Corporal Nombolo Mdhluli

 The modern, well-equipped conference centre is named after Corporal Nombolo Mdhluli, who was a field ranger in the Kruger National Park for 40 years from 1918 to 1958.  The centre was opened by Dr David Mabunda, the then Chief Executive Officer of South African National Parks, in November 2011.

Flowering indigenous plants at the entrace to the conference centre

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 May 2018

French National Plans of Action for biodiversity are operational documents aimed at the conservation of threatened species within France and its territories. Since 2011 the Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis, an ACAP-listed species categorized by IUCN as Critically Endangered, has benefited from a National Plan of Action (NPoA). An updated version is now ready for adoption.

The Amsterdam Albatross is endemic to France’s Amsterdam Island where it breeds. This uninhabited island, located in the southern Indian Ocean, is part of the National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF).  As a Party to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), France is committed to achieve and maintain a favourable conservation status for albatrosses and petrels within its territories, including the Amsterdam Albatross.

Amsterdam Albatrosses, photograph by Romain Buenadicha

Amsterdam Island

The species’ population has been steadily increasing in size with an annual growth rate of 4.1% over the survey period from 1983 to 2017. Based on unpublished information, the population is currently estimated at around 216 individuals, of which about half are mature individuals. However, several threats to the Amsterdam Albatross still exist.

Firstly, there is a large overlap in the at-sea distribution of adult Amsterdam Albatrosses and longline fisheries in the southern Indian Ocean. Although no incidental capture of Amsterdam Albatrosses in such fisheries has been reported to date, the threat is thought to have a significant impact outside France’s Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) around its southern islands. It is noteworthy that longline fisheries are not required to report bird captures outside the French EEZs.

Secondly, chicks of the globally Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri breeding on Amsterdam Island are affected by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida, leading to a low breeding success (click here). With infected colonies of the globally Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses being close to the nests of Amsterdam Albatrosses there is a risk of an epizootic outbreak, which would be catastrophic for the population of the Amsterdam Albatross.

Thirdly, feral cats Felis catus, Norway or Brown Rats Rattus norvegicus and House Mice Mus musculus are introduced predators still present on the island. So far, no case of predation on Amsterdam Albatrosses has been reported by any of these species. However, predation of eggs and chicks by cats and rats is widely documented for other seabirds (but click here for Amsterdam’s rats). On Gough Island in the South Atlantic, with a broadly similar habitat to Amsterdam Island, House Mice have been found responsible for deadly attacks on albatross and other seabird chicks, as has been regularly reported in ACAP Latest News (click here).  In addition, rats are also supposed to be a major reservoir of Pasteurella multocida and thus could be expected to have a role in the possible outbreak of an epizootic.

Finally, the island’s habitat has suffered significant damage due to the presence of domestic cattle introduced in 1871, making it unsuitable for albatrosses to breed on large parts of the island. Complete removal of the herd in 2010 has removed this threat, but climate change makes habitat evolution uncertain, with the possible spread of introduced plant species.

The first NPoA, initially aimed to cover the period 2011 to 2015, has been extended until the end of 2017, in which year it was assessed (click here for the French assessment text).

Due to the species’ unfavorable conservation status and the continuing threats it faces, a second NPoA will be adopted to cover the 10-year period 2018 to 2027. The prepared text was discussed on 19 March this year in Paris with the National Nature Reserve, main scientific partners and the Ministry of the Environment. Its 17 proposed actions have been approved and the final document will be adopted and made available before the end of the year.

 Reference:

Delord, K., Micol, T. & Marteau, C. (Compilers) 2011. National Plan of Actions for the Amsterdam albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis 2011-2015. Ministère de l’écologie, du Développement durable et de l’énergie. 81 pp.

Adrien Chaigne, Conservation Project Officer – Birds and Marine , Mammals, National Nature Reserve, French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF), Rue Gabriel Dejean, 97458 Saint-Pierre, France, 04 May 2018

Taketo Komura (Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan) and colleague have published open access in the online journal PLoS One on diet of the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Ardenna pacifica from Minamijima Island in the Ogasawaras revealed by DNA metabarcoding.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The foraging ecology of pelagic seabirds is difficult to characterize because of their large foraging areas. In the face of this difficulty, DNA metabarcoding may be a useful approach to analyze diet compositions and foraging behaviors. Using this approach, we investigated the diet composition and its seasonal variation of a common seabird species on the Ogasawara Islands, Japan: the wedge-tailed shearwater Ardenna pacifica. We collected fecal samples during the prebreeding (N = 73) and rearing (N = 96) periods. The diet composition of wedge-tailed shearwater was analyzed by Ion Torrent sequencing using two universal polymerase chain reaction primers for the 12S and 16S mitochondrial DNA regions that targeted vertebrates and mollusks, respectively. The results of a BLAST search of obtained sequences detected 31 and 1 vertebrate and mollusk taxa, respectively. The results of the diet composition analysis showed that wedge-tailed shearwaters frequently consumed deep-sea fishes throughout the sampling season, indicating the importance of these fishes as a stable food resource. However, there was a marked seasonal shift in diet, which may reflect seasonal changes in food resource availability and wedge-tailed shearwater foraging behavior. The collected data regarding the shearwater diet may be useful for in situ conservation efforts. Future research that combines DNA metabarcoding with other tools, such as data logging, may provide further insight into the foraging ecology of pelagic seabirds.”

Wedge-tailed Shearwater, photograph by Alan Burger

Reference:

Komura , T., Ando, H., Horikoshi, K., Suzuki, H. &Isagi, Y. 2018. DNA barcoding reveals seasonal shifts in diet and consumption of deep-sea fishes in wedge-tailed shearwaters. PLoS One doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195385.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 May 2018

Susan Waugh (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications on overlaps between foraging ACAP-listed and globally Endangered Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica and trawl fisheries.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Environmental and anthropogenic influences in the marine environment are primary drivers of behavior and demographic outcomes for marine birds. We examined factors influencing the foraging patterns of the Westland Petrel (Procellaria westlandica), a highly threatened, endemic petrel that inhabits subtropical water masses primarily in the Tasman Sea, with a poorly known at-sea distribution. Risk assessments place the species at moderate risk of population impacts from fisheries-related mortality. Studies in the 1990s indicated that trawl fisheries would have an important influence on the Westland Petrel's foraging behavior. We investigated the influence of climatic conditions, marine productivity, bathymetry, the core fishery zone, concurrent fishing activity, light conditions, sex, and breeding stage on Westland Petrel foraging patterns. We analyzed the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen from blood sampled during the incubation period and examined changes in isotopic niche width over a 6-yr period. We found that the Westland Petrel's foraging zone varied only slightly between years and that the location of intensively used areas was strongly influenced by bathymetric slope and latitude, and negatively influenced by chlorophyll-a. The core fishery zone had a secondary influence, suggesting that these petrels co-occur with fisheries, but are not dependent on waste for food. Trophic niche width was significantly wider during strong El Niño conditions, indicating that food type, rather than location, was most affected by climatic variation. Consistent use of one marine area across varying times and conditions increases the risk of adverse effects of climate or human-induced impacts on the species. However, marine spatial management tools become viable in these conditions. Further, with rapid increases in sea surface temperatures and extreme values recorded in the region in recent periods, changes to fisheries zones and distributions of natural prey of the species are likely to occur and may change the population's sustainability."

Westland Petrel, photograph by Raja Stephenson

For a popular account of the publication click here.

With thanks to Robert Vagg.

Reference:

Waugh, S.M., Griffiths, J.W., Poupart, T.A., Filippi, D.P., Rogers, K. & Arnould, J.Y.P. 2018. Environmental factors and fisheries influence the foraging patterns of a subtropical seabird, the Westland Petrel (Procellaria westlandica), in the Tasman Sea. The Condor 120 (2): 371 DOI: 10.1650/CONDOR-17-179.1.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 May 2018