Kaycee Morra (Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA) and colleagues have published in the journal Oecologia on trophic declines affecting Hawaiian albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“We investigated how foraging habits vary among three ecologically distinct wide-ranging seabirds. Using amino acid δ¹⁵N proxies for nutrient regime (δ¹⁵N_Phe) and trophic position (Δδ¹⁵N_Glu-Phe), we compared Newell’s shearwater (Puffinus newelli) and Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) foraging habits over the past 50–100 years, respectively, to published records for the Hawaiian petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis). Standard ellipses constructed from the isotope proxies show that inter-population and interspecific foraging segregation have persisted for several decades. We found no evidence of a shift in nutrient regime at the base of the food web for the three species. However, our data identify a trophic decline during the past century for Newell’s shearwater and Laysan albatross (probability ≥ 0.97), echoing a similar decline observed in the Hawaiian petrel. During this time, Newell’s shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels have experienced population declines and Laysan albatross has experienced range extension and apparent population stability. Counting other recent studies, a pattern of trophic decline over the past century has now been identified in eight species of pelagic seabirds that breed in the Hawaiian Islands. Because our study species forage broadly across the North Pacific Ocean and differ in morphological and behavioral traits and feeding methods, the identified trophic declines suggest a pervasive shift in food web architecture within the past century.”

Laysan Albatrosses in flight, photograph by Peter Leary

Reference:

Morra, K.E., Chikaraishi, Y., Gandhi, H., James, H.J., Rossman, S., Wiley, A.E., Raine, A.F., Beck, J. & Ostrom, P.H. 2019.  Trophic declines and decadal-scale foraging segregation in three pelagic seabirds.  Oecologia  doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-04330-8.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 January 2019

The Convention on Migratory Species (Bonn Convention; UNEP-CMS) has announced that its Executive Secretary, Dr. Bradnee Chambers passed away on 23 January 2019 in his native Canada after a short illness.  Dr Chambers, an expert in international environmental governance who had been in the position since 2013, was only 52.

Tilman Schneider, CMS Associate Programme Officer, Avian Species has written to ACAP Latest News saying that the passing of the Executive Secretary has come as a shock.  The CMS Secretariat has stated “We have lost a great colleague, and a strong leader, who had a clear vision; a kind and cheerful manager who always kept his door open to all staff; and a generous and warm-hearted colleague.  He will be missed by many colleagues here in Bonn and around the world.”

Bradnee Chambers, MA, LLM, PhD (19 July 1966 - 23 January 2019), photograph by Aydin Bahramlouian

ACAP, one of seven “daughter” Agreements of the CMS Family, joins with its colleagues in Bonn in extending its thoughts and condolences to Bradnee Chambers’ family (he is survived by a daughter) and also to our CMS friends.

Those involved with the development of the Albatross & Petrel Agreement worked closely with the framework Bonn Convention, and with a previous CMS Executive Secretary, Arnulf Müller-Helmbrecht, around the time of the final negotiation meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa in 2001.  The early history of ACAP has been set out in a publication written by a number of persons then involved that inter alia details the important role played by the Bonn Convention in ACAP's genesis.

With thanks to Tilman Schneider, Associate Programme Officer, Avian Species, Convention on Migratory Species.

Reference:

Cooper, J., Baker, G.B., Double, M.C., Gales, R., Papworth, W., Tasker, M.L. & Waugh, S.M. 2006.  The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels: rationale, history, progress and the way forward.  Marine Ornithology 34: 1-5.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 January 2019

From time to time, ACAP Latest News has featured the role of albatrosses and petrels in literature and in the visual and aural arts.  Visual art works covered have included public statues around the world, as well as oil and water-colour paintings (often appearing on postage stamps).  Musical arts have been covered with Fleetwood Mac’s haunting guitar instrumental Albatross.  Albatrosses, more than petrels, have appeared in some well-known poems by such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Pablo Neruda and Charles Baudelaire.  Albatross poems featured in ALN have appeared in several languages: English, French and Spanish – coincidentally ACAP’s three official languages – as well as in Hawaiian.

ALN’s thinking is that artistic endeavours of these types can often strike a chord with the general public for a conservation cause more easily than can dry scientific writing - appealing to the heart as well as to the head.

Pleasing then to be able to get in touch with two USA-based artists, poet Hannah Fries and painter Sara Parrilli, who have collaborated on a suite of illustrated poems that address the plight of albatrosses in the North Pacific.  They write on-line:

“This collaboration began with a film clip: a trailer for the forthcoming film Albatross (now available to the public in its finished form), written and directed by artist Chris Jordan.  It is one of those works of art that combines so much grief with so much beauty that looking away from it feels impossible.  In this case, the story is about a remote island in the Pacific, the beautiful Laysan albatross, and the horrifying effects of the plastic that makes its way to the ocean and, carried by currents, gathers in a mind-bogglingly vast garbage patch.”

Here is just one of the collaborations from their Albatross project:

Albatross at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - by Hannah Fries

Because hunger
Because life
Because squid and bottle caps and bags
Because pervasive
Because what is not needed passes through
Because salt our companion
Because solitude
Because the egg cracks open the chick cries out a thousand miles away
Because our ancestors
Because the wind that brings us
Because glide
Because dive
Because when has anything not been food to someone
Because now
Because here
Because the sea is our body is the world inside us
Because how will we recognize the end

Albatross at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Sara Parrilli

See more works from their project here.  Future postings will feature more of Hannah’s and Sara’s collaboration.

With thanks to Hannah Fries and Sara Parrilli.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 January 2019

The Third World Seabird Conference (WSC3) with the theme ‘Conserving Seabird Diversity for the Future’ will be held in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia over 19 - 23 October 2020.  The venue will be the Hotel Grand Chancellor.

The conference will aim to “provide a hub for seabird scientists from across the world to gather with colleagues and discuss research, conservation, and innovative technology as they relate to the study of seabirds and their marine environment”.

“The Conference will focus on the biology, ecology, and conservation of these globally relevant species at a time when marine ecosystems and the species that inhabit them are increasingly under stress.  WSC3 will be structured around a series of symposia, contributed sessions, and workshops.  It will provide participants with abundant opportunities to network with colleagues from around the world.”

The organisers are soliciting (to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) symposia and workshops for the Conference with the following topics as guidelines:

• • Seabirds as indicators of ocean health
• • Scale-dependent foraging strategies
• • Importance of physical ocean structures
• • Functional responses of seabirds to their prey
• • Climate change responses and adaptations
• • Seabird-parasite dynamics
• • Seabird-fishery interactions
• • Marine spatial ecology and planning
• • Outcome-based seabird conservation
• • Protection of breeding sites
• • Marine protected areas

Submission of abstracts for contributed papers/posters will open in the middle of 2019.

An “array of seabird and ecological experiences [is] to be arranged as part of this conference by members of the Australasian Seabird Group and Birds New Zealand.”

Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 January 2019