While nearly 100 km out to sea on a voyage aboard the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) RV Investigator on a trip to explore underwater mountains off Tasmania's coast, scientists observed an albatross that had apparently swallowed a balloon.

Marine biologist Alice Forrest aboard said "we thought it had a squid in its mouth and upon closer observation we realised that what we thought was a squid with tentacles was a rubber balloon with a string trailing from its mouth”.  On the same day the scientists aboard saw a group of albatrosses investigating a floating plastic drinks bottle: “one of the birds was picking the plastic bottle up and throwing it around".

A Shy-type Albatross T. cauta trails a balloon string

Two Shy-type Albatrosses approach a plastic drinks bottle at sea

Photographs from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Read more here.

ACAP Latest News has previously posted on ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels swallowing or becoming entangled by balloons, including Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes, Black-browed Albatross Thalassarche melanophris, Grey-headed Albatross T. chrysostoma, Light-mantled Albatross Phoebetria fusca, Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus and Northern Giant Petrel M. halli (click here).

Further, 17 of the 31 ACAP-listed species have been reported in a scientific study as becoming entangled in plastic litter, including 12 albatross species, both giant petrels Macronectes and two Procellaria petrels (click here).

Click here for an account of balloons being seen previously from the RV Investigator 250 km out to sea.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 December 2018

New Zealand’s  Department of Conservation (DOC)  is undertaking field work at the Auckland Islands this austral summer to inform the planned pest eradication project that aims to rid the main island in the group of its feral pigs and cats and House Mice – and thus free the whole island group of introduced mammals.

Carnely Harbour in the south of Auckland Island

This year teams will be going to the island to look at where infrastructure sites can be set up for the eradication exercise, and to catch and tag cats so as to monitor and track their behaviour so as to “inform how we might go about removing them in the future."  Further, in early January next year a team will use a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging technology to see how they could track the pigs.  Pig hunters will then try to eradicate pigs in a 56-ha area on Falla Peninsula that will later be used to monitor mice.  In the same month a team will then carry out mice monitoring using non-toxic bait with a fluorescent marker and yet another team will check the cat monitoring.  It is hoped the monitoring data will be collected by March so a business case can be completed by mid-2019.

A feral pig on Auckland Island

DOC also reports that the New Zealand Government has contributed NZ$ two million for the initial scoping work, and that the total eradication cost could rise to NZ$ 40-50 million over a 10-year period.

The main Auckland Island was rid of its feral goats in 1992 and Enderby Island, in the group no longer has feral cattle, European Rabbits or House Mice following eradication exercises.

Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 December 2018

A cooperative arrangement to produce a joint Action Plan for the nominate subspecies of the globally Endangered and Nationally Critical Antipodean Albatross Diomedea antipodensis was signed last month by New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, on behalf of Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage and Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash, and the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Ampuero, who was then visiting New Zealand alongside President Sebastián Piñera.  The new agreement establishes a cooperative partnership between the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in New Zealand, and Chile’s Undersecretariat for Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA) and its Ministry of the Environment.

A pair of Antipodean Albatrosses at their nest on Antipodes Island, photograph by Erica Sommer

Nathan Walker, ACAP’s Advisory Committee Chair, writes to ACAP Latest News:

“The Action Plan is intended to address the need identified by ACAP’s Advisory Committee at its Ninth Meeting held in Chile in 2016 to develop “a list of actions that identify priority research and conservation activities for each of the high priority populations, and report to each Advisory Committee meeting on progress in implementing those activities” (AC9.9.1.3 (viii)).  At its 10th Meeting held in New Zealand in 2017 the Advisory Committee endorsed the inclusion of Antipodean Albatrosses breeding on Antipodes Island [the nominate subspecies] as an ACAP Priority Population for conservation management (AC10.11 1.4 (iii))”.

A New Zealand press release states “central to the arrangement is establishing a Plan of Action for the conservation of Antipodean albatross, which like many other New Zealand endemic seabirds, breeds in New Zealand and forages in waters off Chile in the non-breeding season [click here].  The biggest threat to these seabirds comes from fishing in the international waters between the two countries, particularly as bycatch in surface longline fisheries.  An important component of the arrangement will be increased cooperation through Regional Fisheries Management Organisations, which govern fishing on the high seas.”

Read more here and here.

The ACAP Advisory Committee next meets in Brazil in May 2019 (click here), when it may expect to hear of developments with the new bilateral agreement for the nominate subspecies of the Antipodean Albatross.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 December 2018

Josh Adams (United States Geological Survey, Santa Cruz, California, USA) and colleagues have published open access in the online journal Marine Ornithology on diving behaviour of ACAP-listed and globally Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwaters Ardenna creatopus.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Recent information reporting Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus mortality from fisheries bycatch throughout its range has encouraged fisheries managers in Chile to evaluate and consider shearwater foraging behaviors to better evaluate risk. In response, we tracked six chick-rearing adult Pink-footed Shearwaters from Isla Mocha, off south-central Chile, from 19 to 28 March 2015 using global positioning sensors and time-depth recorders. We recorded seven complete trips averaging 4.2 ± 2.5 d (mean ± SD). Chick-provisioning adults foraged within 334 km (i.e., 175 ± 100 km) of Isla Mocha. Dives (n = 515) occurred throughout the measured foraging range but most frequently occurred within 5-30 km from the mainland coast, in continental shelf waters north of Valdivia. Other regions with diving behavior were within ~20 km of Isla Mocha, and from Lebu to north of Talcahuano. Based on movement behavior analysis, adults spent most of their time at sea “resting/foraging” (62% ± 6%), with the remainder spent “searching” (16% ± 4%) and “transiting” (20% ± 5%). The proportions of total number of dives associated with these three behaviors were similar. On average, dives were relatively shallow (1.6 ± 1.2 m, maximum depth = 10.1 m) and brief (4.7 ± 4.8 s, maximum duration = 25.7 s). Dives occurred during the day, at night, and at twilight, with most activity occurring at twilight and during the day. Although based on a small sample size, our results may be useful for informing modifications to fishing gear or fisheries policy to reduce the likelihood of bycatch and thus meet Chilean conservation goals for Pink-footed Shearwaters.”

Pink-footed Shearwater at sea, photograph from Oikonos

Reference:

Adams, J., Felis, J.J., Czapanskiy, M., Carle, R.D. & Hodum, P.J. 2019.  Diving behavior of Pink-footed Shearwaters Ardenna creatopus rearing chicks on Isla Mocha, Chile. Marine Ornithology 47: 17-24.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 December 2018