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

On 7 November 2017, west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean at 30° 20'S, 91° 00'W a great albatross carrying metal and white plastic (engraved 430, right leg) bands was photographed from the yacht H2O at sea by Antoine Chabrolle of France’s Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.  The general region visited was approximately 250 km west of Isla Alejandro Selkirk and 300 km south of Isla de Robinson Crusoe.  Following an on-line enquiry by Yan Ropert-Coudert, Secretary of the Expert Group on Birds and Marine Mammals of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR-EGBAMM), the bird was found to be a globally Endangered (and Nationally Critical) Antipodean Albatross Diomedea antipodensis (of the nominate subspecies antipodensis) from New Zealand’s Antipodes Island.

The Antipodean Albatross takes to the air, revealing its plastic colour and metal bands, photograph by Antoine Chabrolle

Well-known New Zealand albatross researchers, Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott have reported to SCAR-EGBAMM that the bird when photographed was a 17-year old female which was banded (metal band R55568) as a chick.  The bird was about to fledge from a nest near the edge of their long-term Antipodes Island study area on 21 December 2000.

Kath Walker further reports: “she returned to the island to court in the summers of 2004 and 2007 but we had not seen her since, probably because she found a mate and started nesting outside our study area, given the location of her natal nest.  The location at sea you spotted her is not unexpected as the birds we track wearing loggers use this area, but it’s great to get an actual GPS position, and a photograph, and to know that she [was] actually still alive a decade after we last saw her”.

SCAR-EGBAMM (and its precursors within the Biological Investigations of Marine Systems and Stocks [BIOMASS) and SCAR from the1980s) has and continues to serve a useful purpose in helping identify sightings of colour-banded seabirds in the Southern Ocean by tracking down the original banders.

With thanks to Antoine Chabrolle, Louise Chilvers, Graeme Elliott, Jérôme Fournier, Yan Ropert-Coudert and Kath Walker for their roles in identifying the photographed albatross and supplying information.

References:

Cooper, J, & Oatley, T.B. 1985. A first inventory of colour-banding projects in the Subantarctic and Antarctic, 1965-1984. Cormorant 13: 43-54.

Walker, K.P. & Elliott, G. 2006.  At-sea distribution of Gibson’s and Antipodean wandering albatrosses, and relationships with longline fisheries. Notornis 53: 265-290.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 December 2018, updated 07 December 2018