It’s all on the go with the hands-on management of globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis on the Hawaiian islands of Kauai and Oahu. Last month, as has been happening for the last 12 years, eggs were collected from the US Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. The breeding birds are a risk to flight operations at the facility, but rather than just destroying their eggs those deemed fertile by candling (click here) are fostered out to Laysans elsewhere on the island that have infertile eggs (often because both members of a pair are females). For this breeding season the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands delivered fertile eggs to 22 Laysan Albatross nests on three private properties on Kauai.

A Laysan Albatross receives a fertile egg on the island of Kauai, photograph by Hob Osterlund

View a video clip of a bird receiving its new egg on Kauai.

But this left a number of collected eggs with no suitable nests for fostering on the island. In the last three years these surplus eggs have taken a short flight by aeroplane to Oahu where the NGO Pacific Rim Conservation has artificially incubated them and then after hatching hand-reared the chicks in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, in an endeavour to create a new colony (click here)

This season a different tack has been taken as Pacific Rim Conservation reports by Facebook. “Every year there are more eggs than foster nests on Kauai, and this year instead of hand-raising these chicks at James Campbell, they were given to foster parents at Kaena Point [Natural Area Reserve] to bolster that population.” Twenty-one eggs have been fostered, meaning that over 40 eggs have been saved from destruction.

Read more here.

Meanwhile the Laysan Albatrosses in the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve are doing just fine with a record 105 eggs laid this breeding season, as reported to ACAP Latest News by Lindsay Young of Pacific Rim Conservation. “A lot of [banded] birds born in 2009 and 2010 (both large cohorts) are breeding for the first time this year which is why there has been such a bump in the numbers.”

100th breeding attempt at Kaena Point in the 2017/18 season, photograph by Lindsay Young

With thanks to Hob Osterlund (Kauai Albatross Network) and Lindsay Young (Pacific Rim Conservation) for information and photographs. The egg transfer project is supported by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and the U.S. Navy.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 January 2018

Wisdom, a female Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis considered to be at least 67 years old based on her band history, has returned once more to Midway Atoll in the North Pacific.

“U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge staff spotted Wisdom and her mate, Akeakamai, near their nest in late November, and on December 13 staff confirmed that Akeakamai was on the nest incubating an egg. Wisdom and her mate return to the same nest site on Midway Atoll each year. Since 2006, Wisdom has successfully raised and fledged at least nine chicks…” (click here).

Wisdom's mate stands over her egg last month; a photograph of Wisdom for the current breeding season is awaited

Photograph courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Read more about Wisdom’s annual breeding activity in ACAP Latest News here.

View photos and videos of Wisdom here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 January 2018

Michelle Antolos (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science on foraging behaviour and energetics of Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes, Laysan P. immutabilis and Indian Yellow-nosed Thalassarche carteri Albatrosses.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Animals can maximize fitness by optimizing energy acquisition through the selection of favorable foraging habitats, but trade-offs exist between time spent in preferred feeding habitats, energetic costs of travel, and reproductive constraints. For pelagic seabirds, geographic distribution of suitable breeding islands can restrict access to marine prey resources and influence foraging strategies. Laysan (Phoebastria immutabilis) and black-footed albatrosses (P. nigripes) breeding in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, and Indian yellow-nosed albatrosses (Thalassarche carteri) breeding in the Southern Indian Ocean, utilize productive subtropical-subpolar transition zones during their breeding and non-breeding periods, but this marine feature is at a comparatively greater distance for Hawaiian albatrosses during the breeding period due to location of nesting islands. We investigated the foraging behavior and energetics of these three species to evaluate how proximity to preferred marine habitats has influenced their overall foraging strategies. During incubation, all three species traveled to subtropical-subpolar transition zones, however, Hawaiian albatrosses ranged farther to reach this habitat. All species reduced time at sea during brooding, and Hawaiian albatrosses reduced their foraging ranges to distances similar to yellow-nosed albatrosses. As a consequence, Hawaiian albatrosses foraged in the warm, oligotrophic environment of the subtropical gyre during brooding while yellow-nosed albatrosses continued to forage in a subtropical-subpolar transition zone. Landing rates, an indicator of foraging effort, did not differ between reproductive stages and were highly variable within and among species. Hawaiian albatrosses generally spent more time in flight compared to yellow-nosed albatrosses, a strategy that may relate to searching for dispersed and unpredictable prey. Mean absolute field-metabolic rate (FMR) was greatest for black-footed albatrosses, and similar between Laysan and yellow-nosed albatrosses, but mass-specific FMR did not differ between species. Hawaiian albatrosses had lower total body water than yellow-nosed albatrosses (indicating greater lipid reserves), and had FMRs that fell below the allometric relationship for studied albatross species, attributes that likely reflect physiological adaptations for foraging in a low-productivity environment.”

Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross and chick, photograph by Peter Ryan

Reference:

Antolos, M., Shaffer, S.A., Weimerskirch, H. Tremblay, Y. & Costa, D.P. 2017. Foraging behavior and energetics of albatrosses in contrasting breeding environments. Frontiers in Marine Science doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2017.00414.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 December 2017

The James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on the Hawaiian island of Oahu has its first breeding pair of globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis.

After three years of social attraction with decoys and a call-broadcasting system and more than 700 recorded visits from wild adults, a wild pair has laid an egg and commenced incubation. The pair was banded in the refuge so its provenance is unknown. Three more birds are sitting on empty nest bowls within the predator-proof fenced area where chicks artificially hatched from eggs translocated from the island of Kauai have been had-reared until fledging over the last three breeding seasons (click here).

The first Laysan Albatross egg gets incubated in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, sex of the bird awaits confirmation, photograph by Lindsay Young

The breeding area in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge is protected by a predator-proof fence, photograph by Lindsay Young

According to Pacific Rim Conservation a few more nests are expected to be established this season. This will be the first year translocated chicks could be expected to return as pre-breeders.

The refuge is also being used to hand rear translocated chicks of the globally Near Threatened Black-footed Albatross P. nigripes. The overall aim is to create a new breeding colony for both albatross species which at most of their low-lying breeding sites are at risk from sea level rise predicted to be caused by climate change (click here).

Albatross conservation work within the refuge is carried out by Pacific Rim Conservation, with support from partners Pacific Islands: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Navy, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation and American Bird Conservancy.

With thanks to Lindsay Young, Pacific Rim Conservation for information and photographs.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 December 2017