The MFM takeover team from left: Otto Whitehead, Keith Springer, Roelf Daling, Josh Kemp and Vonica Perold before sailing to Marion Island on 18 April 2025

Robyn Adams, Mouse-Free Marion Project Communications Officer and Project Assistant writes in the news section on the project’s website.

“Since 2022, the Saving Marion Island’s Seabirds: the Mouse-Free Marion (MFM) Project has maintained a research presence on Marion Island.  Each year, field assistants are deployed to conduct critical research that informs the planning of the operation to restore the island’s degraded ecosystem by eradicating invasive mice.  This year is no exception and this month we once again set sail for Marion Island.

The annual Marion Island relief voyage in April will see the S.A. Agulhas II, South Africa’s Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research and support vessel, travel to the island to relieve the current overwintering personnel and resupply those at the research base with food, fuel and provisions to sustain them for the year they will spend on the island.

Each year, the MFM Project deploys new research personnel.  The 2025/26 team is Vonica Perold and Roelf Daling, who will be relieving Monique van Bers after her year-long stint on Marion Island.  Vonica and Roelf will form part of the M82 overwintering team and join the larger MFM Project team participating in the takeover voyage.

Accompanying them on the month-long voyage are Keith Springer (MFM Project Operations Manager) and Josh Kemp, who will be overseeing the research activities planned for the takeover period.  After closely examining possible reasons for two recent failed eradications, this research will include new field trials specifically designed to investigate key parameters relating to bait and mice, further refining the approach to eradication planning.  Filmmaker and scientist Otto Whitehead will also be part of the MFM Project team for the voyage, and will assist with the field work, document activities and help raise awareness for the project.

During the 2025/2026 period, Vonica and Roelf will continue various monitoring initiatives that have been established to inform the planning of the baiting operation and support long-term monitoring of the ecological outcomes.  Addressing key knowledge gaps through well-designed field trials plays a critical role in ensuring the success of the eradication operation.” [edited].

Read more about the 2025 takeover and the new MFM Project field team in the latest issue (No. 13, April 2025) of the MFM Quarterly Newsletter.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 24 April 2025

White-chinned Petrel in flight, watercolour by Lea Finke of Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature for ACAP, after a photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Kalinka Rexer-Huber (Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Ecological Applications on the overlap of  globally Vulnerable White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis with longline and trawl fisheries in the Southern Oceaan.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Although fisheries bycatch is the greatest threat to many migratory marine megafauna, it remains unclear how population exposure to bycatch varies across the global range of threatened species. Such assessments across multiple populations are crucial for understanding variation in impacts and for identifying the management bodies responsible for reducing bycatch.  Here, we combine extensive biologging data from white-chinned petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis) populations (representing >98% of their global breeding population) with pelagic and demersal longline and trawl fishing effort to map the global distribution and fisheries-overlap hotspots for the most bycaught seabird in the Southern Hemisphere.  We tracked the year-round movements of 132 adults in 2006–2018 and examined spatial overlap among seven populations comprising three genetically distinct groupings (metapopulations).  Foraging areas during the nonbreeding season were more concentrated than during breeding, with birds from all populations migrating to continental shelf or upwelling zones, but with low spatial overlap among metapopulations.  Fisheries overlap differed more among than within metapopulations, underlining that these should be considered separate management units.  Overlap with pelagic longline fisheries was greatest for Indian Ocean populations, and from the fleets of South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, and Spain, off southern Africa and in the High Seas.  Overlap with demersal longline and trawl fisheries was greatest for Indian and Atlantic Ocean populations, within the Exclusive Economic Zones of South Africa, Namibia, and Argentina, and with the South Korean demersal longline fleet in the High Seas.  The high overlap with South Korean longliners in the southwest Atlantic Ocean is of particular concern as demersal fishing in this region is not covered by any Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO).  We also identified fisheries-overlap hotspots within RFMOs where there are no seabird-bycatch mitigation requirements (1.5%–53.1% of total overlap within the area of competence of each RFMO), or where current mitigation regulations need to be strengthened.  Our recommendations are that management bodies target the high-priority fisheries we have identified for improved bycatch monitoring, mandatory best-practice bycatch mitigation, and close monitoring of compliance, given the conservation concerns for white-chinned petrels and other threatened seabirds.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey.

Reference:

Rexer-Huber, K.,  Clay, T.A., Catry, P., Debski, I., Parker, G., Ramos R., Robertson, B.C.,  Ryan, P.G., Sagar, P.M., Stanworth, A., Thompson, D.R., Tuck G,N., Weimerskirch, H. & Phillips, R.A. 2025.  Metapopulation distribution shapes year-round overlap with fisheries for a circumpolar seabird.  Ecological Applications doi.org/10.1002/eap.70019.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 23 April 2025

A Light-mantled Albatross shows the impressive above-water height of A23a, photograph by Holly Parsons

A23a, the world’s largest iceberg, ran aground approximately 80 km to the west of South Georgia/Islas Georgias del Sur* in the South Atlantic on 01 March 2025.  The c. 3200 square kilometre tabular berg calved from the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea in 1986.  Not surprisingly its presence so close to the island quickly attracted the interest of Antarctic cruise ships and their passengers, as described in the following two accounts.

https://youtube.com/shorts/J4LT_erpqMA?feature=share
Video of A23a on 15 March 2025 by Cathi Crabtree

Photographer Eric Guth  aboard the cruise ship National Geographic Endurance writes on Instagram of noticing thousands of seabirds from albatrosses to prions alongside the estimated 187-m deep grounded iceberg, after spending close to two hours in its vicinity on 07 March 2025 “while waves, wind and heavy seas pounded its windward side.  With so much extent below the water’s surface this submerged wall of ice has become a pump for nutrients.  As the prevailing westerlies and associated currents ramp up the underside of the berg they bring nutrients to the surface while at the same time speeding up the melt process which releases limiting minerals like iron into the ocean.  This further fuels the organisms the associated wildlife are feeding on.”

A White-chinned Petrel flies along the edge of the grounded iceberg, photograph by Holly Parsons

A week later on 15 March, Holly Parsons of Albatross Lovers sailed alongside the iceberg as a passenger on the cruise ship Le Boréal, taking photographs and noting the presence of Grey-headed Albatrosses Thalassarche chrysostoma , Light-mantled Albatrosses Phoebetria palpebrata and White-chinned Petrels, Procellaria equinoctialis, among prions Pachyptila sp. and other seabirds.

A Grey-headed Albatross close to iceberg A23a, photograph by Holly Parsons

With thanks to Holly Parsons.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 22 April 2025

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses breeding on The Pyramid, December 2024

The Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri is a little-studied Endangered seabird that has the bulk of its breeding population on France’s Amsterdam Island and South Africa’s Prince Edward Island.  Small numbers also breed on the French Crozet, Kerguelen and St Paul Islands.  All these sub-Antarctic islands fall within the southern Indian Ocean.

In 1998 a pair was discovered breeding on The Pyramid in New Zealand’s Chatham Islands in the Pacific Ocean.  It was observed breeding until at least 2003.  In 2007 two pairs were reported to be breeding on The Pyramid.  What seems likely is that these two pairs were still present when Laurie Smaglick Johnson closely circumnavigated the isolated rock on 14 December 2024 aboard the Heritage Adventurer, when she took the photographs depicted here.

The Pyramid, with the large cave visible

The Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross is one of two species chosen by ACAP to be featured as part of this year’s World Albatross Day on 19 June, with its theme of “Effects of Disease”.

The Pyramid is also the sole home of the Chatham Albatross

With thanks to Laurie Smaglick Johnson.

References:

Miskelly, C.M., Bester, A.J. & Bell. M. 2006.  Additions to the Chatham Islands’ bird list, with further records of vagrant and colonising bird species.  Notornis 53: 215-230.

Szabo, M.J. 2022  Indian Ocean yellow-nosed mollymawk. In: Miskelly, C.M. (Ed.).  New Zealand Birds Online.

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 21 April 2025