The project “Sustainable Management of Tuna Fisheries and Biodiversity Conservation in the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ)”, (also known as the “Common Oceans Tuna Project”) aims to achieve responsibility, efficiency and sustainability in tuna production and biodiversity conservation in the ABNJ. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the overall implementing agency of the project, and BirdLife International, through its local partner, BirdLife South Africa, is implementing the seabird bycatch component. This component has a number of separate, but aligned, areas of work. These include increasing awareness and capacity of observer programmes regarding seabird bycatch mitigation, and building capacity of national scientists from key countries in the areas of bycatch data collection and analysis, and facilitating a collaborative approach to the assessment of seabird bycatch. The first stage of the seabird bycatch assessment process involved two regional pre-assessment workshops, one in South Africa in March 2017, and the second in Vietnam in April 2017 (click here).

Attendees at the ABNJ workshop in Cusco, photograph courtesy of BirdLife South Africa

Building on the outcomes of these regional workshops, and to progress planning for the collaborative assessment of bycatch associated with southern hemisphere tuna fisheries, country representatives, and members of BirdLife and ACAP participated in a data preparation workshop from 20-24 February this year in Cusco, Peru. Discussions at the workshop focused on the data that are available for estimating seabird bycatch and assessing the effectiveness of mitigation measures, how best to address data gaps, and methodological approaches for estimating seabird bycatch in southern hemisphere tuna fisheries. An Action Plan was developed to help guide further work in preparation for the final assessment workshop, which is planned for February 2019. ACAP was represented at the workshop by Anton Wolfaardt, ACAP Seabird Bycatch Working Group Co-convenor.

Yellowfin Tuna

Anton Wolfaardt, Co-Convenor, ACAP Seabird Bycatch Working Group, 28 February 2018

Ewan Wakefield (Institute of Biodiversity, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom) and colleagues have published a grant report in the Seabird Group Newsletter (and on the grants page on the group’s website) on a study of the numbers and at-sea movements of globally Near Threatened Sooty Shearwaters Ardenna grisea at the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas*.

The authors report an estimate of “well in excess of 100,000 pairs” on Kidney Island, a population thought to be increasing in numbers. Birds tracked at sea from Kidney Island showed “the vast majority” foraged south of the island group in a region partly within an Argentinian Marine Protected Area (MPA).

Sooty Shearwater, photograph by John Graham

Reference:

Wakefield, E., Clark, T.J., Bonnet-Lebrun, A.-S., Campioni, L. & Catry, P. 2018. Seabird Group Grant Report – Surveying and tracking sooty shearwaters in the Falkland Islands. Seabird Group Newsletter 137: 8-9.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 February 2018

*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.

At an estimated 67 years of age, Wisdom the globally Near Threatened Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis, the world’s oldest known breeding bird, hatched her latest egg (click here) on 6 February this year. Wisdom and her mate Akeakamai of 12 years breed on Midway Atoll in the North Pacific; both are colour-banded to aid in identification.

Wisdom with her 2018 chick, photograph by Bob Peyton, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Wisdom has been breeding on Midway Atoll since at least 1956, when she was first banded by the late Chandler Robbins.

She has successfully raised an estimated 30-36 albatross chicks over the course of her life to date.

Visit Wisdom’s USFWS and Facebook pages for more information and photographs.  Read the latest news here and access the many ACAP Latest News postings on Wisdom here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 February 2018

Vincent Bourret (CEFE, CNRS-Université de Montpellier, France) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Conservation Letters on a novel procedure to reduce the effects of disease on globally Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses Thalassarche carteri on France’s Amsterdam Island.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Global change is contributing to unprecedented expansions of infectious diseases in wildlife. Recurrent avian cholera outbreaks are causing dramatic chick mortality and population decline in endangered albatross colonies on Amsterdam Island, a critical seabird breeding ground in the Southern Indian Ocean.We manufactured a killed vaccine using a Pasteurella multocida strain isolated from a dead albatross in the field. We used this same bacterial strain to establish a serological assay allowing the monitoring of antibody levels following bird vaccination. Using this vaccine on chicks 2 weeks posthatching caused 100% seroconversion and reduced the death risk by a factor exceeding 2.5, raising fledging probability from 14% to 46%. These results suggest that using a specifically tailored vaccine could be a key tool to effectively protect endangered seabirds from disease outbreaks threatening them with extinction.”

An Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross broods its downy chick, photograph by Peter Ryan

With thanks to Barry Baker.

Reference:

Bourret, V., Gamble, A., Tornos, J., Jaeger, A., Delord, K., Barbraud, C., Tortosa, P., Kada, S., Thiebot, J.-B., Thibault, E., Gantelet, H., Weimerskirch, H., Garnier, R. & Boulinier, T. 2018. Vaccination protects endangered albatross chicks against avian cholera. Conservation Letters DOI: 10.1111/conl.12443.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 February 2018