Norbert Theodor Wilhelm Klages (3 July 1952 to 30 January 2017) was a seabird diet specialist in the mode of the late Mike Imber of New Zealand.  Working with colleagues in South Africa and then in Australia he received (or collected his own) stomach contents of seabirds for analysis, concentrating on albatrosses, petrels and penguins.  These samples were sorted and identified the “old fashioned” way by painstakingly identifying and measuring hard parts such as squid beaks and fish otoliths.

Norbert and Sabina Klages

Before Norbert arrived in South Africa from Germany with a newly-awarded PhD from Kiel University in 1983, we marine ornithologists in the country knew very little about what the seabirds we studied ate.  Within a decade, due to Norbert’s expertise while working at the Port Elizabeth Museum as part of the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP) in identifying often well-digested samples, we had a good knowledge of the breeding diets of nearly all the seabirds that are found on sub-Antarctic Marion Island.  We could then go on to compare and contrast the diets of sympatric and closely related species pairs, finding out, for example, that Light-mantled Albatrosses Phoebetria palpebrata at Marion could feed on Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba, which only occurs south of the island, while the more northerly foraging Sooty Albatross P. fusca did not.  Much of his diet work critically added to several higher degrees awarded to colleagues in South Africa.

Looking at my own publication list, I find I co-authored 12 papers and co-edited one proceedings with Norbert between 1984 and 2009.  Of these publications seven dealt with the diets of procellariiforms, including ACAP-listed species, at Marion and Gough Islands as listed below.  A good memory of field work conducted in the 1980s with Norbert (although not so much at the time) was attempting to obtain stomach samples by upending Critically Endangered Tristan Albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena returning to feed their chicks in Gonydale on Gough.  Unfortunately it rained heavily the night before, out shared tent leaked badly and we retreated off the mountain with empty buckets to the island’s meteorological station at sea level to dry out.  A quarter of a century later the Tristan Albatross still lacks a publication on its breeding diet.

Most recently, Norbert Klages worked as an Environmental Scientist and a Senior Associate with Gibb (Pty) Ltd, a multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm, on a wide range of environmental management issues centred in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province where he lived.

Norbert passed away suddenly in their tent while he and his wife were on a cycling weekend at the end of last month. A celebration of his life is being held today in Port Elizabeth with donations in aid of rehabilitating African Penguins Spheniscus demersus.  ACAP's (and my own) sympathies are extended to Norbert's wife, Sabina and to his colleagues and friends around the World.

Hamba kahle, Norbert. 

Selected publications

Cooper, J., Fourie, A. & Klages, N.T.W. 1992. The diet of the Whitechinned Petrel Procellaria aequinoctialis at sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Marine Ornithology 20: 17-24.

Cooper, J., Henley, S.R. & Klages, N.T.W. 1992. The diet of the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans at Subantarctic Marion Island. Polar Biology 12: 477-484.

Cooper, J. & Klages, N.T.W. 1995. The diets and dietary segregation of sooty albatrosses (Phoebetria spp.) at subantarctic Marion Island. Antarctic Science 7: 15-23.

Cooper, J. & Klages, N.T.W. 2009.  The winter diet of the Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera at sub-Antarctic Marion Island in 1991.  Marine Ornithology 37: 261-263.

Klages, N.T.W. & Cooper, J. 1992. Bill morphology and diet of a filter-feeding seabird: the Broad-billed Prion Pachyptila vittata at South Atlantic Gough Island. Journal of Zoology, London 227: 385-396.

Klages, N.T.W. & Cooper, J. 1997.  Diet of the Atlantic Petrel Pterodroma incerta during breeding at South Atlantic Gough Island.  Marine Ornithology 25 13-16.

Klages, N.T.W., Nel, D.C. & Cooper, J. 1995. Stomach contents of a Greybacked Storm Petrel Garrodia nereis from sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Marine Ornithology 23: 163-164.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 16 February 2017

ACAP’s Executive Secretary Marco Favero attended an Effective Seabird Conservation in Tuna Fisheries Workshop organized by Common Oceans (the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction Tuna Program) in Suva, Fiji in the afternoon of 10 December last year.

Attendees gather at a Common Ocean's Chinese National Awareness Workshop in Suva, Fiji in December 2016 

A report of the meeting abbreviated from Common Oceans follows:

“Bycatch mitigation techniques will only be effective if fishermen use them. This simple message, often forgotten in more academic discussions, was the impetus behind a recent half-day workshop held with the Chinese tuna longline fleet operating out of Fiji.  Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Program partners BirdLife International (BLI), the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) capitalized on an invitation from the China Overseas Fisheries Association and Shanghai Ocean University to meet face-to-face with those on the frontlines of bycatch mitigation.  The workshop was attended by Chinese vessel captains, Fijian government officials, other industry representatives and researchers allowing for opinions and ideas from many different viewpoints to be discussed and shared.”

At the workshop ACAP concentrated on providing information in its presentation on seabird bycatch and bycatch mitigation while Karen Baird (BirdLife International) provided information on seabird life history. Bronwyn Maree (Seabird Bycatch Coordinator, Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Program), Janne Fogelgren (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; FAO) and Shelley Clark (Technical Coordinator - Sharks and Bycatch , Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Program) also gave presentations.

Marco makes his presentation entitled "Seabird bycatch and methods to mitigate incidental mortality in fisheries"

Marco Favero (ACAP) and Brownwyn Maree (Common Oceans)

The workshop provided an introduction to seabird biology and seabird bycatch mitigation measures currently adopted by the tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations (tRFMOs) and supported as best practice by ACAP.  A brief demonstration of how to use a bird-scaring line was given.

“Information on mitigation for sharks, turtles and marine mammals was supplemented by safe release videos, and quizzes on what constitutes shark finning and when to use certain mitigation measures.  Many skippers noted that they used bird-scaring lines during fishing operations but that night setting was not commonly implemented by this fleet as a seabird bycatch mitigation measure. Captains expressed that they would like to have more workshops and be provided with more detailed and practical (real-life) examples of how to prevent bycatch.  Recommendations by participants also included testing of the various best practice bycatch mitigation measures on tuna longline vessels in China."

Read more on the workshop here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 February 2017

Claire Runge (Landscape Ecology Group, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia) and colleagues have had an open-access paper accepted for the journal Conservation Letters that discusses how domestic legislation in federal government systems and international agreements need to be co-ordinated to improve the conservation of migratory species, including those listed by the Albatross and Petrel Agreement.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Migratory movements of animals frequently span political borders and the need for international collaboration in the conservation of migratory species is well recognized. There is, however, less appreciation of the need for coordinated protection within nations.  We explore consequences of multi-level governance for top-down implementation of international agreements, drawing on examples from Australia and with reference to the US and EU.  Coherent implementation of legislation and policy for migratory species can be challenging in federal jurisdictions where environmental law making can be split across multiple levels of governance and local and federal priorities may not necessarily be aligned.  As a result of these challenges, for example, two-thirds of Australian migratory birds remain unprotected under national legislation.  In Australia and elsewhere, coordinated protection of migratory species can be implemented within the current framework of conservation law and policy by actions such as designating national migration areas, negotiating nationally-coordinated agreements or listings of migratory species and pursuing new bilateral agreements with key countries along migratory routes.”

Shy Albatrosses, an Australian migratory species; photograph by Aleks Terauds

With thanks to Eduardo Gallo-Cajiao.

Reference:

Runge, C.A., Gallo-Cajiao, E., Carey, M.J., Garnett, S.T., Fuller, R.A. & McCormack, P.C. 2017.  Coordinating domestic legislation and international agreements to conserve migratory species: a case study from Australia. Conservation Letters.  doi:10.1111/conl.12345.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 14 February 2017

Peter Shaughnessy (South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, Australia) has published in the open-access journal Marine Ornithology on evidence suggesting Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus are able to lay a two-egg clutch.

The paper's abstract follows:

“Females of the order Procellariiformes most often produce single-egg clutches. At Macquarie Island (54°S, 159°E) in 1959 during a field study of Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus, four or five nests (0.14–0.18% of all nests) contained two eggs or two chicks (Warham 1962). This species occurs in two plumage forms, a dark phase and a white phase. Inheritance of these forms is controlled by a single autosomal gene with two alleles, with white phase dominant to dark phase. At Macquarie Island in 1959, one nest contained two white phase chicks brooded by a white-phase adult, which Warham (1962) believed resulted from a two-egg clutch rather than from polygyny. Analyses using probabilities based on the inheritance pattern of plumage phases in Southern Giant Petrels and the frequency of white-phase birds at Macquarie Island in 1959 indicate that it was almost seven times more likely that the two white-phase chicks in the nest brooded by a white-phase adult resulted from a clutch of two eggs rather than from polygyny.”

White-phase Southern Giant Petrel, photograph by Markus Ritz 

Reference:

Shaughnessy, P.D. 2017. A two-egg clutch or polygyny?  Two white-phase chicks in the nest of a Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus at Macquarie Island.  Marine Ornithology 45: 43-46.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 February 2017