Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels

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A National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries for the South Atlantic gets updated

A National Plan of Action Seabirds-Trawling for the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)* was produced in 2004, with an update produced five years later. A second revision was produced in December 2014 but is, as yet, not available online.

The latest version of the plan’s overview text written by Marine Quintin and Joost Pompert follows:

“The 2014 Falkland Islands National Plan of Action Seabirds-Trawling (FI-NPOA-S-T-2014) outlines a four year strategy that strives to further reduce seabird mortalities due to interactions with trawlers, specifically by understanding and trialling discard management for the future and long-term implementation on vessels. Following FAO guidelines, a Seabird Interaction Management Strategy is described making recommendations based on five interconnected components: 1. Observer coverage, 2. mitigation measures, 3. by-catch objectives, 4. research and 5.development and education. Each sector of the trawl fleet is considered separately when recommendations diverge. The Seabird By-catch Committee (SBC), composed of representatives from the FIFD and other sectors of government (Environmental Planning Department or EPD), the fishing industry (through their umbrella organisation FIFCA), the JNCC ACAP coordinator and one NGO (Falklands Conservation or FC) is recommended to work more actively. The duty of the SBC is to conduct regular evaluations of the progress of this plan and act as an advisory body for and report to the Fisheries Committee and the Environmental Committee.

In adopting and implementing the FI-NPOA-S-T-2014, the Falkland Islands will ensure compliance with domestic and international policies and conventions and build on its international reputation for responsible and sustainable management of its fishery.”

Black-browed Albatrosses gather behind a trawler in the South Atlantic, photograph by Graham Parker

With thanks to Joost Pompert for information.

References:

Quintin, M. & Pompert, J. 2014. Falkland Islands National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries, 2014 (FI-NPOA-S-T-2014). Stanley: Fisheries Department, Directorate of Natural Resources. 28 pp. [not available on-line, contact the ACAP Information Officer for a PDF].

Sancho, E. 2009. Falkland Islands National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries. [Stanley]: Falklands Conservation. 40 pp.

Sullivan, B. 2004. Falkland Islands Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Trawl Fisheries. Stanley: Falklands Conservation. 43 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 May 2016

*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.

Uruguay reports on its updated National Plan of Action to Reduce Seabird Bycatch at ACAP’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group this week

Sebastián Jiménez (Recursos Pelágicos, Dirección Nacional de Recursos Acuáticos , Montevideo, Uruguay) and colleagues will be tabling an Information Paper (SBWG7 Inf 23.5) at the Seventh Meeting of ACAP’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group in Chile this week that reports on Uruguay’s update of its National Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (previously reported in ACAP Latest News – click here).

The Information Paper’s summary follows:

“Uruguay has recently revised the NPOA-Seabirds. The NPOA-Seabirds 2015 establishes the following mitigation measures. Vessels operating with pelagic longline: obligatorily use of I) night setting in combination with at least one of the following two measures: II) bird scaring line and / or III) weight ≥60 g attached in the branch lines within 1 m of the hook. Vessels operating with demersal longline fishing for Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) and related species: i) Mammals and Birds Excluding Device (DEMA, i.e. drop lines with nets) or II) minimum weight on the line that ensures sink rate ≥ 0.3m/s at 10 m depth, in combination with one of the following two measures: A) bird scaring line or B) night setting. In the event that other demersal longline or semi-pelagic fisheries start operating in the near future, mitigation measures are as follow: I) minimum weight on the line in combination with one of the following two measures: A) bird scaring line or B) night setting. The impact of the trawl fishery for Argentinean hake (Merluccius hubbsi) is currently under research. Under a precautionary approach, to reduce seabird mortality in trawl cables the use of the following mitigation measures is recommended: I) bird scaring line and II) reduce discards. In order to reduce the capture of birds on the net the following measures are recommended: I) cleaning up the net before setting and II) reduce the exposure time of the net on the surface of the sea.”

Sebastián Jiménez holds up a copy of Uruguay's revised NPOA-Seabirds at the Chile meeting

References:

Domingo, A., Forselledo, R., Jiménez, S. (Eds). 2015. Revisión de planes de acción nacional para la conservación de aves marinas y condrictios en las pesquerías uruguayas. Montevideo: Dirección Nacional de Recursos Acuáticos. 196 pp

Domingo, A., Jiménez, S. & Passadore, A. 2006 (online) & 2007 (paper). Plan de Acción Nacional para Reducir la Captura Incidental de Aves Marinas en las Pesquerías Uruguayas. Dirreción Nacional de Recurcos Acuáticos. 75 pp.

Jiménez, S., Pin, O. & Domingo, A. 2015. Plan de Acción Nacional para Reducir la Captura Incidental de Aves Marinas en las Pesquerías Uruguayas, 2015. In: Domingo, A., Forselledo, R. & Jiménez, S. (Eds). Revisión de Planes de Acción Nacional para la Conservación de Aves Marinas y Condrictios en las Pesquerías Uruguayas. Montevideo: Dirección Nacional de Recursos Acuáticos. pp. 11-79.

Jiménez, S., Pin, O. & Domingo, A. 2016. Revised National Plan of Action to Reduce Seabirds Bycatch in Uruguayan fisheries (NPOA-Seabirds 2015). Seventh Meeting of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group La Serena, Chile, 2 - 4 May 2016. SBWG7 Inf 23. 5 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 May 2016

ACAP’s 2016 round of meetings get going in La Serena, Chile today

The 2016 round of formal meetings of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement is being held in the coastal city of La Serena, Chile over this and next week.

AC9 Banner

The Ninth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC9) will be held next week over 9 – 13 May. AC9 is being preceded by the Seventh Meeting of the AC’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBSWG7) from today through to Wednesday. It will be followed by the Third Meeting of the AC’s Population and Conservation Status Working Group on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 May. The three meetings are being held at the beach-side Hotel Club La Serena. La Serena lies 470 km north of Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Twenty-one of the SBSWG’s 27 expert members are attending the working group meeting along with 18 others present as observers or as members of the ACAP Secretariat. SBSWG7 is being chaired by its Convener Anton Wolfaardt (UK), supported by Igor Debski (New Zealand) and Tatiana Neves (Brazil). The Working Group’s Terms of Reference are also available online.

SBSWG7.1

SBSWG7 gets underway

Marco Favero (Argentina) and Barry Baker (Australia) look towards the head table with Tatiana Neves, Anton Wolfaardt and Igor Debski facing the camera

SBSWG7.2

Barbara Wienecke (Australia) discusses the day's proceedings with Anton Wolfaardt and Igor Debski

Documents and Information Papers being discussed at SBSWG7 this week can be consulted online (click here). Note that some of the papers are password-protected and so only their abstracts are available online.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 May 2106

Ageing male Wandering Albatrosses produce less fit offspring

Rémi Fay and colleagues (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) have published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences on the effects of male and female parental ageing on the performance of offspring in Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Variability in demographic traits between individuals within populations has profound implications for both evolutionary processes and population dynamics. Parental effects as a source of non-genetic inheritance are important processes to consider to understand the causes of individual variation. In iteroparous species, parental age is known to influence strongly reproductive success and offspring quality, but consequences on an offspring fitness component after independence are much less studied. Based on 37 years longitudinal monitoring of a long-lived seabird, the wandering albatross, we investigate delayed effects of parental age on offspring fitness components. We provide evidence that parental age influences offspring performance beyond the age of independence. By distinguishing maternal and paternal age effects, we demonstrate that paternal age, but not maternal age, impacts negatively post-fledging offspring performance.”

Read a news article on the publication here.

A 29-year old male Wandering Albatross and its downy chick on Marion Island, April 2005, photograph by John Cooper

Reference:

Fay, R., Barbraud, C., Delord, K. & Weimerskirch, H. 2016. Paternal but not maternal age influences early-life performance of offspring in a long-lived seabird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283 (1828) DOI:10.1098/rspb.2015.2318.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 April 2016

Pollutant levels decrease significantly with latitude in Southern Giant Petrels

Jose Roscales (Department of Instrumental Analysis and Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Organic Chemistry, Madrid, Spain) and colleagues have published in the journal Environmental Research showing that overall Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) burdens in Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus decrease southwards across the Southern Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Studies on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in Antarctic wildlife are scarce, and usually limited to a single locality. As a result, wildlife exposure to POPs across the Southern Ocean is poorly understood. In this study, we report the differential exposure of the major southern ocean scavengers, the giant petrels, to POPs across a wide latitudinal gradient. Selected POPs (PCBs, HCB, DDTs, PBDEs) and related compounds, such as Dechlorane Plus (DP), were analyzed in plasma of southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) breeding on Livingston (62°S 61°W, Antarctica), Marion (46°S 37°E, sub-Antarctic), and Gough (40°S 10°W, cool temperate) islands. Northern giant petrels (Macronectes halli) from Marion Island were also studied. Stable isotope ratios of C and N (δ13C and δ15N) were used as dietary tracers of the marine habitat and trophic level, respectively. Breeding locality was a major factor explaining petrel exposure to POPs compared with species and sex. Significant relationships between δ13C values and POP burdens, at both inter- and intra-population levels, support latitudinal variations in feeding grounds as a key factor in explaining petrel pollutant burdens. Overall, pollutant levels in giant petrels decreased significantly with latitude, but the relative abundance (%) of the more volatile POPs increased towards Antarctica. DP was found at negligible levels compared with legacy POPs in Antarctic seabirds. Spatial POP patterns found in giant petrels match those predicted by global distribution models, and reinforce the hypothesis of atmospheric long-range transport as the main source of POPs in Antarctica. Our results confirm that wildlife movements out of the polar region markedly increase their exposure to POPs. Therefore, strategies for Antarctic wildlife conservation should consider spatial heterogeneity in exposure to marine pollution. Of particular relevance is the need to clarify the exposure of Antarctic predators to emerging contaminants that are not yet globally regulated.”

Southern Giant Petrel on Gough Island, photograph by John Cooper

Reference:

Roscales, J.L., González-Solís, J., Zango, L., Ryan, P.G. & Jiménez, B. 2016. Latitudinal exposure to DDTs, HCB, PCBs, PBDEs and DP in giant petrels (Macronectes spp.) across the Southern Ocean. Environmental Research 148: 285-294.