An international team will be heading for sub-Antarctic Antipodes Island next month to eradicate introduced House Mice Mus musculus by aerial poison bait drop.  This follows on a successful fund-raising campaign by the Morgan Foundation’s Million Dollar Mouse project, supported by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, Island Conservation and WWF-New Zealand.

 A view of the main island in the Antipodes, with mouse-free Bollons Island in the background, photograph by Erica Sommer

The 19-person operational team will be led by Stephen Horn, assisted by Keith Hawkins, both with the Department of Conservation and includes Keith Springer as Operational Advisor and Safety Officer, all of whom are New Zealanders.  Keith previously managed the successful project to eradicate rodents and rabbits on Australia’s Macquarie Island and was part of Team Rat on South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)*.  The six bait loaders include Jason Zito from Hawaii and Jose-Luis Hererra from Colombia who work with the USA-based NGO Island Conservation.  Other members of the operational team include New Zealanders Chief Pilot Tony Michelle (who was a member of Team Rat in 2013) and pilot Darron McCulley,a helicopter engineer, a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) mapping specialist (Ann De Schutter, originally from Belgium) and a medical doctor, Jamie Doube, who was also with Team Rat.

Antipodean Albatross - with megaherb - on Main Island, Antipodes, photograph by Colin O'Donnell

 Field trials took place last month in loading helicopters onto the transport ship Norfolk Guardian and (non-poison) bait loading and spreading on the Levels Raceway at Timaru, South Island (click here for videos).

The Norfolk Guardian is set to depart from Timaru for the Antipodes on 24 May with baiting planned to commence by 15 June at the latest.  The initial task will be for six builders to erect a temporary platform and hangar ashore for the two helicopters supplied by Island Aerial Solutions.  The vessel will carry the helicopters, the cereal bait in specially-constructed wooden bait boxes, 30 tonnes of Jet Fuel in 200-litre drums and some of the team to the island.  It will stay on site for up to two weeks until the cargo is off-loaded and the structures erected.  The yacht Evohe will depart Dunedin on 23 May for the Antipodes to deliver the other 12 members of the team.  Prior to departure biosecurity and safety training will be given in Invercargill to both groups.

The eradication of mice on Antipodes will follow their successful demise on Macquarie and (to be confirmed) South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur)* in the Southern Ocean.  If it achieves its goal it should give a boost to plans to eradicate the predatory mice of Gough Island that are ravaging that island’s birds (click here).

ACAP Latest News will report on the eradication exercise as it progresses.  Follow its fortunes on its website blog and Facebook page.

With thanks to Keith Springer for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 April 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.

New Zealand supports two endemic species of Procellaria petrels, both listed within the Albatross and Petrel Agreement.  The two species are monitored annually and various efforts take place to help with their conservation, notably in relation to light pollution affecting fledglings, predation by introduced mammals and engagement with the public.  Recent news are reported below.

Black Petrel Procellaria parkinsoni

Black Petrel at its breeding site on Great Barrier Island, photograph by Dave Boyle

The ACAP-listed Black Petrels on Great Barrier Island are reported by Wildlife Management International as having a good breeding season this year.  During a recent trip to the Mount Hobson/Hirakimata colony 271 occupied burrows were found within the area monitored each year.  This total included 200 pairs incubating eggs and a further 64 pairs that had already hatched chicks.

Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica

Releasing a downed Westland Petrel (click here), photograph courtesy of Petrel Colony Tours

 In New Zealand’s South Island preparations are underway for the next Return of the Westland Petrel Festival, to be held over the weekend 29 April – 1 May.  The Westland Petrel is also ACAP-listed and breeds only in the foothills of the Paparoa Mountain Ranges at Punakaiki on South Island.  Latest news from Petrel Colony Tours is that the "Westland Petrel's 2016 breeding season is now seriously underway as more and more birds return. It won't be until later this month [April] before they're all back, but there's already enough for visitors to get good views.  Something new for visitors is [a] window into life in a nest chamber - once a natural hole that left the chick vulnerable to predators - which makes it easy to view what's going on inside."

Festival events include an evening parade ending in looking out for returning petrels flying inland after dusk, tree planting, a market with food and local arts and crafts stalls and musical entertainment.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 April 2016

 “Seabird Bycatch Solutions for Fisheries Sustainability” is a free, downloadable guide produced by the American Bird Conservancy that addresses how seabirds interact with fisheries and how to reduce bycatch.  The following information is taken from the ABC press release.

“Seabird bycatch is an enormous problem for sustainability of fisheries and conservation of seabirds, with at least 720 000 seabirds killed annually in longline and gillnet fisheries.  To help fisheries managers avoid seabird bycatch, American Bird Conservancy has created a free, comprehensive guide that provides a wealth of information on seabird ecology, protection, and conservation.  “Seabird Bycatch Solutions for Fishery Sustainability” covers how seabirds interact with fisheries, how to reduce bycatch of seabirds, and how to evaluate seabird bycatch under frameworks such as Marine Stewardship Council certification.

Twin bird-scaring lnes behind a South African demersal trawler, photograph by Barry Watkins

"The manual offers 71 pages packed with useful information on seabirds.  It's designed to help those reviewing or evaluating fisheries for sustainability, or seeking practical guidance on seabird bycatch reduction in fisheries, to quickly find the help they need.  Illustrated with images and animations, it presents key information concisely, and serves as a complementary resource to ABC's Seabird Maps and Information for Fisheries website.

Created for fisheries managers and evaluators, biologists, regulators, and fishers, the manual provides essential information on topics including:

• Bycatch and mortality of seabirds in marine fisheries: how do seabirds interact with different fishing gear? What are the ways they can be caught or injured?
• Risks and best practices: how can fisheries managers and others avoid seabird bycatch? For some gear types there are very effective and inexpensive solutions.
• How to evaluate seabirds within a Marine Stewardship Council certification process: how do the new Fishery Certification Requirements take into account seabirds and seabird bycatch? This section covers all of the MSC Performance Indicators related to seabirds.
• Legal status and conservation of seabirds: how do various agreements, governments, and organizations around the world protect seabirds?

Additional sections provide background on seabird diversity and ecology; best practices for managing the forage fish upon which seabirds depend; resources such as additional web tools to assist fisheries evaluators and biologists in assessing risks and reducing bycatch; and more.

The manual is available free for download in two versions.  The animations in the smaller version (25 MB) require access to the Internet (YouTube).  The larger version (100 MB) contains embedded animations, and once downloaded can be viewed without Internet access."

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 April 2016

Ana Sanz-Aguilar (Population Ecology Group, Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados, Esporles, Islas Baleares, Spain) and colleagues have published in the journal Biological Conservation showing that a stable breeding colony of Scopoli's Shearwater Calonectris diomedea is sustained by immigration and thus acts as a ‘conservation sink’.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Populations of long-lived species are highly sensitive to increases in mortality, but a loss of breeders can be compensated for by recruitment of local individuals or immigrants.  Populations maintained through immigration can be sinks, jeopardizing the viability of the metapopulation in the long term when additive mortality from anthropogenic impacts occurs.  Thus, the correct identification of whether a breeding population is maintained by local recruitment or by immigration is of special importance for conservation purposes.  We developed robust population models to disentangle the importance of local recruitment and immigration in the dynamics of a Western Mediterranean population of Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea showing low adult survival but stable breeding numbers.  Our results show that the shearwater population is not self-maintained but rescued by immigration: yearly immigrants recruiting in the population represents ~ 10–12% of total population size.  We believe that this situation may be common to other Western Mediterranean populations, currently acting as sinks.  We recommend urgent demographic studies at large core colonies to evaluate the global conservation status of the species.”

Scopoli's Shearwaters, photograph by Paulo Catry

Reference:

Sanz-Aguilar, A., Igual,J.-M., Tavecchia, G., Genovart, M. & Oro, D. 2016.  When immigration mask threats: The rescue effect of a Scopoli's shearwater colony in the Western Mediterranean as a case study.  Biological Conservation 198: 33-36.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 15 April 2016