With a traditional Maori blessing ACAP-listed and Vulnerable Black Petrels Procellaria parkinsoni have been welcomed back to their breeding site on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf from their wintering grounds off South America.  The island is one of only two where the species breeds, the other being nearby Little Barrier.

“In celebrating their return to breed on Great Barrier and Little Barrier Islands, this seabird is getting some extra help from a group who are working to make the Gulf a safer place for them.  The Black Petrel/tÄiko Working Group includes fishing, government and environmental interests and is working on practical ways to reduce the risk to these special birds from fishing.  The Group’s members include the three largest fishing companies in the Gulf, all who attended today’s blessing and are committed to looking after these birds.

This summer, recreational organisations, fishing clubs and charter companies are spreading the word on how to fish safely around seabirds and fisheries officers are handing out information and providing other practical advice.”

A Black Petrel on its breeding grounds, photograph by Dave Boyle

The Black Petrel Working Group is facilitated by the Southern Seabird Solutions Trust, a New Zealand conservation NGO.  A Black Petrel Action Group, formed in 2011, can be followed on Facebook, its latest report is of the loss of two adult birds to a feral cat.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 November 205

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was established by international convention in 1982 with the objective of conserving Antarctic marine life.  The 34th Annual Meetings of CCAMLR were held in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia last month.

Once again proposals for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in East Antarctica and in the Ross Sea Region were not adopted:

“Each of these proposals have [sic] evolved over the past few years as proponents incorporate feedback from other Members.  This year the Ross Sea Region proposal, which was amended to include a krill and an expanded special research zone, gained further support from Members.  Proponents of both proposals will continue discussions over the next 12 months and the proposals will likely be back on the agenda for the annual meeting in 2016" (click here).

CCAMLR has reported as a highlight of this year’s meetings:  “ACAP attributed the lowest seabird by-catch ever recorded in the Convention Area, this past season, to CCAMLR’s continued excellence in high-seas fisheries management.”

Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses occur within CCAMLR waters, photograph by Aleks Terauds

CCAMLR and ACAP renewed their Memorandum of Understanding without emendation from the original text of March 2013 (click here).

This year’s CCAMLR meetings were attended by ACAP’s Science Officer Wiesława Misiak and Executive Secretary, Warren Papworth.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 November 2015

Guidelines for Cooperation between ACAP and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) were agreed to this week at the 24th Regular Meeting of the ICCAT Commission, held in St. Julians, Malta over 10 to 17 November.  The Guidelines follow the format of the Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) that have been adopted with many other fisheries management bodies, including the four other tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations (tRFMOs).

Because a number of substantive changes has been made to the MoU template approved by ACAP Parties, their approval will be required for the amended text before the Guidelines can be signed by the respective organisations.  Support for adoption of the Guidelines was provided by ACAP Party Members attending the Commission meeting, which included Brazil, Uruguay, France (Overseas Territories), South Africa, Norway, and European Parties represented by the European Union, as well as Japan and the United States of America.

The meeting in progress, photograph by Warren Papworth

A range of other issues of relevance to the Agreement's work was discussed at the meeting including:

a DRAFT RECOMMENDATION BY ICCAT CONCERNING THE APPLICATION OF AN ECOSYSTEM APPROACH TO FISHERIES MANAGEMENT (PLE 119A/2015);

a DRAFT RECOMMENDATION BY ICCAT CONCERNING THE USE OF A PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH IN IMPLEMENTING ICCAT CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT MEASURES (PLE 120A/2015); and

a DRAFT RECOMMENDATION BY ICCAT TO ESTABLISH AN ICCAT SCIENTIFIC OBSERVER PROGRAMME WITHIN THE ICCAT CONVENTION AREA (PWG 409/2015).

Click here to access the above and other meeting documents and here for the ICCAT press release on the meeting.

ACAP was represented at the Commission meeting by its Executive Secretary, Mr Warren Papworth.

Warren Papworth, ACAP Executive Secretary, 20 November 2015

 A GigaPan Camera can take hundreds of individual photos that combine into huge panoramic images.  Initially designed for NASA (the USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration) the camera had been used a sports stadiums to photograph individual people, Fans can then tag themselves from among the many photographed (click here).

The technique is now being used to study Near Threatened Shy Albatrosses Thalassarche cauta on Albatross Island in the Bass Strait north of Tasmania following a successful five-day test (click here).  Following the test and some adaptations for the rugged environment the camera has now collected six months of images of albatrosses on the island with-two panoramic shots per day.

Shy Albatrosses, photograph by Aleks Terauds

“Not only could [the researchers] zoom into specific nests on any given day, they also used software called Time Machine, which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University, to create months-long movies of each nest within the broader panorama.  The software allowed them to follow nests through the entire breeding season instead of just seeing it in person a few weeks a year.  They could play the movie backward and forward to find notable occurrences, such as when eggs hatched or why they failed.”

The GigaPan camera has now arrived back on Albatross Island for its second full breeding season.

Read more here.

Reference:

Lynch, T.P., Alderman, R. & Hobday, A.J. 2015.  A high-resolution panorama camera system for monitoring colony-wide seabird nesting behaviour.  Methods & Statistics in Ecology DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12339.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 November 2015