ACAP’s three official working languages are English, French and Spanish and its website exists in three language versions.  To help keep all three versions up-to-date four translation students have recently spent an intensive working week in ACAP’s Hobart office, assisting the Secretariat by translating documents, reports and website sections from English into French and Spanish. 

From left Elodie, Chloe, Paula and Janneth; ACAP's Executive Secretary Marco Favero behind

This year’s interns came from the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne (Elodie Genin, Paula Alejandra Aparicio Bravo and Janneth del Carmen Santafe Sanchez) and from the School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales, Sydney (Chloe Sautereau).

Their translations are now in the process of being posted to the French and Spanish versions of the ACAP website.  Examples include articles in the Education section under Resources such as What is a Seabird? (Qu’est-ce qu’un oiseau marin? and ¿Qué es un ave marina?) and About ACAP (À propos de l’ACAP and Acerca de ACAP).

The 2016 intern programme follows on from similar placements in previous years (click here for the 2013 cohort).

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 February 2016

UPDATE:

ACAP-Party South Africa has now joined the USA in ratifying the Port State Measures Agreement (click here).  With 21 Parrties only four more are needed for the PSMA come ito force

Removing a long line hook from a Wandering Albatross

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is believed to be a factor that results in increased mortality of seabirds at sea, given that it is unlikely that IUU long liners and trawlers will bother to adopt mitigation methods to reduce such mortality.  Any progress with deterring IUU fishing should therefore be good for ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels. News is now in that the United States will join an international agreement to help deter IUU fishing.  

A precised report from the Natural Resources Policy & Practice project follows:

"US President Barack Obama has signed the instrument that will allow the US to join the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, following the passage by Congress of the Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Enforcement Act of 2015 and bringing the US in line to become the 20th Party to the Agreement. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) Agreement aims to strengthen international efforts to address IUU fishing and to contribute to sustainable fisheries management and governance at all levels.

The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) puts in place a series of measures to prevent vessels from landing IUU fish at ports and essentially removes the incentive to engage in IUU fishing by preventing fish caught by foreign vessels engaged in IUU fishing activities from entering international markets, according to FAO. Left unaddressed, IUU fishing drives overfishing, threatens marine ecosystems and food security, hinders sustainable fisheries management and results in significant economic losses."

The PSMA requires ratification from at least 25 countries to enter into force. In addition to the US, Australia, Chile, Costa Rica, the European Union (EU), Gabon, Iceland, Mauritius, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Palau, the Republic of Korea, the Seychelles, Somalia, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis and Uruguay have ratified the Agreement. Other countries that have signed, but not ratified, the Agreement include Angola, Benin, Brazil, Canada, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, the Russian Federation, Samoa, Sierra Leone, and Turkey.

Note: The 10 countries in bold are Parties (out of 13) to the Agreement on Albatrosses and Petrels.  The European Union includes ACAP Parties France, Spain and the United Kingdom.  Canada and the USA are long-time, regular observers at ACAP meetings.

With thanks to Mark Tasker.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 February 2016, updated 23 February 2016

Wandering Albatross at sea, photograph by John Chardine

Gottfried Sachs (Institute of Flight System Dynamics, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany) has published in the journal Progress in Oceanography on upwind dynamic soaring measured on free-flying Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“In-flight measurement results on upwind flight of albatrosses using dynamic soaring are presented.  It is shown how the birds manage to make progress against the wind on the basis of small-scale dynamic soaring maneuvers.  For this purpose, trajectory features, motion quantities and mechanical energy relationships as well as force characteristics are analyzed.  The movement on a large-scale basis consists of a tacking type flight technique which is composed of dynamic soaring cycle sequences with alternating orientation to the left and right.  It is shown how this is performed by the birds so that they can achieve a net upwind flight without a transversal large-scale movement and how this compares with downwind or across wind flight.  Results on upwind dynamic soaring are presented for low and high wind speed cases.  It is quantified how much the tacking trajectory length is increased when compared with the beeline distance.  The presented results which are based on in-flight measurements of free flying albatrosses were achieved with an in-house developed GPS-signal tracking method yielding the required high precision for the small-scale dynamic soaring flight maneuvers.”

Reference:

Sachs, G. 2016.  In-flight measurement of upwind dynamic soaring in albatrosses.  Progress in Oceanography 142: 47-57.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 February 2016

 In December last year six fledgling Tristan Albatrosses Diomedea dabbenena at Gough Island in the South Atlantic were fitted with satellite transmitters by field researchers Derren Fox and Chris Taylor.  Two of these juvenile birds have now been tracked into South African waters.

One (#153286) of these two juveniles was photographed earlier this month on 4 February at sea by Jean Purdon, a marine mammal observer on the survey vessel mv Atlantic Explorer, about 300 km offshore in the Outeniqua Basin on the edge of the Agulhas Bank in the Indian Ocean.  The position of the sighting matches nicely with the bird’s movements at the time based on its transmitter, allowing for a positive identification.  This young albatross has travelled over 10 000 km in the three months since it left the island.

The juvenile Tristan Albatross with its back-mounted satellite transmitter, photographs by Jean Purdon 

Tracking map courtesy of BirdLife Seabirds' Facebook page

The Tristan Albatross is a Critically Endangered species, which is near endemic to Gough Island.  Tracking the six birds continues, but one transmitter has been giving errors.

The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and the Charl van der Merwe Trust, through BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions Programme, funded the purchase and data transmission costs for the study.  In 2012, ACAP provided partial funding for the first year of the tracking work.  Thanks to Jean Purdon, Ross Wanless and Sarah Wilkinson for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 February 2016