The International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (IPOA-Seabirds) was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1998.  The plan encourages all FAO member countries to implement their own National Plans of Action (NPOA-Seabirds).

In terms of the IPOA-Seabirds, countries first assess the seabird by-catch problem within their fisheries and/or within their coastal waters.  If a bycatch problem is found to exist, each country should then develop and implement its own National Plan of Action (NPOA-Seabirds), based on the recommendations listed in the IPOA-Seabirds.

So far, fifteen countries and political entities have adopted their NPOA-Seabirds (click here), including Uruguay which has now published a revised version of its original 2006 plan.

Uruguay's 2015 NPOA-Seabirds

A Black-browed Albatross gets caught on a longline off Uruguay, photograph by Marin Abreu

In the same booklet, Uruguay also includes the text of its NPOA-Sharks, gives a description of Uruguayan fisheries and sets out the legal framework for the implementation of NPOAs.

Of the 13 Parties to ACAP six (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, South Africa and Uruguay) have produced NPOA-seabirds or allied documents, and three others (France, Spain and the United Kingdom) are covered by an NPOA-Seabirds produced by the European Union.  Non-Party range states and entities that have produced NPOA-Seabirds include Canada, Chinese Taipei, Japan and the United States of America, with Namibia’s plan expected to be formally adopted in the near future.

With thanks to Sebastián Jiménez for information and Martin Abreu for the photograph.

References:

Domingo, A., Jimenéz, S. & Passadore, A. 2007.  Plan de Acción Nacional para Reducir la Captura Incidental de Aves Marinas en las Pesquerías Uruguayas.  Montevideo: 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.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 September 2015

The Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwater Puffinus creatopus, a Chilean endemic, is the most recently listed ACAP species, being added to the Agreement in May this year (click here).  Its conservation status is now about to improve with some fencing.

Pink-footed Shearwater, photograph by Peter Hodum

With funding from the American Bird Conservancy, the Municipality of Juan Fernández, Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge and Corporación Nacional Forestal (Chile's National Forest Corporation, CONAF) have started transferring material to Robinson Crusoe Island for the construction of a predator-proof fence in an area of the island known as Tierras Blancas.  The fence will cover about 20 ha and will be 1700 m in length.  The Tierras Blancas fence will protect several important species in the Archipiélago Juan Fernández, including a major Pink-footed Shearwater colony, a Juan Fernández Fur Seal Arctocephalus philippii colony, and a fern that was recently rediscovered in the area after it was thought to be extinct.

According to Oikonos, “this fence will start the process of ecological protection from a host of introduced predators.”

Information from the Oikonos Facebook page.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 September 2015

Chris Wilcox (Oceans and Atmosphere Business Unit, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Hobart, Australia) and colleagues have published early online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on the growing occurrence of ingested plastic in seabirds (click here). Ingestion of plastics has been reported or is known for most (if not all) of the 31 species of ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Plastic pollution in the ocean is a global concern; concentrations reach 580,000 pieces per km2 and production is increasing exponentially.  Although a large number of empirical studies provide emerging evidence of impacts to wildlife, there has been little systematic assessment of risk.  We performed a spatial risk analysis using predicted debris distributions and ranges for 186 seabird species to model debris exposure.  We adjusted the model using published data on plastic ingestion by seabirds. Eighty of 135 (59%) species with studies reported in the literature between 1962 and 2012 had ingested plastic, and, within those studies, on average 29% of individuals had plastic in their gut.  Standardizing the data for time and species, we estimate the ingestion rate would reach 90% of individuals if these studies were conducted today.  Using these results from the literature, we tuned our risk model and were able to capture 71% of the variation in plastic ingestion based on a model including exposure, time, study method, and body size.  We used this tuned model to predict risk across seabird species at the global scale.  The highest area of expected impact occurs at the Southern Ocean boundary in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, which contrasts with previous work identifying this area as having low anthropogenic pressures and concentrations of marine debris.  We predict that plastics ingestion is increasing in seabirds, that it will reach 99% of all species by 2050, and that effective waste management can reduce this threat.”

A decomposed corpse of a Laysan Albatross chick on Midway Atoll showing a high level of ingested plastic, photograph by Chris Jordan

See popular news articles on the publication:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-01/scientists-warn-almost-all-seabirds-will-ingest-plastic-by-2050/6738862

http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/2015/08/nearly-every-seabird-may-be-eating-plastic-2050

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/almost-every-seabird-will-have-eaten-plastic-by-2050-because-of-ocean-pollution-10480117.html

Reference:

Wilcox, C., Van Sebille, E.& Hardesty, B.D.2015.  Threat of plastic pollution to seabirds is global, pervasive, and increasing.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  DOI10.1073/pnas.1502108112.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 September 2015

As far back as the late 1970s marine ornithologists have travelled each year to Gough Island in the South Atlantic to conduct research on its threatened populations of albatrosses and petrels.  These trips have formed part of South Africa’s annual relief of its weather station on the island.  This year’s expedition sails from Cape Town today on the Antarctic research and supply vessel, the m.v. S.A. Agulhas II.

As in recent years, seabird research and monitoring on Gough will concentrate on globally threatened species, including the near-endemic and Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena, the Endangered Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche chlororhynchos and the Endangered Sooty Albatross Phoebastria fusca.  All three ACAP-listed species face fatal attacks on their chicks by Gough’s House Mice Mus musculus.  Research will also take place on the two other ACAP-listed species that breed on Gough: the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus (Least Concern) and the Grey Petrel Procellaria cinerea (Near Threatened), with the latter species also recently proven to be at risk to mice (click here).

A female Tristan Albatross incubates on Gough Island, photograph by John Cooper

Three field researchers on the expedition will remain on Gough until October 2016, residing in the weather station.  This year they are Jan Bradley (from South Africa, on his sixth visit since 2010) and Derren Fox and Chris Taylor (both from the UK).  The 2014/15 field team of Christopher Jones, Werner Kuntz and Michelle Risi will be returning on the ship next month.  The new team will continue monitoring of albatrosses and petrels during their 13-month stay, as well as continuing with alien plant control in the vicinity of the weather station.

The ornithological component of the expedition is being led by Peter Ryan, Director of the University of Cape Town’s FitzPatrick Institute and Alex Bond from the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science.  Accompanying them on the trip this year are Richard Phillips (British Antarctic Survey and also Co-convenor of ACAP’s Population and Conservation Status Working Group) who will be helping to retrieve GLS loggers deployed on prions Pachyptila spp. last year and Mark Dagleish, a veterinary pathologist from the Moredun Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, who will be screening the island’s endemic land birds for diseases and parasites.

An aerial photographic survey by South African helicopter of Tristan da Cunha’s population of Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses will also be attempted during the expedition (if weather conditions allow) when the S.A. Agulhas II visits Tristan on her voyage back to South Africa in early October.

Click here for news of last year’s expedition.

With thanks to Peter Ryan for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 September 2015