The Critically Endangered Tristan Albatross Diomedea dabbenena remains under serious threat from attacks on its chicks by House Mice Mus musculus on the United Kingdom’s Gough Island in the South Atlantic.  Last year was the poorest breeding year since recording commenced in 2000, with less than 10% of occupied nests resulting in fledged chicks (click here).  Great albatrosses of the genus Diomedea are expected to raise chicks to fledging from 60-70% of breeding attempts, based on studies on islands where their chicks are not attacked by rodents, so conservationists are rightly concerned for the long-term future of Gough’s near-endemic albatross.

This year's January-February count of incubating birds is now complete with researchers on the island reporting to ACAP Latest News that 1886 pairs were counted for the biennially-breeding species.  This figure has not as yet been adjusted to take account of the estimated numbers of nests that may have failed before the island-wide count was completed.  Gough’s often poor weather with mists causing low visibility means that the island-wide survey has to take advantage of “weather windows” to get into the mountainous interior where the albatrosses breed; thus the counts often have to be spread over several weeks.

A female Tristan Albatross incubates its egg on Gough Island

Come September-October this year the number of surviving chicks will be counted to see how many have survived the winter onslaught by the predatory mice.

Click here for earlier incubation counts of Gough’s Tristan Albatrosses.

With thanks to Christopher Jones and Michelle Risi of the University of Cape Town’s FitzPatrick Institute for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 March 2015

The Fifth Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MoP5) to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) will be held at the Iberostar Grand Hotel Mencey in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain from 4 – 8 May 2015.

The agenda and schedule for the five-day meeting are now available on this website.  A total of 29 documents to be tabled and discussed in Tenerife are listed, now available for reading in advance of the meeting (click here).

Matters for discussion include the nomination of Chile’s endemic Pink-footed Shearwater Puffinus creatopus for listing as ACAP’s 31st species and second shearwater, criteria for listing and de-listing species on Annex 1, lethal experimentation and identifying prospective new Parties to the Agreement.  The Fifth Session will also hear and consider a report of ACAP’s Advisory Committee, which held its Eight Meeting in Uruguay in September last year (click here).

Pink-footed Shearwater, photograph by Peter Hodum

The ACAP Secretariat will be represented at MoP5 by its Executive Secretary, Warren Papworth, Science Officer Wiesława Misiak and its honorary Information Officer, John Cooper, with support from Juan Pablo Seco Pon of Argentina.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 March 2015 

ACAP Latest News has previously reported on plans by Pacific Rim Conservation to establish a new colony of Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis on the Hawaiian island of Oahu by taking advantage of eggs removed from a naval facility on the nearby island of Kauai (click here).

Forty-three eggs from Kauai’s Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands (PMRF) were flown to Oahu in December last year and placed in an artificial incubator.  Once those eggs that were fertile had hatched the chicks were temporarily fostered under adults in the Kaena Point National Wildlife Refuge on Oahu (click here).

A translocated chick gets weighed while being fostered at Kaena Point

Pacific Rim Conservation now reports:

“After a month with foster parents at Kaena Point, the translocated chicks are now at [the] James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge and getting used to their new 'habitat'.  They are being housed in a carport for two weeks while they transition from being brooded by their parents to being able to maintain their body temperature on their own.  The tubs you see them in are to ensure they don't wander around into another chicks 'territory', and to help keep everything clean.  Kind of like an actual nest cup.”

Translocated chicks on site in the carport

Next stage will be to move the chicks into the open and continue to feed them by hand until they fledge.  ACAP Latest News will keep you posted as the news comes in.

The translocation project is being supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, American Bird Conservancy, US Navy, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

With thanks to Lindsay Young, Pacific Rim Conservation for information and photographs.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 March 2015

Environment Canada in cooperation with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Province of British Columbia and in terms of the Canadian Species at Risk Act (SARA) has released a proposed management plan for the Black-footed Albatross Phoebastria nigripes.

The plan’s Executive Summary follows:

“The Black-footed Albatross is a long-lived seabird that breeds mainly in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and occurs at sea off the Pacific Coast of Canada during the breeding and non-breeding seasons.  Significant numbers feed off the coast of British Columbia each year, including adults making long foraging trips to feed their young.  The population seems generally stable, but relatively high numbers are caught as bycatch in longline fisheries in the North Pacific.  Additionally, adults and immature birds are affected by the accumulation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals and by the ingestion of waste plastics from the surface of the sea when they are feeding.  Because of the unknown effect of these particular threats over the long term, the Black-footed Albatross has been listed as a species of Special Concern in Canada.  Emerging threats such as the potential loss of nesting and foraging habitat due to climate change also threaten this species.  The management objective for the Black-footed Albatross is to “...help to increase global population numbers and maintain the population throughout its documented distribution in Canadian waters, by reducing at-sea mortality and otherwise augmenting international conservation efforts.”  The conservation of the Black-footed Albatross cannot succeed by Canadian efforts alone due to the wide-ranging marine nature and distant nesting habitats of this species.  Actions already underway include long-term at-sea surveys that record Black-footed Albatross distribution and abundance in Canada, and assessments of longline bycatch mortality in Canadian Pacific waters, including monitoring of current bycatch levels.  Bycatch mitigation measures have been implemented in the target fishing fleet, but monitoring for compliance and effectiveness is limited and should be increased.  Strategies and measures to achieve the management objectives are presented in the section entitled Broad Strategies and Conservation Measures.”

Black-footed Albatross, photograph by Cynthia Vanderlip

The management plan is now open for a 60-day comment period (ending 27 April), following which a final version will be produced and published.

With thanks to Ken Morgan for information.

Reference:

Environment Canada. 2015. Management Plan for the Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes) in Canada [Proposed].  Species at Risk Act Management Plan Series.  Ottawa: Environment Canada.  iv+ 30 pp.

Click here for a French-Language version of the plan.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 March 2015