The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) completed its 33rd round of annual meetings in Hobart, Australia last week. On the agenda  - for the fourth year running - were proposals for new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Ross Sea and in East Antarctica, following earlier failures to reach consensus (click here).

The following text is taken from CCAMLR’s news release of this year’s round of meetings:

“Consensus was not reached on either of the proposed MPAs.  Several Members requested additional time to consider issues associated with

• justification for the sizes of the proposed areas
• the proposed duration of the MPAs, and
• the process to support research and monitoring within MPAs and the implications for fisheries.

As CCAMLR operates on a decision-making model that requires consensus, the agreement of all 25 Members is required before a proposal is adopted and implemented.

‘A range of views and national interests on complex issues such as MPAs in international waters creates a challenging environment for reaching consensus,’ says CCAMLR Executive Secretary Andrew Wright.

Research and collaboration continue around the establishment of other MPAs (e.g. in the Weddell Sea) as part of CCAMLR’s representative system of Antarctic MPAs.  These and other conservation issues will be considered at future meetings of CCAMLR.”

Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses occur regularly within CCAMLR waters

Photograph by John Chardine

Creation of new MPAs in the Southern Ocean will help protect those species of seabirds that occur in the region, including ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.  Although only two ACAP-listed species (Light-mantled Sooty Albatross Phoebetria palpebrata and Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus) breed within the Antarctic Treaty area, the waters of the Southern Ocean are important foraging grounds for many of the ACAP-listed species that breed on sub-Antarctic islands.

This year ACAP was represented at CCAMLR’s Scientific Committee by its Science Officer, Wiesława Misiak and at the Commission’s meeting by its Executive Secretary, Warren Papworth.  Click here for an earlier ALN item on CCAMLR's 2014 meetings.

Click here for Australia's view on the  MPA situation in East Antarctica.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 November 2014, updated -7 November 2014

A New Zealand NGO, Forest & Bird, is holding a competition to choose the country’s most popular seabird.  “Vote for your favourite New Zealand seabird.  Our seabirds are sensational and New Zealand is a seabird superpower.  More than one-third of the world’s seabird species spend at least part of their lives above or on New Zealand waters.  Thirty-six of those only breed here.  But tragically more than half of those are threatened with extinction.”

At the time of writing votes have been posted for 31 New Zealand seabirds, of which seven species are albatrosses and petrels listed by ACAP.

The most popular ACAP-listed species in the competition is currently the Vulnerable Salvin’s Albatross Thalassarche salvini which is being championed by its Campaign Manager Igor Debski (Marine Species and Threats, Department of Conservation and New Zealand delegate at recent ACAP meetings).  His campaign states “classified as nationally critical, Salvin’s albatross are one of our most at risk seabirds from bycatch in New Zealand fisheries.  The largest colony is found on Proclamation Island in the Bounty Islands of New Zealand”

Igor writes to ACAP that his colleague Katherine Clements has written a sonnet in support of his campaign – and encourages ACAP Latest News readers to vote for “his” bird.

Thousands of seabirds roam the skies,
To far off shores they all do flock,
But only one seabird can claim the prize,
The elegant Salvin’s mollymawk.

You truly should hope to come across,
A bird of such beauty and unwavering might,
Though not the largest of the albatross,
Its wings span two and a half metres in flight!

You may have thought you travelled heaps,
But the Salvin’s journey quite far,
From New Zealand to Chile they bravely sweeps,
Spanning the sea, y el mar!

So endorse the wondrous bird of the sky,
And VOTE Thalassarche salvini!

The competition does have a serious side:  Forest & Birds works to conserve New Zealand’s seabirds, including those ACAP-listed species affected by fishery practices, through its Save our Seabirds campaign.  The Seabird of the Year competition gives voters the opportunity to donate towards Forest & Bird’s work with seabirds.

Voting closes on the 24th of November.  ALN will report on the winning species once the competition is over.  So far the competition is being led by the Fairy Tern Sternula nereis, New Zealand’s rarest breeding seabird.

With thanks to Igor Debski for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 November 2014

The Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project (MIPEP) eradicated three introduced mammals on Australia’s sub-Antarctic island: European Rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus, Black Rat Rattus rattus and House Mouse Mus musculus following a poison-bait drop and hunting with dogs for the few remaining rabbits.  The successful project has now been evaluated and has been officially scored as a “great result”.

Although, as has been previously reported in ACAP Latest News, MIPEP resulted in not inconsiderable non-target mortality of birds from both primary and secondary poisoning, notably of ACAP-listed Northern Giant Petrels Macronectes halli, the evaluation report considers that their numbers are likely to recover within a few decades.  On the plus side the island’s breeding population of ACAP-listed Grey Petrels Procellaria cinerea continues to increase in the absence of introduced mammals.

A Grey Petrel chick in its burrow on Macquarie Island

In concluding the evaluation report calls for continued monitoring of recovery of Macquarie’s landscape (affected by peat slips), vegetation and seabirds and for improved protection via a new biosecurity plan.

“Overall, the project has come in one year ahead of schedule and around 20% under budget.”  Cannot complain about that!

Where to next in the sub-Antarctic?  New Zealand’s Antipodes, the United Kingdom’s Gough and South Africa’s Marion are all islands with a single terrestrial alien mammal – the House Mouse…

With thanks to Keith Springer for information.

Reference:

Parks and Wildlife Service 2014.   Evaluation Report August 2014 Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project.  Hobart: Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment.  50 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 November 2014

Leigh Gurney (Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) and colleagues have published in the journal Ecological Modelling on constructing an ecosystem model for South Africa’s Marion and Prince Edward Islands.  The paper’s appendices contain biological details of the islands’ nine regularly breeding species of ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“A model of an ecosystem provides a useful tool for the exploration of management options to achieve desired objectives.  With the move to a more holistic approach to marine resource management, ecosystem models and the indicators that can be derived using them, are providing a means to move away from single species management and allow for the ecosystem effects of population dynamics to be explored.  This work describes the construction of an ecosystem model of the Prince Edward archipelago.  The archipelago consists of two islands, Marion and Prince Edward, which are situated southeast of the southern tip of Africa at 46°46′S, 37°51′E.  The islands are host to millions of seabirds and seals that use the islands as a refuge for breeding and moulting.  Using the Ecopath software, the ecosystem is described across three separate decades (1960s, 1980s, 2000s).  All trophic links are described based on the rich published literature that exists for the islands.  Local survey data for population estimates and trophic linkages were sourced for defining and quantifying the food web.  The system is summarised into 37 functional groups which include 4 primary producer groups at the lower trophic spectrum, and 14 land based top predator groups (seals and seabirds) representing the majority of the higher trophic levels.  Two detrital groups are included.  The food web is compared across the three time periods with transfer efficiencies declining for the higher trophic levels through time, suggesting a decline in energetic coupling between groups.  Comparison of the PEI ecosystem with eight other modeled sub Antarctic/Antarctic systems showed the ecosystem size (as measured in total biomass throughput per year, year⁻¹) to be lower than all other systems and was found to be most similar to the Kerguelen Islands for the ecological metrics assessed.  Future research priorities are highlighted based on an assessment of data availability, data gaps and sensitivity testing.  The construction of this model provides a much needed tool for the advancement of management for the archipelago, which have both fisheries and conservation concerns.”

Wandering Albatrosses at Marion Island, photograph by Marienne de Villiers

Reference:

Gurney, L.J., Pakhomov, E.A. & Christensen, V. 2014.  An ecosystem model of the Prince Edward Island archipelago.  Ecological Modelling 294: 117-136.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 03 November 2014