Javier Quiñones with a Black Petrel chick on New Zealand's Great Barrier Island. Javier joined NZDOC's Elizabeth Bell and her team on their project on the at-sea distribution of Black Petrels; photo courtesy of Javier and NZDOC

"Working on the Black Petrel (Procellaria parkinsoni) project on Great Barrier Island, with Elizabeth Bell and her team was a wonderful experience. I am deeply grateful to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) and to the New Zealand Department of Conservation for this extraordinary experience." ACAP Secondee Javier Quiñones

Successful ACAP Secondment applicant, Peruvian Javier Quiñones, has commenced his Secondment with the New Zealand Department of Conservation (NZDOC). ACAP Secondments support research aligned to the Agreement’s objective to conserve listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters and are also required to build capacity within Parties, be international in nature, and achieve tasks within the current work programmes of the Advisory Committee (see Annex 4, MoP7 Report) and Secretariat (see Annex 2, MoP7 Report).

Javier’s Secondment focuses on addressing distribution data gaps of Chatham, Buller’s and Salvin’s Albatrosses and Black Petrels and their overlap with the artisanal fishing effort of Peruvian longline, drift gillnet and coastal gillnet fisheries. This approach allows for the identification of high risk areas, ultimately facilitating the targeted application of bycatch mitigation methods in Peru. For this end, Javier is learning about mitigation and fisheries outreach techniques in New Zealand to adapt and apply similar methodologies to the artisanal fisheries of Peru.

New Zealand’s Chatham, Salvin’s and Buller’s Albatrosses and Black Petrels are classified as some of the most endangered albatrosses and petrels by the IUCN, with accidental death from interactions with fisheries one of the most significant threats facing these four ACAP-listed species. The threat posed by New Zealand fisheries during their breeding period has been documented. However, data on non-breeding threats from fishing operations off the coast of Peru are limited. 

Whilst Javier is in New Zealand, key objectives of his Secondment will be achieved through his involvement in planned activities including: meeting with bycatch mitigation experts and researchers, meeting NZDOC staff coordinating outreach to fishers, and accompanying fisher liaison officers on port visits to small inshore vessels. Javier will also engage further on joint data analyses (covering both seabird distribution data and fishing effort data) and visit seabird research projects on the North Island.  

Johannes Fischer (NZDOC) stated: “I couldn’t be happier with what Javier has managed to achieve during his time here. Completing complex data wrangling exercises, banding Black Petrel chicks on the top of a mountain, and engaging with fishers on mitigation methods; he truly covered the full suite of puzzle pieces required for effective bycatch mitigation. We are very much looking forward to continuing our collaboration and reducing bycatch of our shared seabirds.”

Speaking about the experiences from his time in New Zealand and their planned application back in Peru, Javier said: “For me the project is fascinating because in the second phase, we will train the artisanal longline fishermen in southern Peru. We’ll interact with the fishing guilds to be able to apply and adapt these methodologies and minimize the bycatch of albatrosses and petrels in this Peruvian fishery, which fishing area is huge - from 80 to 400 nautical miles offshore.”

Javier, who is Head of the Top Predators Office at the Instituto del Mar del Peru (Peruvian Marine Research Institute), studied Biology at Ricardo Palma University before gaining his Master of Science in Marine Ecology Management at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, in Belgium. He then completed his PhD at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata in Argentina on jellyfish occurrence and its relationship environmental variability at inter annual and inter decadal scales in the Humboldt Current System. 

Javier in 2021 on board an artisinal longline vessel targeting sharks 150 nautical miles offshore Ilo (a port city in southern Peru). Javier is pictured (left) with a Buller's Albatross (Thalassarche bulleri), and (right) with a Chatham Albatross (Thalassarche eremita). Both species were tagged with GPS devices during the project "Integrating an onboard observer program and remote tracking data to evaluate the interactions between the small-scale longline fisheries and adult Chatham Albatrosses in their wintering grounds off Peru." which was assisted by funding from the ACAP Small Grants Programme.

After a decade of research on sea turtles and their population dynamics and foraging ecology, in 2017 he shifted his research to albatrosses and petrels, specifically their spatial distribution, seasonality, age-class distribution, foraging ecology and habitat use in Peru. 

Javier has actively participated in many research cruises on pelagic seabirds along the Peruvian coast and has been involved in eleven Antarctic surveys with Peru, Argentina and the U.S.A.  He has worked on surveys attaching GPS satellite transmitters on Chatham and Buller's Albatrosses in southern Peru and is currently collaborating with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation on the habitat use of Salvin’s Albatrosses and Black Petrels in Peru. 

Follow Javier’s Secondment at his Instagram account, @javichojelly and find his research here.

12 May 2023

Black-footed Albatross and chick, Midway Atoll, photograph by Wieteke Holthuijsen, poster design by Bree Forrer

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement is pleased to release its second set of 12 freely downloadable photo posters for this year’s World Albatross Day with its theme of “Plastic Pollution” in a second Asian language following Japanese – this time in Korean (available here).   Previously, the poster set has been made available in ACAP’s three official languages – English, French and Spanish, and in Portuguese. The ‘WAD2023’ logo is also available in Korean.

The Republic of Korea is not a Party to the Agreement, nor has a breeding population of an ACAP-listed species. However, it is an ACAP range state* by way of undertaking fishing that interacts with ACAP-listed species, notably through its high-seas longline fisheries for tuna in the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans.

ACAP has made its Seabird Bycatch Mitigation Fact Sheets available in Korean. A Korean version of the ACAP Seabird Bycatch ID Guide is also planned.

It is hoped the photo posters can be used within Korea to increase awareness of the conservation plight being faced by albatrosses and petrels and aid the country in celebrating World Albatross Day come 19 June.

Adolescent Northern Royal Albatrosses display at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head; photograph by Sharyn Broni, poster design by Bree Forrer

With grateful thanks for help with translations from Vivian Fu and Yuna Kim Williams, and to photographers Sharyn Broni and Wieteke Holthuijsen.

* “Range State” means any State that exercises jurisdiction over any part of the range of albatrosses or petrels, or a State, flag vessels of which are engaged outside its national jurisdictional limits in taking, or which have the potential to take, albatrosses and petrels” [from the Agreement text].

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 11 May 2023

The World Migratory Bird Day event campaign poster by Augusto Silva

World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) celebrations are taking place this coming Saturday, May 13 under the theme, “Water: Sustaining Bird Life”. Nicaraguan artist Augusto Silva has designed the WMBD campaign poster for this year’s celebrations. The artwork features twelve species that help tell the story of the importance of water to migratory birds.

The theme draws attention to the importance of water for migratory birds and the varied habitats they rely on for migration. From wetlands to tidal flats to mangrove forests, water is an essential part of the systems that enable the continued success of these migratory species; however these water systems and habitats are under increasing pressure from human demand for water, human development of habitat, pollution and climate change.

To reflect the cyclical nature of seasonal bird migrations there are two peak days for World Migratory Bird Day, with the second day marked on October 14. Details on WMBD as well as the campaign poster can be found at the World Migratory Bird Day website. 

Complementing World Migratory Bird Day is one of the largest bird counting events of the year, The Cornell Lab’s Global Big Day. Participants are asked to spend 5 – 10 minutes recording their bird observations and before submitting them online. More information on how to get involved can be found at the ebird website.

10 May 2023

‘Raising Awareness’ by Tammy McGee, after a photograph of a Laysan Albatross chick by Chris Jordan. Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencils, 12" x 15" Pastelmat

Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature’s Tammy McGee has this month won Second Place at the Joint Art Center Show of the Greensburg Art Center and the Latrobe Art Center (both based in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA) for her work ‘Raising Awareness’. She had produced her coloured pencil drawing for ABUN’s Project #43 on the theme of “Plastic Pollution” in support of ACAP’s celebration this year of World Albatross Day on 19 June.

Tammy McGee with her award-winning drawing “Raising Awareness”

Her striking artwork depicts the corpse of a Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis with plastic bottle tops and other debris spilling out of its decaying body. Her work is based on a photograph taken on Midway Atoll by videographer Chris Jordan who produced the compelling documentary Albatross. The plastic items had been mistaken as food by the chick’s parents foraging from the sea surface and then were regurgitated to their chick. It is likely the heavy plastic load contributed to the chick’s death.

Always intriguing to get a glimpse of a work in progress

Tammy McGee is from Latrobe and holds associate degrees in graphic design and information science. She writes to ACAP Latest News saying “I’ve always enjoyed drawing animals. Recently I started drawing endangered animals and the group [ABUN] actually gave my drawings a way to help raise awareness for endangered animals and it gave my artwork a purpose”.

Tammy has written on her Facebook page about her artwork’s title: “I got to explain where I got the idea from so it really did raise awareness!” Earlier she had commented “I usually draw at the local Barnes and Noble [bookstore] and the ladies who knit there on Mondays always come over and look. I usually draw cute things. Some of them were stunned at what I was drawing so I had to explain why I was drawing this particular bird”.

As well as her prize winner (out of over 170 entries), she also has produced for ACAP’s use a drawing of an Endangered Northern Royal Albatross Diomedea sanfordi resting besides its downy chick, after a photograph taken at Pukekura/Taiaroa Head.

Northern Royal Albatross by Tanmmy McGee, Faber-Castell Polychromos coloured pencils, 12” x 15” Pastelmat

John Cooper, Emeritus Information Officer, Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, 09 May 2023