Anton Wolfaardt holds his MFM Sponsor a Hectare certificate received in appreciation from the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP)

In celebration of World Albatross Day this year with its theme of Climate Change, the Mouse-Free Marion Project Leader, Anton Wolfaardt gave the 100th online lecture in BirdLife South Africa’s regular Conservation Conversations series on 21 June.  His talk can now be viewed via Youtube here.

Read a recent ACAP Latest News post by Anton marking World Albatross Day.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 June 2022

Black-browed Albatrosses breeding on New Island, photograph by Ian Strange

New Island in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)* is a breeding site for c. 17 700 pairs (in 2000) of Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris (Least Concern), less than 50 pairs of Vulnerable White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis , around 50 pairs of Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus (Least Concern) and very large numbers (over one million pairs; the world’s largest known colony) of Thin-billed Prions Pachyptila belcheri, as well as cormorants and penguins.  Established as a private nature reserve in 1972, in 2006 the island came under the management of the New Island Conservation Trust.  New Island is an Important Bird Area and a Key Biodiversity Area and a site for seabird research.

A Black-browed Albatross colony on New Island, photograph by Georgina Strange

The environmental NGO (and BirdLife partner) Falklands Conservation, which merged with the trust in July 2020, has this month announced a restoration project for New Island.  Over the next two years the best approach to removing four invasive mammals (feral cats Felis catus, European Rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus, Black Rats Rattus rattus and House Mice Mus musculus) will be investigated, with support from the UK’s Darwin Initiative grants scheme.  Domestic sheep and cattle were removed from the island in the late 1970s.

Read more in Penguin News.

Reference:

Brown, D. 2013.  Feasibility Study Report for the Potential Eradication of Ship Rats, Mice, Rabbits and Feral Cats from New Island, Falkland Islands.   New Island Conservation Trust.  87 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 June 2022

*A dispute exists between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (Islas Georgias del Sur y Islas Sandwich del Sur) and the surrounding maritime areas.

Nine albatrosses for nine infographics, artwork by Namo Niumim

Thai illustrator Namasri ‘Namo’ Niumim, originally from Bangkok, is a graduate of the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design  Currently working back in her home country, she has previously resided in New Zealand and Tasmania.

 
Namo Niumim

For two years Namo, who works primarily in gouache, has been ACAP’s “Illustrator in Virtual Residence”, working on a series of infographics that depicts aspects of the biology and the conservation threats faced by ACAP-listed species.  To date nine albatross infographics have been produced in English, the most recent for the Endangered Sooty Albatross Phoebetria fusca, with French and Spanish versions following.  Most have been sponsored by and co-published with government departments or environmental NGOs based in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.  Currently, sponsorships have been obtained to produce a further six infographics, including for three ACAP-listed petrels

 

Most of the infographics have been produced in support of World Albatross Day, held annually since 2020 on 19 June, the date the Agreement was signed in 2001.  ACAP’s vision is over the next few years to seek sponsorships that will allow infographics to be produced by Namo for all the 31 ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.

Namo also illustrates cats; the picture here is a prized possession of the ACAP Information Officer, who received it as a gift from the ACAP Executive Secretary to mark his entry into his fourth quarter century.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 June 2022

Spectacled Petrels on Inaccessible Island, by ABUN Co-founder Kitty Harvill, after a photograph by Peter Ryan

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) & Steffen Oppel have published open access in Afrotropical Bird Biology: Journal of the Natural History of African Birds on winter observations on Gough Island seabirds, including ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.  The report of the Vulnerable single-island endemic Spectacled Petrel Procellaria conspicillata flying over Gough seems to be of particular interest. “Fairly common offshore from Gough, and occasionally flying over the island, especially from mid-April to mid-May.  Previous field workers on Gough have reported Spectacled Petrels flying over the island in April (D. Fox and C. Taylor, pers. comm.), possibly exploring for new breeding sites as the population on Inaccessible Island continues to expand (Ryan et al. 2019).  However, it is unclear why such prospecting would not occur earlier in the year, as the species lays in late October (Ryan 2007).”

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Relatively little has been reported about the seabirds of Gough Island, central South Atlantic Ocean, from autumn and winter.  We report ad hoc observations on the abundance, phenology and moult of seabirds at Gough Island from March to June 2021, and during the voyages between the island and Cape Town, South Africa. At least 43 species of seabirds were recorded: 1 penguin, 8 albatrosses, 5 southern and 1 northern storm petrel, 22 petrels and shearwaters, 1 gannet, 3 terns and 2 skuas.  The results are presented as an annotated species list as well as a daily log of species for the voyages to and from the island.  More species were seen per day at sea in June than in March, but fewer individuals were recorded in oceanic waters, mainly due to the large numbers of Great Shearwaters Ardenna gravis in March.”

Reference:

Ryan, P., & Oppel, S.  2022.  Notes on the seabirds of Gough Island and at sea between Gough and Cape Town, March–June 2021. Afrotropical Bird Biology: Journal of the Natural History of African Birds doi.org/10.15641/abb.v2i.1090.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 June 2022