Wisdom (Red Z333) on her nest site

Wisdom, the female Laysan Albatross Phoebastria immutabilis, who is the world’s oldest known banded wild bird, has been seen back on the USA’s Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the North Pacific.  With an estimated minimum age of 70, she has now reached her eighth decade (click here).  Wisdom was first seen at her nest usual nest site on the atoll’s Sand Island -on 26 November, one day earlier than in 2020.  The last sighting of Wisdom around her nest cup was made on 5 December.

Wisdom does a wing stretch, photographs by Dragana Connaughton, Schoolyard Films

“There have been no observations of Akeakamai [her mate of the last few seasons] this year and no evidence of a nest cup; so it is unlikely that they will nest this year,” said Jon Plissner, Wildlife Biologist at Midway Atoll. “We will continue to monitor the area through the month of December, as a few new nest starts of Laysan Albatross can occur in December.”

“It is normal for albatrosses take a year off from parenting between chicks.  Wisdom and her mate have met on Midway Atoll to lay and hatch an egg almost every year since 2006.  It is estimated that Wisdom has laid between 30–36 eggs in her lifetime.  In 2018, her chick that fledged in 2001 was observed just a few feet away from her current nest, marking the first time a returning chick of hers has been documented.  The chick returned to the same area each year since then but this December was found 200 yards [180 m] away on a nest of its own.”

Access previous postings about Wisdom in ACAP Latest News here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 December 2021

 Antipodean Albatross off North Cape, New Zealand, photograph by Kirk Zufelt

Last week New Zealand’s Ambassador to Spain, Nigel Fyfe, on behalf of the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Spanish Vice President Teresa Ribera yesterday in Madrid, Spain to reduce seabird bycatch.  The MoU will promote the adoption of bycatch mitigation measures, in particular those set out in the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.  The two nations will also share information and collaborate on research on seabird conservation.

“Highly migratory species may spend much of their time foraging in the high seas.  We can’t limit ourselves to protecting these taonga [treasure] species only when they are breeding on our islands or coast and foraging in our waters,” [New Zealand] Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan said.

[New Zealand] Minister for Oceans and Fisheries David Parker said fishing in international waters posed a challenge to seabird species.  “Spain is a major fishing nation.  Together, New Zealand and Spain can play an important role in promoting best practice for seabird bycatch mitigation across the world.   This advocacy will help to protect our migratory seabirds in Pacific fisheries and beyond.”

The key actions in the MoU are to:

• Promote the adoption of bycatch mitigation measures, in particular those advised in the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP)
• Share information and collaborate on research on seabird conservation
• Cooperate in the implementation of the Antipodean Albatross Concerted Action

According to Live Ocean the MoU is designed to promote the adoption of best practice fishing methods, including using what is known as ‘three of out three’ – weighted lines, bird-scaring lines and night setting. It also includes a commitment by the two nations to advocate internationally to promote the uptake of these fishing methods (click here).

Three years ago, a similar partnership was established between New Zealand's Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries and Chile's  Undersecretaria of Fisheries and Aquaculture and its Ministry of Environment (click here).

Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 December 2022

 An ACAP-listed and Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus glides over a calm sea; photograph by ‘Pep’ Arcos

Joan Ferrer Obiol (Departament de Genètica, Microbiologia i Estadística, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain) and colleagues have published open access in the Journal of Biogeography on the  biogeography and the evolution of Ardenna, Calonectris and Puffinus shearwaters, a taxonomic group that includes two ACAP-listed species.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Aim

Palaeoceanographic changes can act as drivers of diversification and speciation, even in highly mobile marine organisms. Shearwaters are a group of globally distributed and highly mobile pelagic seabirds. Despite a recent well-resolved phylogeny, shearwaters have controversial species limits, and show periods of both slow and rapid diversification. Here, we explore the role of palaeoceanographic changes on shearwaters' diversification and speciation. We investigate shearwater biogeography and the evolution of a key phenotypic trait, body size, and we assess the validity of their current taxonomy.

Location
Worldwide.

Taxa
Shearwaters (Order Procellariiformes, Family Procellariidae, Genera Ardenna, Calonectris and Puffinus).

Methods
e generated genomic (ddRAD) data to infer a time-calibrated species tree for the shearwaters. We estimated ancestral ranges and evaluated the roles of founder events, vicariance and surface ocean currents in driving diversification. We performed phylogenetic generalised least squares to identify potential predictors of variability in body size along the phylogeny. To assess the validity of the current taxonomy, we analysed genomic patterns of recent shared ancestry and differentiation among shearwater taxa.

Results
We identified a period of high dispersal and rapid speciation during the Late Pliocene–early Pleistocene. Species dispersal appears to be favoured by surface ocean currents, and founder events are supported as the main mode of speciation in these highly mobile pelagic seabirds. Body mass shows significant associations with life strategies and local conditions. The current taxonomy shows some incongruences with the patterns of genomic divergence.

Main Conclusions
A reduction of neritic areas during the Pliocene seems to have driven global extinctions of shearwater species, followed by a subsequent burst of speciation and dispersal probably promoted by Plio-Pleistocene climatic shifts. Our findings extend our understanding on the drivers of speciation and dispersal of highly mobile pelagic seabirds and shed new light on the important role of palaeoceanographic events.”

An ACAP-listed and Vulnerable Pink-footed Shearwater Ardenna creatopus at sea; photograph by Peter Hodum

Reference:

Ferrer Obiol, J., James, H.F., Chesser, R.T., Bretagnolle, V., González-Solís, J., Rozas, J., Welch, A.J. & Riutort, M. 2021.  Palaeoceanographic changes in the late Pliocene promoted rapid diversification in pelagic seabirds.  Journal of Biogeography doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14291.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 December 2021

The Albatross and Petrel Agreement has chosen the theme “Climate Change” to mark the third World Albatross Day, to be celebrated on 19 June 2022.  This follows the inaugural theme “Eradicating Island Pests” in 2020 and “Ensuring Albatross-friendly Fisheries” last year.

Translocated Black-footed Albatross chicks await feeding in the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, Oahu in 2018; photograph from Pacific Rim Conservation

In support of World Albatross Day and its chosen theme each year ACAP highlights one or more of the 22 albatross species with posters, infographics and artworks in ACAP’s three official languages of English, French and Spanish.  The featured species chosen for 2022 are two of the three species of albatrosses that breed in the North Pacific: the Black-footed Phoebastria nigripes and the Laysan P. immutabilis.  Both these Near Threatened albatrosses have the majority of their breeding populations on the low-lying atolls of the USA’s North-Western Hawaiian Islands. These atolls – and their breeding seabirds - are all at risk from sea level rise and increases in the number and severity of storms that result in flooding, both considered a consequence of climate change.  Storm floods have even caused at least one small sandy islet to disappear into the sea, taking with it breeding sites for several thousand albatross pairs (click here).  Elsewhere in the island chain, as on Midway Atoll, storms have caused flooding of albatross nests and loss of chicks close to the shore.

ACAP will work with Lindsay Young of the Hawaii-based environmental NGO, Pacific Rim Conservation, to design infographics to be produced by illustrator Namasri 'Namo' Niumim, for the two albatrosses.  Her ‘namographics’ will illustrate the NGO’s ongoing work to create a new albatross colony safe from predicted sea level rise by translocating and hand-rearing chicks on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.  ACAP is also pleased to announce it will once more be working with Kitty Harvill of ABUN (Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature) in January and February next year; this time to produce artworks for WAD2022 that depict Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses.  Lastly, ACAP’s WAD poster designer, Michelle Risi, now moving to Aldabra Atoll for two years after an extended stay on Gough Island, will, with the help of a number of excellent photographers, produce a poster series for the two birds that will be freely downloadable next year.

Attacked by mice on Marion: a ‘scalped’ Near threatened Light-mantled Albatross Phoebetria palpebrata, photograph by Peter Ryan

World Albatross Day 2022 will also highlight other effects of climate change on albatrosses.  Examples include the warming climate of South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island, which has caused an increasing population of introduced House Mouse to turn to killing albatross chicks (click here), and recent research in the South Atlantic that suggests warming seas are increasing divorce rates in breeding pairs of Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris.  Evidence is also building that climate change impacts on foraging opportunities and distributions of albatrosses, including causing range contractions, which may lead to increased overlap with commercial fisheries and greater risk of being bycaught.

Climate change is impacting the world’s albatrosses in a variety of ways: sea level rise, invasive species, reproductive impacts and range shifts.  Scientists are only beginning to understand how these impacts interact with other marine threats, such as from pollution and fisheries, to affect populations. World Albatross Day is a small way to help keep the spotlight on the world's albatrosses and how they may be at risk from climate change..

You can follow these initiatives, and more, in ACAP Latest News and on the ACAP Facebook page up until World Albatross Day on 19 June 2022.

With thanks to members of the ACAP World Albatross Day Group for their valued inputs to deciding a theme for 2022.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 December 2022