Up on its foils at speed: The New Zealand F50 catamaran with a Live Ocean Antipodean Albatross silhouette on its wingsail

SailGP

A silhouette of a Nationally Critical and globally Endangered Antipodean Albatross (Toroa) appeared on the wingsail of New Zealand’s entry in the SailGP races held last month in Spain’s Cádiz, as “a symbol of the team’s commitment to shining a spotlight on the plight of the Antipodean Albatross and working to stop their freefall to extinction.”  The New Zealand F50 catamaran (which can reach speeds of 50 knots – over 90 km/h) was given the name Amokura, the Maori word for the Red-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon rubricauda.

SailGP’s Albatross: a Live Ocean video

Amokura crew members Peter Burling (helm) and wing trimmer Blair Tuke (who are Olympic gold medallists and America’s Cup champions) founded Live Ocean, a marine conservation organisation that supports the long-term monitoring programme designed to track Antipodean Albatross flight paths to understand where they overlap with fishing fleets. The event in Spain was won by Australia, with New Zealand winning one of the fleet races, finishing the regatta in fifth position out of eight competitors.

From left: Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Nigel Fyfe, New Zealand Ambassador to Spain and Jose Manuel Franco, Spanish Secretary of State for Sport

On the eve of racing in Cádiz, Burling and Tuke joined New Zealand Ambassador to Spain Nigel Fyfe at SailGP’s Champions for Change forum where they shared the story of founding Live Ocean and their first project on racing to save the Antipodean Albatross from extinction. Champions for Change is SailGP’sleadership programme where leaders and sustainability champions talk about their approach to tackling the climate crisis and share valuable insights and learnings.  Burling and Tuke’s role in using the power of sport to shine a light on the plight of the Antipodean lbatross has seen them become a symbol for the threats many albatrosses and seabirds face at sea. 

In June the leaders of Spain and New Zealand, President Pedro Sánchez and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, declared their commitment that the two countries would work together on seabird conservation, and in particular they would develop an agreement by the time of the Spain Sail Grand Prix in Cadíz, for the better protection of the albatrosses and petrels of the Southern Ocean. 

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New Zealand races against Spain in Cádiz

New Zealand Ambassador to Spain Nigel Fyfe confirmed at the Champions for Change event that work on the agreement was completed and would be signed later this year. Fyfe said: “This is a tangible commitment to ensure our fishing boats follow best practices to avoid the capture of seabirds in the southern fisheries. Our two countries will go out and work with other countries involved in that fishery to ensure those best practices are widely followed. This wouldn’t have happened without SailGP providing this moment of focus and without SailGP’s commitment through Champions for Change to lead by example and to invite others to seize the opportunity. It wouldn’t have happened without the commitment of Pedro Sánchez and Jacinda Ardern. And it wouldn’t have happened without the leadership and determination of Pete Burling and Blair Tuke.”

View a second video by Live Ocean entitled The Race to Save the Antipodean Albatross and access earlier posts in ACAP Latest News about Live Ocean’s work for Antipodean Albatrosses here.

BOTY2021

Back in New Zealand, the official winner of the annual Bird of the Year competition (BOTY2021) was announced earlier this week and surprisingly it's not a bird at all, it is a bat that was allowed into the competition by the organizers.  The Long-tailed Bat Chalinolobus tuberculatus (Maori mane Pekapeka-tou-roa) is one of only two bats to occur in New Zealand.  These two endemic species are in fact, the country’s only non-introduced mammals that are not of marine origin (such as are seals).  The Long-tailed Bat received the highest number of BOTY votes ever and won by 3000 votes, pushing the Antipodean Albatross, supported by Team Toroa, down to fifth place.  Hopes had been raised that this year the albatross would do better than last year’s second place, but in the event it slipped off the podium.

However, public awareness of the plight of the Antipodean Albatross has been raised by both events that featured it, as has the recent co-production by ACAP and New Zealand’s Department of Conservation of an infographic for the bird

And the bird in question: an Antipodean Albatross off Kaikoura; photograph by Kerry-Jayne Wilson

With thanks to Kelsey Hunter and Sally Paterson of Live Ocean.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 November 2021, updated 12 November 2021

Limin Wang (College of Life Sciences, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, China) and colleagues have reviewed open-access the effects of plastic pollution in birds (including albatrosses and petrels) in the journal Avian Research.

The paper’s abstract follows:

Plastic waste and debris have caused substantial environmental pollution globally in the past decades, and they have been accumulated in hundreds of terrestrial and aquatic avian species. Birds are susceptible and vulnerable to external environments; therefore, they could be used to estimate the negative effects of environmental pollution. In this review, we summarize the effects of macroplastics, microplastics, and plastic-derived additives and plastic-absorbed chemicals on birds. First, macroplastics and microplastics accumulate in different tissues of various aquatic and terrestrial birds, suggesting that birds could suffer from the macroplastics and microplastics-associated contaminants in the aquatic and terrestrial environments. Second, the detrimental effects of macroplastics and microplastics, and their derived additives and absorbed chemicals on the individual survival, growth and development, reproductive output, and physiology, are summarized in different birds, as well as the known toxicological mechanisms of plastics in laboratory model mammals. Finally, we identify that human commensal birds, long-life-span birds, and model bird species could be utilized to different research objectives to evaluate plastic pollution burden and toxicological effects of chronic plastic exposure.”

Reference:

Wang, L., Nabi, G., Yin, L., Wang, Y., Li, S., Hao, Z. & Li, D. 2021.  Birds and plastic pollution: recent advances.  Avian Research   doi.org/10.1186/s40657-021-00293-2.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 11 November 2021

A new seabird book has been published this month.  Written by Kerry-Jayne Wilson of the West Coast Penguin Trust, the book features the many seabirds to be found in and around New Zealand.  In the current absence of an ACAP review copy, the publisher’s ‘blurb’ about the book and its author follows.

“New Zealand is the seabird capital of the world – no other country has so many species of breeding seabirds, while about a third of them are only found here.  New Zealand Seabirds, the first book to be written specifically about these birds, describes the different groups of seabirds, where in New Zealand they occur, their breeding biology, feeding behaviours, the conservation threats they face, and the vast distances they often travel to feed and breed. Written using non-technical language by ornithologist Kerry-Jayne Wilson, this book is an essential companion for anyone who appreciates the wildlife of our coastlines and the oceans beyond.”

Kerry-Jayne Wilson MNZM, with King Penguins in the South Atlantic

“As an undergraduate student Kerry-Jayne Wilson stood on the cliffs of the sub-Antarctic Snares Islands and watched penguins, shearwaters, petrels and albatrosses head out to sea and wondered where they went, how they caught food and how they navigated the open ocean.  These questions have intrigued her ever since and led her to undertake conservation-related research on seabirds in New Zealand, the Chathams and sub-Antarctic islands, the Southern Ocean, Antarctica, Newfoundland and briefly in several other parts of the world. She was a Senior Lecturer in ecology and conservation at Lincoln University for many years and has worked for the last 12 years as an ornithologist, natural-history writer and educator. New Zealand Seabirds is her fourth book.  In 2019 she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to seabird conservation.  She lives on the South Island’s West Coast.”

Read about Kerry-Jayne’s work with the globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon Westland Petrel Procellaria westlandica here.

Reference:

Wilson, K.-J. 2021.  New Zealand Seabirds.  A Natural History.  Nelson: Potter & Burton.  140 pp.  Hardback.  ISBN: 9781988550 251.  NZD 49.99.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 November 2021

 
A Wedge-tailed Shearwater in its burrow at Kaena Point

The Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve on the Hawaiian island of Oahu has a predator-proof fence that protects a breeding population of Near Threatened Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis from stray dogs, feral cats and introduced mongooses and rodents.  It also affords the birds a breeding site considered safe from predicted sea level rise.  The reserve also supports a growing population of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Puffinus pacificus as the environmental NGO Pacific Rim Conservation has recently reported on its Facebook page:

“We spent the day with @hawaii_dlnr [Hawaii Department of and Land and Natural Resources] and Pacific Islands: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducting the annual Wedge-tailed Shearwater count at Kaena Point and the birds have set a huge new record!  13,479 nests that fledged 6,414 chicks!  Ten years ago before the predator exclusion fence was installed, there were 2,637 nests and only 345 chicks that fledged that year. It's amazing how Hawaii's birds can thrive once you remove predators from their breeding colonies.”

Wedge-tailed Shearwater survey at Kaena Point; photographs from Pacific Rim Conservation

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 November 2021