Danielle Keys holds a Wandering Albatross chick at its nest in the Goney Plain Monitoring Colony on Marion Island.  A special permit is required to allow access to the colony and to handle the birds for research purposes; photograph by Leandri de Kock

“I have always been mesmerized by the ocean and the life in it.  Science allows us to unlock some of the ocean's secrets and helps us understand more about our world.  We can only protect what we understand.”

From a young age, I always wanted to find ways to help the ocean, so starting a career in marine biology was the obvious choice for me.   I have always been passionate about marine life and understanding why animals respond in particular ways.  I have also been drawn to the adventure and the possibility of discovering new things which is why I love working in the field.  I have been incredibly blessed to have been able to work on seabirds on several island for my postgraduate degrees, including Cape Gannets Morus capensis on Bird Island, Eastern Cape, South Africa (BSc Honours cum laude in 2015 - using tracking and video data) and on the foraging ecology of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Ardenna pacifica on Reunion, and D'Arros and Fouquet Islands, Amirante Group belonging to the Seychelles during 2016-2018 (MSc cum laude).

Danielle holds at Wedge-tailed Shearwater on Fouquet Island; photograph by Luke Gordon

On South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island I have worked with basically every seabird that moves undertaking tracking, monitoring, diet sampling and camera work as a member of the M75 and M77 Overwintering Teams of 2018/19 and 2020/21.  In between studies I have been able to work with other marine species including seals, turtles, corals and seals and even moved to drier parts (i.e. terrestrial fields) working with hornbills.  I have quickly been turned into an avid birder, while learning more about behavioural ecology and physiology.

A Wandering Albatross pair on Marion Island.  The larger, whiter bird is on the nest, the the female beside him.

We know that nothing happens in isolation.  Where an animal forages, and the amount of time it spends performing a particular behaviour, will impact its life history.  This is the general premise for my PhD “Linking Foraging Behaviour and Demographic Responses of Wandering Albatrosses on Marion Island” at the Marine Apex Predator Research Unit (MAPRU) at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, South Africa, with Prof. Pierre Pistorius, Prof. Peter Ryan and Dr Chris Oosthuizen as my supervisors.  My aim is to assess the extent to which variability in foraging behaviour affects life history and demographic rates of Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans (globally and regionally Vulnerable) on Marion.  This will be done by looking at how adult flight characteristics (e.g. trip duration and path length from six years of at-sea GPS tracking data) influence chick growth and survival.  The second aim is to assess the impacts of environmental variability and the demographic responses (survival and breeding success) of Marion’s Wanderers.  Here I will largely rely on the long-term demographic data (>37 years) to see how climate variability impacts their survival and breeding success.  We already know that fisheries have a really big impact on albatross populations; however, I will try to find what else influences their survival and breeding success.

Incoming!  A young bird joins a “gam” of pre-breeding juveniles for a group display

For now, I am homebound, and only volunteering occasionally where I can at the SANCCOB EC Marine Rehabilitation Centre and will hopefully finish my PhD over the next three years.  I would like to push to finish sooner so that I could be a part of the mouse eradication team for Marion Island.  I never knew that a place could steal one's heart like Marion has, and I want to be part of the team that helps restore this little piece of paradise.

Ready to fledge? A feathered Wandering Albatross chick approaches the photographer with determination
Photographs by Danielle Keys

Selected Publications:

Keys, D.Z. 2018.  The foraging ecology of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (Ardenna pacifica) in the tropical Western Indian Ocean.  MSc thesis, Nelson Mandela University, Gqeberha, South Africa.  103 pp.

Orgeret, F., Reisinger, R.R., Carpenter-Kling, T., Keys, D.Z., Corbeau, A., Bost, C.-A., Weirmerskirch, H. & Pistorius, P.A. 2021.  Spatial segregation in a sexually-dimorphic central place forager: competitive exclusion or niche divergence?  Journal of Animal Ecology doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13552. [click here].

Danielle Keys, Marine Apex Predator Research Unit, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa, 30 September 2021

Editorial note:  I set up the three long-term monitoring colonies of colour-banded Wandering Albatrosses on Marion Island back in the early 1980s (when there was a thinking by some that "monitoring" was not really proper work for academics) so it is most pleasing indeed to see young scientists not then born use the ensuing decades of data to earn their doctorates.  It makes me happy.  John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer

 New Zealand band R30655 on the bird’s leg, photograph by Pablo Sena

UPDATE: Read a newspaper article on the recovery in a local newspaper in Spanish.

The remains of a great albatross Diomedea sp. were photographed on the beach of La Serena, Rocha, Uruguay on 16 September this year by Pablo Sena, as first reported to ACAP by Mauricio Silvera.  The bird carried a metal band inscribed R30655, Dominion Museum, New Zealand.

 
The skull of the beached Northern Royal Albatross, photograph by Pablo Sena

Information from the New Zealand National Bird Banding Scheme (NZNBBS) via albatross doyen Christopher Robertson reveals that the bird was a 45-year-old Northern Royal Albatross D. sanfordi (globally Endangered and nationally Naturally Uncommon). It was banded as a pre-fledged chick on 10 September 1976 by Chris on The Little or Middle Sister, Rangitatahi, one of three small islands some 16 km off the northern coast of New Zealand’s Chatham Island.  The bird was later confirmed as a male by size and plumage when first recorded back on at its natal island as an 18-year-old in November 1994 incubating an egg, and then again in November 1996, so the assumption is that breeding was successful in 1994, given the species’ biennial breeding habit.

 
Chris Robertson measures an egg besides a Northern Royal Albatross on Little Sister; photograph by Brian Bell

Chris Robertson writes to ACAP Latest News: “The elapsed age of the bird seems reasonably accurate as photos of the wrecked skeleton show the bill to still have attached plates and some colour in the lower mandible”.

With thanks to Sharyn Broni, Marcel Calvar, Christopher Robertson QSM and Mauricio Silvera.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 September 2021, updated 04 October 2021

Saint-Paul Island with La Roche Quille, photograph from Thierry Micol

Christophe Barbraud (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers en Bois, France) and colleagues have published in the Journal for Nature Conservation on the recovery of France’s Saint Paul Island two decades after the eradication of two introduced mammals.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The eradication of invasive mammals on islands is important for protecting seabird populations and insular ecosystems. However, the impacts of such eradications are insufficiently known because monitoring of potentially beneficiary species is often sporadic and limited. We performed a survey of all seabird species on Saint-Paul Island, southern Indian Ocean, 20 years after successful eradication of invasive black rat (Rattus rattus) and European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Using complementary sampling designs including adaptive cluster sampling, stratified random sampling and entire sampling, we estimated population changes and colonization by new seabird species. A total of 13 seabird species were found breeding on Saint-Paul post-eradication compared to six before the eradication. Among the seven species that colonized the island, five (MacGillivray’s prion Pachyptila macgillivrayi, fairy prion P. turtur, white-bellied storm petrel Fregetta grallaria, Antarctic tern Sterna vittata, sooty tern Onychoprion fuscatus) had relictual populations breeding on a nearby islet, and one (brown skua Catharacta antarctica) was a new breeding species. We also found breeding subantarctic little shearwaters Puffinus elegans. For species that were breeding on the Saint Paul pre-eradication, the mean annual population growth rate was 1.030 ± 0.093 (SE). Species known to be vulnerable to rat predation (prions, great-winged petrel Pterodroma macroptera, flesh-footed shearwater Puffinus carneipes, subantarctic little shearwater, white-bellied storm petrel, Antarctic tern) had the highest population growth rates. Two decades after the eradication of invasive mammals on a remote oceanic island, seabird populations were high beneficiaries. These findings further highlight the importance of invasive mammal eradication on islands as a conservation tool. Results are encouraging for the planned eradication of invasive mammals from nearby Amsterdam Island, and suggest this will mainly benefit terns and small burrowing petrels.”

Saint-Paul Island's flooded crater with La Roche Quille behind, photograph by Jeremie Demay

Reference:

Barbraud, C., Delord, K., Le Bouard, F., Harivel, R., Demay, J., Chaigne, A. & Micol, T. 2021.  Seabird population changes following mammal eradication at oceanic Saint-Paul Island, Indian Ocean.  Journal for Nature Conservation 63. doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2021.126049.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 September 2021

The juvenile Short-tailed Albatross seen of southern California

An online article in The Orange County Register dated 10 June 2021 describes the excitement when a juvenile Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus (globally Vulnerable) was seem by avid birdwatchers off Los Angeles, California earlier this year.  The reporter, Laylan Connelly, writes: "A rare albatross that breeds on islands off Japan and hasn’t been documented near local waters for more than 40 years was spotted just a few miles from shore over the weekend, thrilling bird enthusiasts and experts who hope the sighting is a good sign for the endangered species.”

The article continues: “Diane Alps, a naturalist for the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro who typically studies whale species off the California coast, was first alerted to the unusual sighting three miles south of the Port of Los Angeles on Saturday [5 June] by a commercial fisherman who sent photos and video of the bird.  Similar laysan albatross and black-footed albatross are not uncommon sights locally, but the short-tailed albatross, known for its bubble gum-pink bill, is a rare sight.  And this bird had a pink bill.  Alps was able to charter a boat Sunday morning [6 June] and within 10 minutes sold the nearly 30 spots for an expedition to search for the bird – but finding it took a bit of ocean knowledge, and some luck.”

 
The juvenile Short-tailed Albatross shows its damaged wing
Photographs by Diane Alps

 "They went to a known fishing ground that was downwind from where it was seen a day before and looked for gull flocks feeding in the same area.  The Short-tailed Albatross wasn’t hard to spot among the other birds searching for food.  The young bird, which carried a metal band on its right leg, “had one wing that looked weathered, possibly injured from an entanglement.  The right wing was heavily beat up, but the left was pristine.”

The article states that the “last known sighting in local waters was in 1977, far offshore west of San Clemente Island.  Prior to that was the early 1900s, records show.  The other sightings are typically off central and northern California.”

A call has gone out from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to "pelagic" bird watchers not to disturb the albatross by too close an approach or by chumming (using fish or fish oil as an attractant):  "short-tailed albatross are a federally protected species under the Endangered Species Act, and any form of harassment or disturbance is a violation of federal law" (click here).

Not to be disturbed; photograph by Brad Lewis

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 September 2021