A pair of Campbell Albatrosses displaying on Campbell Island

NOTE:  This post continues an occasional series that features photographs of the 31 ACAP listed species, along with information from and about their photographers.  Here Peter Moore writes about his experiences with the globally Vulnerable and nationally At Risk - Naturally Uncommon Campbell Albatross Thalassarche impavida.  Peter worked for many years as a seabird scientist for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, most recently in its then Marine Conservation Unit.  He is now with the Institute for Applied Ecology in Oregon, USA.  See accounts for species so far covered in the series in the Photo Essays section on this website, including Peter’s photo essay on the Southern Royal Albatross Diomedea epomophora.

Peter Moore holds a Campbell Albatross chick for weighing, measuring and banding on Campbell Island, March 1988

The Campbell Albatross breeds only on Campbell Island, one of the sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand and is found throughout Australasian waters.  The species is similar in appearance to the circumpolar Black-browed Albatross T. melanophris but has honey-coloured irises and broader black margins to its underwings.  Adults breed annually and arrive on the island in early August, lay a single egg in late September-early October and fledge chicks in mid-April.  Colonies are shared with the less numerous and biennially-breeding Grey-headed Albatross T. chrysostoma.

Close-up of a Campbell Albatross, showing the honey-coloured iris

My first connection with Campbell Albatrosses, or Campbell Island Mollymawks, as we more commonly refer to them in New Zealand, came in 1987-88 when I spent a year on Campbell Island conducting research and monitoring projects for the Department of Conservation.  One of our main tasks was to record breeding success of the “mollies” at the “study square” at Bull Rock South.   This included banding breeding pairs and their chicks. Although sporadic observations of mollymawks had been made previously, and many thousands of chicks and adults had been banded since the 1950s, this was the first attempt at a more systematic study.

Campbell Albatross adults and chicks at Bull Rock South, Campbell Island, January 1998

So began approximately weekly visits, from October to May, to the Bull Rock South mollymawk colony at the north-east tip of Campbell Island.  As you emerge from the scrub behind the colony, you are greeted by the cacophony of thousands of mollymawks calling and squabbling - a sound akin to many dueling chainsaws.  The busy city of birds covers many ledges perched above spectacular cliffs.  As with all albatrosses, Campbell Albatrosses show wonderful mastery of the wind, soaring gracefully over the waves.  Built for speed, however, they are not always able to land very gracefully, and the final run into a colony ledge can be a bit out of control.  With spacing between nests determined by pecking distance, any interloper must run the gauntlet of many annoyed birds defending their spot.

 
A young Campbell Albatross chick, December 1987

A Campbell Albatross chick on its pedestal nest, February 2008

In 1987, we established a set of photo points to monitor changes in the population.    Notably, J.H. Sorensen, while stationed on the island with the ‘Cape Expedition’ during World War II, took several photographs of colonies. These have been invaluable for comparison with more recent photos.  The 1962 book by Bailey and Sorensen draws heavily on the latter author’s diaries and is a must-read for anyone interested in the wildlife of Campbell Island.  A field hut located close to the mollymawk colonies is also named in his honour.

Incidentally, field huts sometimes had a resident pair of Brown or Subantarctic Skuas Catharacta antarctica that would visit us to see what was going on. On one occasion, we conducted a scientific experiment on the dietary preferences of “Mr and Mrs Chook”.  During a rigorous set of randomized trials, canned (and expired) Lancashire Hotpot won hands-down over Irish Stew.  Very curious birds, if you happen to lie down to rest in the tussock after a hard morning surveying albatrosses, a skua will soon arrive to check out if you have expired.

One of my favourite routes on the island involved a return trip to Beeman Base from Sorensen Hut, near the Bull Rock colonies, via the colonies scattered above the north-western coastal cliffs. Along the way, there are stunning views of the inaccessible Courrejolles Peninsula.  The weather can be wild and exhilarating - wind thundering up cliff-faces can sound like an out-of-control train locomotive!

View of Bull Rock North mollymawk colony, 11 December 1942; photograph by J.H. Sorensen

The same view of Bull Rock North in October 1995

Large colonies of Campbell and Grey-headed Albatrosses occur on the slopes of the inaccessible Courrejolles Peninsula on Campbell Island

During several seasons in the 1990s, with the help of several colleagues and volunteers, I conducted censuses of colonies and used counts of nests in photographs to estimate population change.  Visiting accessible colonies often entailed walking on steep slopes, and slippery rocks and muddy ledges, which at times felt a little hair-raising.

There were approximately 31 000 nests of Campbell Albatrosses in the 1940s, decreasing 22% to 24 600 nests in the 1990s.  Campbell Albatrosses often follow fishing vessels and are vulnerable to bycatch.  Since the main population decline occurred between the 1960s and 1980s, the peak in tuna longline fishing in the New Zealand region may have had an impact.  A new population assessment in 2019 estimated there were 24 300 nests, suggesting relatively little change occurred over the intervening twenty-plus years.  In contrast, Grey-headed Albatrosses have continued to decline steadily in numbers on Campbell Island.

There are probably few land-based threats to albatrosses on Campbell Island nowadays - feral cats Felis catus apparently disappeared after domestic sheep Ovis aries were culled in the early 1990s, and Norway Rats Rattus norvegicus were eradicated in 2001.  Subantarctic Skuas remain the main predator of seabirds on the island.

Over the years, it was a great privilege to spend time on Campbell Island, and my time with the “mollies” was a special highlight. It feels like a corner of the world that is relatively untouched by humans, yet it is not beyond the touch of climate change.  I hope these magnificent birds continue to thrive in the face of a changing world.

Rainbow off the Bull Rock North colony, October 1996

Selected publications:

Bailey, A.M. & Sorensen J.H. 1962.  Subantarctic Campbell Island.  Proceedings Number 10.  Denver Museum of Natural History.  305 pp.

Frost, P.G.H. 2020.  Status of Campbell Island and Grey-headed Mollymawks on the Northern Coasts of Campbell Island, November 2019. Whanganui, New Zealand: Science Support Service.  24 pp.  Final reports for BCBC2019-03: Seabird population research: Campbell Island 2019/20. Conservation Services Program Reports, Department of Conservation.

Moore, P.J. 2004.  Abundance and population trends of mollymawks on Campbell Island. Science for Conservation No. 242.  Wellington: Department of Conservation.  62 pp.

Waugh, S.M., Weimerskirch, H., Moore, P.J. & Sagar, P.M. 1999.  Population dynamics of black-browed and grey-headed albatrosses Diomedea melanophrys and D. chrysostoma at Campbell Island, New Zealand, 1942-96.  Ibis 141: 216-225.

Peter Moore, Institute for Applied Ecology, Corvallis, Oregon, USA, 13 January 2022

A Wedge-tailed Shearwater in its burrow on Oahu, photograph from Pacific Rim Conservation

“Moon, high and deep in the sky
Your light sees far,
You travel around the wide world,
and see into people's homes.
Moon, stand still a while
and tell me where is my dear.
Tell him, silvery moon,
that I am embracing him.
For at least momentarily
let him recall of dreaming of me.
Illuminate him far away,
and tell him, tell him who is waiting for him!
If his human soul is, in fact, dreaming of me,
may the memory awaken him!
Moonlight, don't disappear, disappear!

“Song to the Moon”, in translation, from the opera Rusalka by Antonin Dvorak

Patricia Janečková performs “Song to the Moon”

David Hyrenbach (Hawai’i Pacific University, Oahu, Hawaii, USA) and colleagues have published in ‘Elapiao, Journal of the Hawaii Audubon Society, on an unusually high fallout of fledging Wedge-tailed Shearwaters Ardenna pacifica.  “Working with USFWS, we documented unusually high wedge-tailed shearwater fallout in O'ahu (Hawai'i) during the 2011 fledging season using standardized road surveys.”

Reference:

Hyrenbach, K.D., Urmston, J. & Swindle, K. 2022.  Road surveys detect unusually high Wedge-tailed Shearwater fallout in SE O’ahu during the 2011 fledging season.  ‘Elapiao 82(1): 1-5.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 12 January 2022

The Action Plan for Australian Birds is a once in a decade review of how Australia’s birds are faring, and the actions needed for their protection.  It brings together data collected by experts and citizen scientists across the country to provide a snapshot of how threatened birds are, why, and what is needed to improve their situation.  The 2020 Action Plan, a collaboration between Charles Darwin University and BirdLife Australia, provides an overview of the risk of extinction of all birds occurring in Australia and its territories.  Written by more than 300 experts, the book has been edited by Stephen Garnett and Barry Baker.  The 2020 Action Plan reveals that around one in six Australian birds are in peril.  The major drivers of their decline are the result of human activities and climate change (click here).

In contrast, the eight ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels that breed within Australia have been doing better than have many Australian birds.  All but one, the Shy Albatross Thalassarche cauta, breed in the sub-Antarctic.  The removal of introduced mammals from Australia’s sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island has led to the national downlisting (improvement) of both Black-browed T. melanophris and Light-mantled Albatrosses Phoebetria palpebrata from Endangered to Least Concern, and Grey-headed Albatrosses from Critically Endangered to Endangered.  The population of Black-browed Albatrosses in Australia is estimated as over 1000 mature adults and there is no evidence of a decline or an identified threat, hence a Least Concern categorization at the national level, matching the species’ global status.  The equally abundant Light-mantled Albatrosses has a global status of Near Threatened.  The Australian breeding population of Grey-headed Albatrosses is a smaller one, less than 250 mature adults, and therefore it qualifies as Endangered (also globally Endangered).

One of the few.  A colour-banded male Wandering Albatross stands over its nest at Petrel Peak, Macquarie Island, prior to egg laying; photograph by Kate Lawrence

Grey Petrels Procellaria cinerea that breed on Macquarie with an increasing, but still small, population have been downlisted from Endangered to Near Threatened (as globally).  The Northern Macronectes halli and Southern M. giganteus Giant Petrels have both remained at Least Concern, as they do at the global level.  Against the above trends among ACAP species, the tiny population of Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans that breeds on Macquarie has remained as Critically Endangered (globally Vulnerable).

The Shy Albatross that breeds on three Tasmanian islands, considered nationally Vulnerable in 2010, is now categorized as Near Threatened, due to low breeding success on Pedra Branca and indications of decreased juvenile recruitment on Albatross Island suggesting steep declines are plausible in the next three generations.  Its global status is also Near Threatened.

Reference:

Garnett, S.T & Baker, G.B. (Eds) 2021.  The Action Plan for Australian Birds 2020.  Clayton South: CSIRO Publishing.  816 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer & Barry Baker, Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, 11 January 2022

 
At-sea track of a transoceanic immature Amsterdam Albatross after fledging from Amsterdam Island, southern Indian Ocean, tracked up to age ~3 years

Karine Delord (Centre d′Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) and colleagues have published in the journal Marine Policy on the implications for conservation of a juvenile Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis (Endangered) travelling eastward to the Chilean coast of the Pacific Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

"Albatrosses are amongst the most globally-threatened species and fisheries bycatch is one of the major conservation issues worldwide. Among the albatrosses the Amsterdam albatross is listed as one of the most endangered species.  Within the current National Plan of Actions framework, the present study outlines the first results of a multi-year survey evaluating juvenile dispersal and immature at sea distribution using geolocation and conservation implications.  Here we report the first evidence of an Amsterdam albatross wandering for extensive periods outside the Indian Ocean, in the Pacific Ocean.  This unprecedented and novel finding is discussed in terms of overlaps with fisheries and conservations issues.   This study brings new insights on movements of vagrant stages of an endangered species, paving the way for refined assessments updates of species vulnerability to ongoing anthropogenic threats while providing basic conservation guidance. This makes it possible to point out the responsibility of the various management bodies both for the high seas regional fisheries management organisations and for exclusive economic zones."

An Amsterdam Albatross at sea; photograph by Kirk Zufelt

With thanks to Karine Delord.

Reference:

Delord, K., Poupart, T., Gasco, N., Weimerskirch, H. & Barbraud, C. 2022.  First evidence of migration across the South Pacific in endangered Amsterdam albatross and conservation implications.  Marine Policy 136. doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104921.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 January 2022