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

 
An Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross broods its chick on the tussock slopes of the Entrecasteaux cliffs, Amsterdam 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, Karine Delord features the globally Endangered Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross Thalassarche carteri which she has studied on the French Southern Ocean island of Amsterdam.

Karine Delord at the Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross colony on the Entrecasteaux cliffs, Amsterdam Island; photograph by Thierry Boulinier

Being an ecologist and wanting to discover the French sub-Antarctic islands go hand in hand with becoming one of the links in a long-term observatory system.  The monitoring programme, initiated more than 60 years ago by the Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), a CNRS laboratory in France, allows for the study of the islands’ bird and marine mammal communities.  As a privileged witness to global changes and their impacts on the environment I particularly appreciate the maxim ‘it is never too late to start long-term monitoring and it is always too early to stop’.  However, I did not start my career on southern islands, but rather in the mountain ecosystems of the Pyrénées, far from seabirds.  From there I moved to the CEBC from where I was able to discover France’s southern territories and their species.

The CEBC monitors the populations of 25 species of Southern Ocean top predators (particularly albatrosses and petrels) through a network of four research stations ranging from Antarctica (Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie), the sub-Antarctic Crozet and Kerguelen Island Groups to the subtropical Amsterdam and Saint-Paul Islands.  Long-term individual information (in particular through the capture-mark-recapture method) is used to understand the processes by which climate variables affect species and to make predictive scenarios on population trajectories taking into account climate change.

 
Getting too large to brood.  An inquisitive Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross chick looks at the photographer

Our long-term programme, supported by the French Polar Institut Paul Emile Victor (IPEV) and entitled “Birds and Marine Mammals as Sentinels of Global Change in the Southern Ocean” (Program: 109 ORNITHOECO) led by Christophe Barbraud, includes a conservation biology component and addresses, for example, issues related to the effects of fisheries on albatross and petrel populations.  This has led to collaborations with administrations and shipowners, enabling the implementation of effective conservation measures.  Every year we send volunteers to collect field data for our programme in the four districts (Crozet, Kerguelen, Amsterdam and Terre Adélie) for one year.

 
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatrosses breeding on the Entrecasteaux cliffs, Amsterdam Island

In 1998, I was able to join a scientific mission, jointly with a team of geologists from the University of Saint Etienne, which enabled me and my colleague Christophe Barbraud to carry out one of the few censuses of breeding petrel populations (Antarctic Fulmar Fulmarus glacialoides, Antarctic Petrel Thalassoica antarctica and Snow Petrel Pagodroma nivea) on the Antarctic coasts of King George V Land to the east of Terre Adélie.  The crossing between Tasmania and the Antarctic Continent on board the ship Astrolabe was for me an outstanding introduction to the Southern Ocean, where the exceptional diversity and density of seabirds (including albatrosses) seen remains a vivid memory.

Since the mid-2000s, I have been involved in studies of the accidental mortality of ACAP-listed Near Threatened Grey Procellaria cinerea and Vulnerable White-chinned P. aequinoctialis Petrels (both ACAP-listed species) linked to industrial fisheries (particularly by Patagonian Toothfish longliners).  These studies have led to major advances in the conservation of these two species in the French Southern Territories.

Subsequently, I have become involved in annual or ad hoc monitoring.  This was notably the case for issues related to pathogens, in collaboration with the Centre d'Etudes Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE, CNRS), at Montpellier, with the ECOPATH Programme (led by Thierry Boulinier) on the circulation of infectious agents in vertebrate populations.  I thus carried out a mission in 2013/14 on the Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross population that breeds on the cliffs of Entrecasteaux on Amsterdam Island.  This mission in collaboration with the TAAF National Nature Reserve aimed to identify and understand the modes of transmission of an infectious pathogen responsible for an epidemic, avian cholera, which kills a large proportion of the chicks each year and impacts the population.  The study also aimed to identify other top predator species that could be affected by the pathogen, such as the globally Endangered Amsterdam Albatross Diomedea amsterdamensis, a rare species endemic to the island.  This research is making progress on the knowledge of the infectious agent and its impact on the Indian yellow-nosed Albatross, although the Amsterdam population must also deal with other sources of threat. For example, this year was also marked by a major fire on the cliffs of Entrecasteaux which broke out in the middle of the breeding season (February 2021) and had devastating effects, affecting c. 95% of the surface area of the colony; as a result the reproductive success for this season is estimated at only 2%.

An Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross broods its chick at Entrecasteaux, with Cathedral Rock in the background

More recently, I carried out a multi-disciplinary mission with my colleagues Christophe Barbraud and Fabrice Le Bouard as well as agents of the TAAF National Nature Reserve on the island of Saint-Paul in 2018/2019 to estimate the seabird populations 20 years after the eradication of rats and rabbits.  The mission was an opportunity to observe the recolonisation of Saint-Paul by numerous species of seabirds, notably those known to be sensitive to predation by rats (MacGillivray’s Prion Pachyptila macgillivrayi, Fairy Prion P. turtur, Great-winged Petrel Pterodroma macroptera, Flesh-footed Shearwater Ardenna carnepeis, Subantarctic Shearwater Puffinus elegans, White-bellied Storm Petrel Fregetta grallaria and Antarctic Tern Sterna vittata) from their neighbouring refuge of La Roche Quille.  This also allowed us to update the population estimate of Flesh-footed Shearwaters breeding on Saint-Paul at the western limit of their range.  These very encouraging results for conservation argue for the eradication of the remaining introduced mammals (feral cats and rodents) on the neighbouring island of Amsterdam.

Selected Publications:

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.

Barbraud, C., Marteau, C., Ridoux, V., Delord, K. & Weimerskirch, H. 2008.  Demographic response of a population of white‐chinned petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis to climate and longline fishery bycatch. Journal of Applied Ecology 45: 1460-1467.

Barbraud, C., Rolland, V., Jenouvrier, S., Nevoux, M., Delord, K. & Weimerskirch, H. 2012.  Effects of climate change and fisheries bycatch on Southern Ocean seabirds: a review.  Marine Ecology Progress Series 454: 285-307.

Heerah, K., Dias, M.P., Delord, K., Oppel, S., Barbraud, C., Weimerskirch, H. & Bost, C.A. 2019.  Important areas and conservation sites for a community of globally threatened marine predators of the Southern Indian Ocean. Biological Conservation 234: 192-201.

Jaeger, A., Gamble, A., Lagadec, E., Lebarbenchon, C., Bourret, V., Tornos, J., Barbraud, C., Lemberger, K., Delord, K., Weimerskirch, H., Thiebot, J.-B., Boulinier, T. & Tortosa, P. 2020.  Impact of annual bacterial epizootics on albatross population on a remote island. EcoHealth 117: 194-202.

Ponchon, A., Gamble, A., Tornos, J., Delord, K., Barbraud, C., Travis, J.M.J., Weimerskirch, H. & Boulinier, T. In press. Similar at-sea behaviour but different habitat use between failed and successful breeding albatrosses. Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Karine Delord, Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France, 24 September 2021