The tension device (white cylinder) deployed on a trawler's bird-scaring line with its hanging streamers in harbour, photograph by Reason Nyengera

The following is extracted from the 2020 Annual Report of the environmental NGO BirdLife South Africa on the development and testing of a tension device to monitor deployment of bird-scaring lines on both demersal trawl and longline vessels.  The work, led by Andrea Angel of the Albatross Task Force, received funding from the ACAP Small Grants programme in 2020.

“In the late 1980s bird-scaring lines (BSLs) were developed to mitigate seabird deaths in the fishing industry. While their use is regarded as standard best practice, compliance remains a challenge. Assessing compliance is only possible if an observer is aboard the fishing vessel to ensure the BSL is deployed at every set. To improve and monitor the use of BSLs, BirdLife South Africa partnered with Imvelo Blue Environment Consultancy (IBEC) on a project to further develop its prototype BSL compliance monitoring device. The BSL device was conceived by IBEC founder Sihle Victor Ngcongo and developed by Nelson Miranda of Argonaut Science, a South African company. It can monitor compliance of the use of BSLs during a trip and works by recording the change in tension created by the drag of the BSL in the water.The project was funded by the Agreement for the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels. During 2020 we were able to complete a series of at-sea trial deployments and data collection aboard demersal trawl and longline vessels.

We improved the technical specifications of the device’s data collection software and adjusted its sensitivity to various deployment conditions at sea, such as weather and fluctuations in tension. The device was also protected from potential tampering and can detect erroneous or false BSL deployments. These ongoing improvements will make it easier to use on various fleets and with different types of BSLs. The aim is for it to be useful as a compliance tool in the absence of on-board observers. The device includes remote data collection access and a USB port, eliminating the need to remove it from its attachment point on a vessel.

Electronic monitoring is often seen as intruding on the privacy of crew members, but because the form of electronic monitoring provided by this device is not intrusive, we hope it is more likely to be accepted by fishermen. The device can complement and validate official log-book data and compliance with night-setting for longline vessels. It also has the potential to record location and linkups with the Vessel Monitoring and Automatic Identification systems that most vessels are obliged to carry. The project has helped to develop improvements in hardware and software technology, resulting in a resilient device that will directly address issues with compliance.”

Left: A trawler crew member clips the tension device to the bird-scaring line; Right: the tension device deployed at sea at night, photograph by Sihle Victor Ngcongo

Read an earlier ACAP Latest News post on development of the BSL tension device.

With thanks to Andrea Angel, Albatross Task Force Manager, BirdLife South Africa

Reference:

BirdLife South Africa 2021.  BirdLife South Africa Annual Report 2020.  Johannesburg:  BirdLife South Africa.  40 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 May 2021

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Out in his natural habitat: Roeloff brews up on Kloof Nek Corner on Cape Town’s Table Mountain

To be in the Mouse-Free Marion Project’s prestigious ‘Wandering Albatross’ category one needs to sponsor 100 (or more) hectares towards the eradication of the introduced House Mice that have taken to killing albatross chicks on the island by eating them alive.  So far only three people have attained this level with their generous sponsorships.  One is South African Roeloff Botha, a keen birder and a long-time BirdLife South Africa member.  Mouse-Free Marion reached out to Roeloff, not only to thank him, but to ascertain what brought him to donate as much as South African Rands 110 000 (in two separate tranches) to the project.  The questions and answers that follow reveal how a self-styled “ordinary South African” was motivated to support a worthy cause.

M-FM:  Have you had a personal connection with Marion, perhaps by visiting the island?

RB:  Although I’ve never had the privilege to visit Marion, it remains high on my ‘bucket list’.  I am participating in the ‘Flock to Marion’ bird-watching voyage being operated by BirdLife South Africa next year so that will give me my first experience of the island - albeit from a distance!

MF-M:  What motivated you to make your sponsorship?

RB:  I became aware of the challenge on Marion from various articles I read on the topic.  I am a keen birder and wildlife enthusiast, and so it was only natural to be moved by the plight of the birds on the island.  I believe humanity has the responsibility to promote and support the protection of the natural world, and this felt like a great opportunity to do so. In fact, I consider it a tenet of my faith. Marion presents a chance for us to undo the damage we as humans have caused and, and given its remoteness, to do so in a lasting way.  It would be amazing to look back at this one day in the future with the knowledge that I could play a part in the restoration of a small piece of our planet.

M-FM:  Any other information about yourself?

RB:  I’m just another ordinary South African, believing we can do good if we acknowledge the problem and put effort into solving it.  I’ve been a BirdLife South Africa member for many years, and otherwise I’m just a keen outdoorsman – I run, hike and climb whenever I can (or whenever I’m not out birding!).  Professionally speaking, I’m a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, working on finance projects in various shapes and sizes.

M-FM: Anything else you might like to have mentioned?

RB:  Steve Jobs is often mentioned as someone who wanted to ‘make a dent in the universe’. I understand that to mean we should believe that we can make a lasting (and good) impact on the world – and you don’t need to be the creator of the next ‘Apple’ to do so either - you could make a lasting impact through your contribution to the Mouse-Free Marion Project (or any other project close to your heart for that matter).

M-FM:  And the Mouse-Free Marion Project heartily agrees!

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 May 2021

Postscript: ACAP’s Information Officer is supporting the Mouse-Free Marion Project by writing for its website in recognition of his abiding passion for the island developed over 31 visits from 1978 to 2014.  This post, with minor rewording, first appeared on the Mouse-Free Marion Project website.

Ready for release - two Black Petrels on Mount Kariori

Two ACAP-listed and globally and Nationally Vulnerable Black Petrels or Tāiko Procellaria parkinsoni were discovered “dishevelled and disorientated” near the rural towns of Manaiti (Benneydale) and Taumarunui more than 60 km inland from the North Island west coast of New Zealand on 12 May following poor weather and more than 100 km apart.  After their collection by members of the public the birds were taken to the Otorohanga Kiwi House & Native Bird Park where they were examined by a vet.

“The vet gave the birds the all-clear, we took some more advice from the team at Wildbase and DOC’s [Department of Conservation] seabird specialist Graeme Taylor, before the tāiko were transported to Raglan”.  Following their banding and having their heads marked with a dab of white paint, the two Black Petrels were released on coastal Mount Karioi on the night of the 13th, within an area managed by local conservation group The Karioi Project which protects “less than 40 pairs” of Grey-faced Petrels Pterodroma gouldi by controlling predators (click here).  “The site has been the focus of ongoing predator control to protect native bird species on the mountain.  The tāiko need lift to get airborne, so must be released into the wind off a clifftop or a steep hill by the sea.”

"Graeme Taylor says the tāiko are likely to have come from one of the species’ two main [actually the only known] New Zealand colonies – on Little Barrier Island and Great Barrier Island.  Tāiko can get confused, lose their way, and be distracted by lights from built structures – so crash-landing in inland or urban areas is not uncommon for the species, particularly in poor weather conditions. A banded tāiko chick from the Great Barrier colony ended up on a brightly lit sports field in Paeroa a few years ago.”

Read more of the story here and here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 May 2021

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Fieldworkers restrain an incubating Wandering Albatross at Marion Island for taking moult photographs under permit; the box on the nest protects the egg from Subantarctic Skuas; the publication notes that there was no evidence that photographing incubating Wandering Albatrosses and Northern Giant Petrels influenced their breeding performance

Alexis Osborne and Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa) have published in the journal Ostrich Journal of African Ornithology on using digital photography to study wing moult of breeding Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans and giant petrels Macronectes spp.

The paper’s abstract follows in English and French.

“Scoring moult from live birds in the hand takes time, thereby increasing the handling stress to the birds. We show that digital photography can be used to efficiently study moult extent across multiple feather tracts. We photographed the upper wings of incubating albatrosses and giant petrels to infer which remiges and greater secondary coverts had been replaced in the previous year. Wear contrasts differentiating ‘new’ from ‘old’ feathers were easier to see for dark than white feathers, and could be enhanced by increasing image saturation. Repeat photography of the same individuals in successive years showed that the inner secondaries and associated greater coverts wear faster than the central secondaries, and this needs to be considered when aging feathers of unknown birds. Scoring primary moult in the hand took more than twice as long as photographing the entire wing. There were a few discrepancies between moult scores from photographs and birds scored in the hand, mostly due to older feathers being scored as new. These errors likely resulted from rushing to score moult in the hand under indifferent lighting conditions. However, it is essential to ensure that the wing is fully spread, so that all feathers are visible. Photographing had no impact on hatching success and it is a useful and reliable method to study the extent and symmetry of moult.

The upperwing of a Northern Giant Petrel at Marion Island showing an unmodified (top) and modified (bottom) image, where the saturation was increased to exaggerate wear contrast differences; photographs from Alexis Osborne's MSc thesis

Utilisation de la photographie numérique pour étudier l’étendue de la mue chez les oiseaux de mer nicheurs

L’évaluation de la mue des oiseaux vivants dans la main prend du temps, ce qui augmente le stress de manipulation pour les oiseaux. Nous montrons que la photographie numérique peut être utilisée pour étudier efficacement l’étendue de la mue sur de multiples éstensions de plumes. Nous avons photographié les ailes supérieures d’albatros et de pétrels géants en incubation pour déduire quelles rémiges et grandes couvertures secondaires avaient été remplacées l’année précédente. Les contrastes d’usure qui différencient les ‘nouvelles’ des ‘anciennes’ plumes étaient plus faciles à voir pour les plumes sombres que pour les blanches, et pouvaient être améliorés en augmentant la saturation de l’image. Des photographies répétées des mêmes individus au cours d’années successives ont montré que les secondaires internes et les grandes couvertures associées s’usent plus rapidement que les secondaires centrales, ce qui doit être pris en compte lors du vieillissement des plumes d’oiseaux inconnus. L’évaluation manuelle de la mue primaire demande deux fois plus de temps que la photographie de l’aile entière. Des écarts ont été entre notées entre les marques de mue des photographies et les oiseaux marqués à la main, principalement en raison des plumes plus anciennes qui étaient marquées comme neuves. Ces erreurs résultaient probablement de la précipitation pour marquer la mue à la main dans des conditions d’éclairage indifférentes. Cependant, il est essentiel de veiller à ce que l’aile soit entièrement déployée, afin que toutes les plumes soient visibles. La photographie n’a pas eu d’impact sur le succès de l’éclosion et constitue une méthode utile et fiable pour étudier l’étendue et la symétrie de la mue.”

Read the abstract of Alexis Osborne’s 2020 MSc thesis entitled Understanding Moult Patterns in Albatrosses and Petrels breeding on Marion and Gough Islands” (Download the full thesis from here).

With thanks to Janine Dunlop, Niven Librarian, FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town and Alexis Osborne, Gough Island Restoration Programme

Reference:

Osborne, A. & Ryan, P.G. 2021.  Using digital photography to study moult extent in breeding seabirds.  Ostrich doi10.2989/00306525.2021.1897699 plus two photographs in supplementary information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 22 May 2021