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The 13th Medmaravis Pan-Mediterranean Symposium was held in Alghero, Sardinia, Italy over 14-17 October 2011. The conference was followed by two days of workshops hosted by BirdLife International to develop population assessments for Cory's Calonectris diomedea [sensu lato] and Yelkouan Puffinus yelkouan Shearwaters (click here).

The Proceedings of the 2011 symposium have now been published by Medmaravis under the editorship of Pierre Yésou, Nicola Baccetti and Joe Sultana and are available in both hard copy and on line. They contain a total of 37 papers on mainly seabirds of the Mediterranean. Sixteen papers and extended abstracts cover aspects of the ecology and conservation of the four species of shearwaters that breed within the region: Balearic P. mauretanicus, Yelkouan, Scopoli’s C. diomedea and Cory’s C. borealis.

Three papers consider the ACAP-listed and Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater. José Manuel (Pep) Arcos (SEO-BirdLife, Barcelona, Spain) and colleagues discuss the discontinuity between at-sea surveys which suggest a total population of 25 000 birds and the most recent breeding population estimate of 3193 pairs. Russell Wynn and Tim Guildford (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK) provide information from at-sea tracking of Balearic Shearwaters combined with visual monitoring and suggest that the species’ non-breeding distribution may be shifting northwards towards the coastal waters of France and the UK. Pierre Yésou (Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage, Nantes, France) and colleagues have also looked at the increasing numbers of Balearic Shearwaters that gather off France’s Brittany coast with over 5000 birds being recorded at a time.

Balearic Shearwater.  Photograph by Daniel Oro

Reference:

Yésou, P., Baccetti, N. & Sultana, J. (Eds.) 2012. Ecology and Conservation of Mediterranean Seabirds and other Bird Species under the Barcelona Convention Update & Progress Proceedings of the 13th Medmaravis Pan-Mediterranean Symposium. Alghero: Medmaravis. 232 pp. ISBN 978-99957-0-344-8.

A list of the 16 papers and extended abstracts published in the Proceedings on Calonectris and Puffinus shearwaters follows:

Arcos, J.M., Arroyo, G.M., Bécares, J., Mateos-Rodriguez, M., Rodriguez, B., Muñoz, A.R., Ruiz, A., de la Cruz, A., Cuenca, D., Onrubia, A. & Oro, D. New estimates at sea suggest a larger global population of the Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus. pp. 84-94.
Becciu, P., Massa, B. & Dell’Omo, G. Body mass variation in Scopoli’s Shearwaters Calonectris diomedea breeding at Linosa Island. pp. 16-18.
Borg, J.J. & Sultana, J. The Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan at l-Irdum tal-Madonna, Malta. pp. 48-53.
Cecere, J.G., Gaibani, G., Catoni, C., Maggini, I. & Celada, C. Assessing key conservation areas for Italian Scopoli’s Shearwaters Calonectris diomedea. pp. 9-15.
Crnković, R. Present situation of the population of seabirds (Calonectris diomedea, Puffinus yelkouan, Phalacrocorax asistotelis desmarestii, Larus audouinii, Larus michahellis and Sterna hirundo) breeding at Lastovsko otočje nature park, Croatia. pp. 221-222.
Defos du Rau, P., Bourgeois, K., Ruffino, L., Dromzée, S., Ouni, R., Abiadh, A., Estéve, R., Durand, J.-P., Anselme, L., Faggio, G., Yahya, J.M., Peters, P., Rguibi, H., Renda, M., Miladi, B., Hamrouni, H., Alilech, S., Ben Dhafer, A., Nefla, A., Jaouadi, W. Agrebi, S. & Renou, S. New assessment of the world’s largest colony of Scopoli’s Shearwater Calonectris diomedea. pp. 26-28.
Derhé, M. Developing a population assessment for Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan. pp. 65-73.
Derhé, M. Developing a population assessment for Scopoli’s and Cory’s Shearwaters Calonectris diomedea/Calonectris borealis. pp. 29-38.
Péron, C., Grémillet, D., Culioli, J.-M., Faggio, G., Gillet, P. Mante, A. & Vidal, P. Exploring marine habitats of two shearwater species breeding on French Mediterranean islands. pp. 19-25.
Şahin, D., Bacak, E., Bilgin, S., Atay, C., Boyla, K.A. & Tavares, J. Presence and behaviour of Yelkouan Shearwaters Puffinus yelkouan at the Bosphorus. pp. 54-57.
Sposimo, P., Spano, G., Navone, A., Fratini, S., Ragionieri, L., Putzu, M., Capizzi, D. Baccetti, N. & Lastrucci, B. Rat eradication at Yelkouan Shearwater colonies on NE Sardinian islets: success followed by unexplained re-appearance. pp. 58-64.
Thévenet, M. State of knowledge of the populations of vulnerable raptor and seabird species in the Mediterranean: threats identified and action proposals. pp. 214-220.
Wynn, R.B. & Guilford, T. Balearic Shearwaters Puffinus mauretanicus in northeast Atlantic waters: an update on their distribution and behaviour based on geolocator tracking and visual monitoring data. pp. 78-83.
Yésou, P., Thébault, L., Février, Y., Fortin, M., Deniau, A., Dourin, J.-L., & Mauvieux, S. Recent insights in the distribution and abundance of Balearic Shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus off Brittany, western France. pp. 74-77.
Zenatello, M., Spano, G., Zucca, C., Navone, A., Putzu, M., Azara, C., Trainito, E., Ugo. M. & Baccetti, N. Movements and ‘moving’ population estimates of Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan at Tavolara, Sardinia. pp. 39-47.

With thanks to Nicola Baccetti for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 February 2013