Tracking Ocean Wanders (PDF, 5 MB) - BirdLife International

Tracking ocean wanderers: the global distribution of albatrosses and petrels – Conclusions and future work
Albatross (Figure 6.1) would considerably emphasise the
importance of the Humboldt Current habitat offshore
of Ecuador and Peru and portray migration routes to
and from albatross concentrations at sea around the
Galapagos Islands.
2. For the other species, even for breeding birds, more data
(and in most cases from more individuals) are needed
for some stages of the breeding cycle (particularly
incubation), for sexed birds and for sufficient years to
assess the consistency of basic distribution patterns.
Particularly, however, data are needed for additional
populations (island groups) and from more colonies
within populations.
3. For most species data are urgently needed on the
distribution of adults when not breeding.
4. For almost every species data are lacking on the
distribution of immatures and totally absent for early
life-history stages (and the subsequent at-sea phase
lasting the next 3–5 years).
It could be argued that without data for all breeding cycle
and life-history stages we cannot depict albatross and petrel
ranges sufficiently accurately for management and
conservation purposes. Nevertheless, for many applications,
if the adult breeding and non-breeding distributions and
core areas could be characterised this would, until adequate
empirical data become available, likely provide adequate
safeguards for juveniles and immatures. Completing the
picture for adult birds is, therefore, potentially more
important than diverting much resource into studying
juveniles and immatures.
Analysis and methods
More work is desirable to evaluate the potential biases of
using the different types (and where appropriate different
duty cycling) of existing data (e.g. PTT, GLS) in different
kinds of analysis and particularly on the appropriate use of
spatial statistics to create density distributions from the
different kinds of tracking data.
Environmental data
There is a priority need to facilitate easy access to
appropriate data sets on the physical and biological
environment at appropriate scales, including detailed
bathymetry, sea surface temperature, marine productivity,
sea-ice etc.
6.3.2 Links to other tracking data
There is a need to facilitate links to analogous sets of data
on other petrels (some data are becoming available for
shearwaters and fulmars), penguins (extensive data exist
from the temperate and sub-Antarctic species), marine
mammals (many data sets for phocid and otariid seals and
increasingly for cetaceans), sea turtles (data now available
for most species) and migratory fish (some data for tuna
and tuna-like species becoming available).
There is a need to encourage and support initiatives like
the Marine Mammal Tracking Database (Annex 8) and
programmes like Tagging Of Pacific Pelagics (Annex 5) which
are trying to assemble similar data on a collaborative basis.
6.3.3 Links to seabird-at-sea survey data
Existing data are much more extensive than remotetracking
data and often deal with very large numbers of
sightings. However the lack of knowledge of the origin and
status (breeder, migrant, non-breeder) of the birds observed
reduces their utility for some purposes. Also, for deriving
density-distribution maps, essential for relating to
environmental features and examining relationships of
interest, most data were not collected by consistent
standard methods valid for producing quantitative outputs.
Therefore high quality survey data tend to be rather
restricted in space and time.
Nevertheless there is a real need to investigate the
feasibility and utility of combining remote tracking and
survey data sets. Prime candidate areas for pilot studies to
do this would include the north-east Pacific, tropical east
Pacific, south-west Atlantic and parts of the Indian Ocean.
These are all sites where substantial quantitative at-sea
surveys have taken place in areas commonly frequented by
remote-tracked albatrosses.
6.3.4 Links to data from fisheries
The highest priority investigations, involving comparing the
distribution data for albatrosses and petrels and fishing
effort would include:
1. Identification of times and places where potential exists
for adverse interactions between fisheries and
albatrosses/petrels. This would enable:
i. Specification of mitigation measures appropriate to
these circumstances;
ii. Approaches to RFMOs, singly or in combination,
with appropriate jurisdictions, to seek to develop the
necessary regulations to apply the mitigation
measures.
2. Estimation of bycatch rates of albatrosses/petrels for
appropriate areas and at appropriate scales and for
extrapolation to areas where bycatch data from fisheries
are currently lacking.
3. Assistance for modelling seabird-fishery interactions
with implications for fisheries (taking financial losses
through bycatch into account in cost-benefit analyses)
and for seabird populations.
6.3.5 IBAs and Marine Protected Areas
A priority need is to relate areas of core habitat (at different
levels of definition) to population estimates and threatened
status in order to evaluate in detail the implications of
different criteria for helping define marine IBAs (from the
perspective of albatrosses and petrels). Additional, related,
suggestions are made in Section 5.1.
There is also a need to develop this approach further by
choosing suitable systems/areas in which to link to remotetracking
data on other seabirds (especially penguins) and to
at-sea survey data. This is especially relevant for coastal and
shelf systems (i.e. within EEZs).
In the context of Marine Protected Areas, it is
important to develop this further in conjunction with data
on other marine taxa (e.g. marine mammals, sea turtles) and
on resource use (e.g. fisheries, hydrocarbons). This is
relevant both to EEZs and to high seas.
6.3.6 Relationship with the Agreement for the
Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels
As indicated in Annex 9 the applications envisaged of these
albatross and petrel data, particularly as set out above, have
substantial relevance to the work of ACAP.
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