U.S. Considers Black-Footed Albatross for Endangered Listing

 Environment News

HONOLULU, Hawaii, October 9, 2007 (ENS) – Today the federal government began a formal review to determine if the black-footed albatross should receive the protections of the Endangered Species Act. This albatross is already classified as globally Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The announcement, published in the Federal Register, comes in response to a petition filed in 2004 by the environmental law firm Earthjustice on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

The black-footed albatross, Phoebastria nigripes, nests in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Midway Atoll has the second largest population in the world.

With a wingspan extending over six feet, the black-footed albatross spends much of its life on the wing, scooping flying fish eggs, squid, and fish from the ocean surface. They forage across the North Pacific and are frequently seen off the California and Oregon coasts.

Like all albatrosses, this species is threatened by drowning in longline fisheries targeting swordfish and tuna. Globally, 19 of the 21 recognized albatross species are considered threatened.

“Longline fishing has been a global catastrophe for albatross species,” said Brendan Cummings, ocean program director with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Unless we rein in longline fishing,” he said, “we stand to lose not just the black-footed albatross but virtually every albatross species on Earth.”

Longline fishing, carried out by setting thousands of hooks from a line upwards of 60 miles in length, drowns more than 300,000 seabirds each year. Albatross and other birds dive at the baited hooks as they are deployed, become hooked, and are dragged underwater, where they drown.

Various methods have been devised to scare the birds away or to make the hooks sink faster, decreasing the number of birds killed. Yet most fishing vessels are not using these techniques, Cummings says.

“The health of this majestic seabird is a concern for all of us who care about marine ecosystems,” said Patrick Leonard, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Islands Office. “Our next step in the process is to initiate a status review of the species followed by a 12-month finding to determine if listing is actually warranted.”

The 12 month review will evaluate the effects of commercial longline fisheries. The Fish and Wildlife Service points to published models of incidental mortality of black-footed albatross in fisheries that indicate as much as five percent of the population may be killed in longline fishery operations annually.

Levels of mercury and organochlorine contaminants such as PCBs and DDT have been shown to be higher in North Pacific albatrosses than in species in the southern hemisphere, and these contaminant concentrations are higher in black-footed than in Laysan albatrosses, the Service says.

These substances are used in industry and agriculture, and once they make their way into the sea are found in concentrations that increase with the progression through the food chain from primary producers to top predators.

Black-footed albatrosses are top predators in marine ecosystems, and levels of these contaminants found in the species were determined to be high enough to pose a toxicological risk and interfere with reproduction.

The world experts on the status of seabirds, BirdLife International and the World Conservation Union, have recently concluded that the black-footed albatross should be classified as endangered.

Scientists estimate that only about 60,000 nesting pairs survive today, and that the current level of human-caused mortality is unsustainable.

Albatross mortality dropped when the Hawaii-based longline fishery for swordfish was temporarily shut down to reduce sea turtle bycatch. Federal officials are currently considering proposals to expand this fishery.

“If we want to save the black-footed albatross we need to better regulate Hawaii’s longline fisheries, not expand them,” said Paul Achitoff, Earthjustice attorney in Honolulu. “Unfortunately, the federal government seems determined to drive not just the albatross but also our sea turtles to extinction.”

Black-footed albatross are long-lived birds that have evolved a life history somewhat parallel to humans. They mate for life, lay only one egg per year, and if one of the pair dies, it can take three or more years before the living partner finds another mate and begins to reproduce again.

Current studies estimate that longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean captures more than three million sharks, 40,000 sea turtles, and tens of thousands of seabirds in its quest for large fish.

“Solving the problem for seabirds must be done immediately, but as long as we allow longliners to deploy billions of hooks every year, indiscriminately hooking marine wildlife species by the millions, our oceans won’t be safe,” said Todd Steiner of Turtle Island Restoration Network. “If we don’t act soon, longline fishing will empty our oceans and our skies.”

Extinction Of The Kiwi Estimated Less Than 20 Yrs

Scoop

Press Release from the Kiwi Foundation 

As New Zealanders we proudly identify ourselves as Kiwis and envisage that we will forever be known internationally as Kiwis.

However the future of this identity is under threat as our national icon faces extinction in the next 20-30 years. It is a situation the New Zealand Kiwi Foundation is working desperately to reverse.

Foundation convenor Dr Greg Blunden has seen the kiwi population decline rapidly. He says their numbers have fallen from 78,000 in 1998 to 70,000 in 2004, threatening extinction.

This has prompted the New Zealand Kiwi Foundation to launch its ‘Fragile Kiwi Campaign’ to raise awareness of the issue.

“If we do not act we will be the generation responsible for losing the kiwi, this is a burden I’m sure none of us would wish to carry,” says Helen Denny of the Foundation.

The Foundation is based in Northland where there are more wild kiwi than anywhere else in New Zealand. It works to protect the brown kiwi population in Northland, estimated at 25,000.

While the Foundation has many pest control methods in place in Northland the biggest threat to kiwi survival is the domestic cat and dog. ‘Man’s best friend’ is killing our national icon with one German Shepherd killing 500 kiwi in just over one month.

The ‘Fragile Kiwi Campaign’ will encourage holidaymakers to either leave their pets at home or keep them inside over night. With the help of holidaymakers the Foundation hopes to reduce the loss of kiwi over the holiday period and encourage a permanent attitude change.

The Foundation is hosting a ‘Fragile’ Kiwi Representative Day at the Auckland Zoo (19 October). Children from Auckland and Northland schools have been invited to participate in the event aimed at educating children on the ‘fragile’ state of the kiwi and what they can do to protect it.

The New Zealand Kiwi Foundation was founded in 1999 and is based in Kerikeri. The Foundation works closely with local authorities and land owners on pest control and conservation methods. While the Foundation is based in Northland it collaborates with other kiwi conservation groups to protect the kiwi on a national scale.

Right Whales Remain Rare and Elusive

Associated Press – Mary Pemberton

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Scientists searching for what is likely the world’s most endangered whale came up empty-handed this summer during a one-month tour of an area in the Bering Sea where Pacific right whales like to feed.

From July 31 to Aug. 28, an international team of scientists surveyed an area almost the size of New York in search of Pacific right whales, which have been teetering on extinction for decades.

“We did not see a single whale the entire time,” said Phil Clapham, team leader and chief scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “The bottom line, they were not in the places they had traditionally been in the last six or seven years.”

This summer’s survey where scientists used high-powered binoculars and underwater listening devices is part of a larger four-year project to assess the seasonal distribution of the whales, their numbers and where they travel in the Bering Sea.

The Minerals Management Service is paying for the surveys at an annual cost of about $1 million. The research is required under the federal Endangered Species Act because the area where the whales like to spend summers overlaps an area the federal government this year approved for oil and gas development. Lease sales could begin by 2011.

The whales weren’t found this summer because it is a “cold pool year” in the Bering Sea, Clapham said. That means the water is colder than normal. The colder water likely affected the distribution of plankton, which is what the large whales feed on, he said.

Many scientists considered right whales a lost cause until a few years ago when 23 were spotted, including two with calves, in an area of the Bering Sea where they like to feed.

However, numbers remain exceedingly small, making it difficult to find them, Clapham said.

“It is very much like a needle in a haystack given there are so few animals,” he said.

Right whales have been listed as endangered since the early 1970s.

Scientists spent two weeks aboard a NOAA research vessel that departed from Dutch Harbor in late July. Scientists from Russia, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and South America joined the NOAA scientists.

For the last two weeks of the survey, the team took up the search in a 155-foot crab boat.

“We had a lot of humpbacks,” said Clapham, who for 20 years has hoped to see a right whale. “We saw a lot of fur seals. You kind of get sick of fur seals.”

The Bering Sea is changing as rapidly as any ocean on the planet because of global warming, said Brendan Cummings, ocean programs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which successfully sued the federal government to get critical habitat designated for the whales. Those changes have affected where animals go, he said.

While it will take a longer, wider look to find out what is happening with right whales, some things are apparent now, he said.

“We know … for the past decade that the southeastern Bering Sea is the most important spot on the planet for North Pacific right whales. We need to not open it up for oil drilling,” he said.

The whales, which can grow to more than 60 feet long and weigh 100 tons, have been protected since 1935.

Clapham said this is the first time that there has been dedicated funding to survey the whales, which he described as “arguably the most endangered population in the world.”

He said scientists will go out again next year.

“It is very important for a lot of reasons to keep up with them,” he said.

On the Net:

• http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
• http://www.fakr.noaa.gov
• http://www.afsc.noaa.gov

Spoon-billed sandpiper on brink of extinction

News From Russia

Conservationists warned Thursday that one of the rarest birds in the world was on the brink of extinction. The population of spoon-billed sandpiper decreased dramatically at a key breeding site in Russia.

Experts from the Britain-based conservation group BirdLife International blamed the decline of breeding pairs in the remote Russian province of Chukotka on loss of key feeding sites during their migration from Russia to its wintering grounds in South Asia.

The bird is also fighting a losing battle at its Russian breeding grounds against foxes and dogs that eat the eggs, the group said.

The World Conservation Union list the bird as endangered with only 200 to 300 pairs left in the wild. At one of the sites in Russia, the numbers have dropped from 22 pairs in 2002 to two this year, according to the Russian Bird Conservation Union.

“We’ve seen a 70 percent drop in the number of breeding pairs at some sites over the last couple of years,” said Evgeny Syroechkovskiy, vice president of the Russian group. “If that continues, these amazing birds won’t be around for much longer.”

Syroechkovskiy said Russian authorities need to do more to protect the birds, including boosting patrols where the birds nest. The wading birds are hard to miss, with their red head, speckled body and spoon-shaped bills.

“Action to safeguard the remaining breeding pairs needs to be taken now for there to be any chance of saving them. We are planning to put wardens in place at these critical sites,” Syroechkovskiy said. “Once they are protected and the birds are successfully fledging young, we can get on with the task of trying to save areas that they use whilst on migration.”

Officials at Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources could not immediately comment on the declining numbers of spoon-billed sandpipers.

But experts said it will be more challenging to protect key feeding sites along the bird’s migration route, which takes it down the western Pacific coast through Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, to its main wintering grounds in South and Southeast Asia.

South Korea, for one, has come under fire for converting about half the country’s 988,400 acres (400,000 hectares) of tidal flats to farming and industry since 1960s. It finished the world’s longest sea wall last year, which environmentalist fear will devastate the Saemangeum wetlands along the Yellow Sea. The wetlands has long been popular with spoon-billed sandpipers and other migratory shorebirds, which spent months there fattening up for the long journey ahead.

Christopher Zockler, international coordinator of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Action Plan, also said the birds face threats from expanding shrimp farms and salt pans in Bangladesh and coastal development in China.

“They are just running out of places to stop and feed on migration,” Zockler said in a statement.