The Albatross Task Force is working with the longline industry in South Africa, where recently we came across a very rare seabird in our waters – a Tristan Albatross, which was accidentally caught as we were conducting a routine trip onboard one of our local vessels. What makes this all the more distressing is the wealth of information we were able to find about about the individual bird thanks to a ring recovered from its leg.
In 2000 this bird was banded as a chick during a study at Gough Island, in the South Atlantic Ocean. This is the only breeding site for the species (except for occasional breeding on a nearby island). In 2004, Ross Wanless was doing his doctoral research and recorded this individual as a non-breeding bird performing its courtship dances. It took another six years before it found a partner, cement the relationship, and was finally recorded breeding for the first time in 2010. Like so many Tristan Albatross breeding attempts, this one failed because the chick was killed and eaten by predatory mice.
Humans accidentally released mice at Gough Island in the past, and they've since evolved into a gigantic, predatory form. Having failed in his first breeding attempt, our bird then took a 'sabbatical year', which most great albatrosses do because they need time to recover their breeding condition (it's hard work raising a single chick - it takes a full year from laying to fledging). During the recovery year he wandered in an unusual direction - east, into the Indian Ocean, and headed further north than we've ever recorded them before. He was attracted to a tuna longline fishing boat working in South Africa's territorial waters, off Durban, some 4,000 km away from Gough Island.
This just happened to be the boat where the ATF was performing routine monitoring of fishing operations. The bird grabbed a baited hook that was floating at the surface, and got hooked. It was slowly dragged underwater and drowned.
A sad story, but amazingly it encapsulates the Tristan Albatross's entire dilemma: their chicks are killed at unsustainably high rates by introduced predators on their remote breeding island, and adults are killed by the dozens of fishing fleets that their unimaginably vast wanderings bring it into regular contact with.
The ATF team in Cape Town has had this bird mounted for display as an incredibly powerful, tangible icon of the need to continue efforts to protect these amazing seabirds.
NOTE: Tristan albatrosses cannot be distinguished from a wandering albatross just by looking at them – they look identical. DNA sampling is necessary. We knew this bird was a Tristan as it was banded.
A very distressing event. It's awful to just think of the huge numbers of beautiful albatross that have met their painful end this way.
I am more than proud to have supported AFT from the start and shall continue to do so even as a pensioner. Thank you all for helping to save these wonderful birds.