By Katrina Edwards
If you’re after epic adventures, you can’t look past the story of Carlos Zavalaga, who followed Northern Buller’s albatross all the way from Peru to the tiny privately-owned island of Motuhara in the Chathams and back again!
Dr Carlos Zavalaga, a researcher at Universidad Científica del Sur in Lima, Peru, knows the migratory Northern Buller’s albatross fly several thousands of kilometres from their breeding grounds in Aotearoa New Zealand to feed in Peruvian waters where artisanal longline fishing vessels operate.
What he doesn’t know and wants to find out – just like our DOC seabird team, local researchers, and the private owners of some of the breeding islands here in Aotearoa – is if the interactions between the birds and the fishing vessels are posing a risk to the birds. So, as a secondee to DOC, he crossed the Pacific as albatrosses do, to help find out.
Seabird capital of the world
You would’ve heard this already, but it’s worth repeating. Aotearoa is the seabird capital of the world. We host over 30% of the world’s seabirds.
“Looking after them on behalf of the world is our responsibility, but they’re not doing so well,” says Johannes Fischer, Marine Science Advisor.
“Despite our huge efforts to rid predators from a lot of our important seabird breeding islands, our seabirds are generally declining. In fact, 90% of our seabirds are in trouble.”
Our seabirds go beyond our jurisdiction
A lot of these seabird population declines are due to causes beyond our jurisdiction, including fisheries bycatch.
Igor Debski, Principal Science Advisor Marine, says, “These birds use entire ocean basins where they face threats we can’t control. So, we address those threats by working with foreign nations.”
This work falls under New Zealand’s International Seabird Strategy. Mandy Leathers from the International Team, who led the development of the Strategy, says, “Fortunately, there are simple, effective and inexpensive ways to make fishing seabird safe. The Strategy sets a clear roadmap towards seabird-safe fisheries across the oceans where our seabirds forage and live.”
Johannes explains why we’re working with Peru: “Many of our seabirds cross the Pacific and spend a lot of their time in the highly productive Humboldt Current System off the coast of Peru. The Northern Buller’s albatross is a good example of that. So, Peru is an important country for us to work with to make sure our seabirds are safe when they breed here and feed over there.”
A helping hand from 10,000 kilometres away
Peru has a large number of small artisanal fishing fleets. Together with Carlos and his colleague in Peru, Javier Quiñones, we have been trying to identify more precisely which of their fisheries pose the most risk to seabirds such as Northern Buller’s, and then work with those fisheries to help reduce seabird deaths.
We also don’t know much about seabird distributions in their non-breeding range. Carlos had already tried to get some answers by satellite tagging Northern Buller’s in Peru’s waters three years ago. Unfortunately, this project didn’t have much luck with getting data, as all the transmitters were lost – likely due to moulting. Although what he did get showed that Northern Buller’s were following the paths of fishing vessels.
Colony life
Motuhara (Motchuhar in Moriori) is a privately-owned island, home to the world’s biggest colonies of Northern Buller’s albatross and Northern royal albatross. There are also colonies of Northern giant petrels and cape petrels.
Carlos and long-time Motuhara researchers Mike Bell and Dave Bell spent 12 days working with all these species – counting nests, checking bands, banding fledglings, recovering geolocators. And most importantly, tagging Northern Buller’s albatrosses with satellite transmitters to get the all-important data of where they spend their time. Of course, this international research collaboration was conducted in agreement with the local owners of the island as well.
A little project making huge gains
Carlos tagged Northern Buller’s albatrosses whose nests had already failed this season in the hopes they would soon leave the colony and fly back to the feeding grounds in Peru. He hoped this would mean he could get enough data before the tail feathers, where the tags are attached, moulted off.
It’s working.
“Ten birds winged their way to Peru – to Carlos – since they were tagged. It’s all coming together,” Igor says.
These albatrosses are currently feeding in northern Chile, before hopefully heading farther north to Peru. Carlos has also started GPS tracking of small long-line vessels in southern Peru.
“This international collaboration is bringing a lot to our general knowledge of the birds, implementing the international seabird strategy, and building important relationships,” says Johannes. “This little project is actually making huge gains in everything.”
Background:
DOC and the Peruvian Marine Research Institute (IMARPE) signed a cooperation arrangement in 2024 to help protect the seabirds that migrate between New Zealand and Peru.
In 2024 Peruvian researchers Javier Quiñones and Carlos Zavalaga came to New Zealand to learn about bycatch management and to study the movements and behaviour of Northern Buller’s albatross and other seabirds that migrate to Peru. This will inform Peru’s significant efforts to improve management of Peruvian artisanal fisheries. Our collaboration with Peru is a high priority under our International Seabird Strategy which strives for seabird-safe fisheries across the oceans where our seabirds forage and live.
