Guadalupe Island Seabird Restoration
Partners: Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas (GECI), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO).
Since 2020, we have been collaborating with Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas (GECI; https://www.islas.org.mx ) and other partners to establish new seabird breeding colonies on Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Guadalupe is a large, high island located 200 km west of Baja California. It is protected as a Biosphere Reserve and already supports thriving colonies of Laysan Albatross and several other seabirds. Our work on Guadalupe has focused on the Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes) through 2023, and in 2024 we plan to begin working with an additional species, Ainley’s Storm-petrel (Hydrobates cheimomnestes).
The Black-footed Albatross has a total breeding population of about 57,500 pairs, 95% of which nest on low atolls in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Inundation of breeding colonies from sea level rise and storm surge associated with climate change is the most serious long-term threat to this species. Protection of suitable nesting habitat and creation of new colonies on higher islands are among the highest priority conservation actions. Black-footed Albatrosses already forage in the cold waters of the California Current around Isla Guadalupe, and this area of the ocean is less likely to be affected by climate change than most other regions of the Pacific. Creation of a breeding colony in the eastern Pacific, and on Guadalupe in particular, would increase the breeding range of the species and enhance its resiliency to climate change. In collaboration with many partner agencies in the USA and Mexico, and under the Canada/USA/Mexico Trilateral Island Initiative, from 2021-2023, we moved 93 Black-footed Albatross eggs and 12 chicks from Midway Atoll to Guadalupe Island, Mexico to create a new breeding colony. We placed the eggs in Laysan Albatross foster nests, and the foster parents hatched the eggs and raised the chicks. We raised the translocated chicks by hand. A total of 93 chicks fledged from Guadalupe, a fledging rate of 89%. We expect that these birds will return to Guadalupe as adults 3-5 years after fledging and will start breeding there after 8-9 years. We plan to translocate 36 more eggs to Guadalupe in 2024.
In 2024, we will begin translocation of Ainley’s Storm-petrel within Isla Guadalupe, again in collaboration with our partners at GECI and CONANP. Ainley’s Storm-petrel is critically endangered and is one of the rarest seabirds in the world. The only known breeding colony is located on a tiny islet (Islote Moro Prieto) off Guadalupe, and the colony is threatened by chronic predation from Burrowing Owls. Attempts to establish a colony on Isla Guadalupe by social attraction have not been successful. In February 2024, we intend to move some chicks from the colony on Moro Prieto to a location on Isla Guadalupe inside a cat exclusion fence and where owls are rare. We will raise the chicks by hand until they fledge, with the expectation that they will return as adults to the site where they were raised.
More information about our seabird restoration projects is available here: www.islandarks.org
