| | Accession Number | 5003449 |
| | Title | Population dynamics of the Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses |
| | Project Description | Recent declining populations of the Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes) have aroused |
| | worldwide concern over the incidental catch of this and other protected species by the fishing |
| | industry in the Pacific. The largest nesting population as of 1998 (21,415 pairs) is on Laysan |
| | Island, and the second largest (20,510) is at Midway. In 1990 alone, 4,426 Black-footed |
| | Albatrosses were reported killed in drift nets (McDermond and Morgan 1993). Although this is a |
| | long-lived species, it generally does not breed until 5-8 years of age, and then lays only one egg |
| | per year. During the 1950s and 1960s, USFWS biologists studied the life history of this species |
| | and published results of some of their studies, especially with relation to aircraft strikes and the |
| | distribution of Black-footed and Laysan (P. immutabilis) Albatrosses at sea (Rice and Kenyon |
| | 1962, Robbins 1966, Robbins and Rice 1974). However, the population dynamics data have yet to |
| | be analyzed. Analysis of the tens of thousands of recapture records at Midway has until now been |
| | impractical because the species is long lived (40+ years), thousands of worn bands have been |
| | replaced, and multiple records for the same bird have been filed under different band numbers. The |
| | Hawaii USFWS office, in collaboration with NOAA, is currently developing software to link |
| | together the string of records of each bird. This work is nearing completion, so this is an |
| | appropriate time to analyze the recapture data and obtain survival estimates of various segments |
| | of the population of both the Black-footed and the Laysan Albatross. This project will analyze |
| | existing data, the majority of which was collected by the principal investigator. |
| | Keywords | black-footed albatross, breeding, laysan albatross, population dynamics, survival, |
| | Principal | Chandler S Robbins, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: chan_robbins@usgs.gov; Barbara |
| | Investigators | Dowell, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: barbara_dowell@usgs.gov; |
Return to SIS Projects Listing
