**Abstract:**

The main threat to tākoketai/black petrel is at-sea, where they are accidentally caught by commercial and recreational fishers. In New Zealand, steps are being taken to reduce the risk from fishing to black petrels. However, young birds and adults spend a large part of their lives outside New Zealand, migrating to waters off the eastern tropical Pacific during the Southern Hemisphere winter. The lack of knowledge about their movement and behaviour while at-sea in international and South American waters limits the ability to assess overall threats to black petrels. It appears that the survival rates of juvenile black petrels are low compared to adults with very few of the banded fledglings being recaptured at their natal colony as fully grown breeding adults. The recent advent of smaller (<18 g) satellite tracking devices has made it possible to track the post-natal dispersal of juvenile black petrels once they leave the breeding colonies on Aotea/Great Barrier Island, and for the first time compare whether the dispersal behaviour and distribution of juvenile birds differs from those of adult birds. Following trials of four different models of satellite tracking devices in 2017, 14 Telonics TAV2618 devices were deployed on fledgling black petrels in April 2018. All 14 birds successfully fledged, and all immediately followed a similar eastward migration route across the Pacific. Incredibly most of the birds turned northwards at roughly the same position and headed to seas west of the Galapagos Islands. Three birds continued traveling to near to inshore waters of Ecuador, Colombia and Panama. The final transmitter stopped sending signals on 25 August 2018, five weeks beyond the expected life of the battery. Given that adult black petrels were found to heavily favour a relatively small sea area off the coast of Ecuador during winter months, but that black petrels are also known to range much more widely in the eastern Pacific, it is possible that juvenile black petrels have a much wider distribution in the eastern Pacific than adult birds.

**Authors:**

Elizabeth Bell¹, Patrick Crowe², Samantha Ray², Simon Lamb²

¹Ms, ²Wildlife Management International Ltd

Into the unknown - tracking tākoketai/black petrel fledglings across the Pacific.

Poster Session II Pacific - O: Tracking

poster

Welcome Seabirders!  

Welcome to Virtual World Seabird Conference 3 - vWSC3! Whether you are in your office or lab, at home, in a coffee shop or bar poaching some wifi, or at a remote field site or research vessel – we are very excited to welcome you to the third ever World Seabird Conference. 

We would like to thank ALL of you for being so patient as WSC3 was scheduled, postponed, rescheduled, revised to virtual, and scheduled again. Throughout all those iterations there was one message that remained perfectly clear – seabirders were eager to meet and share their science. If we could not meet in person then virtual it would have to be, but a 3rd WSC was something everyone wanted. That support and commitment helped the WSU Board of Directors and Member Societies sort through all of the challenges they faced to plan and hold this conference. 

The list of those that need to be thanked is long and, while we plan on recognizing many during the live closing plenary, it is important to do so here in writing as well. 

The Australasian Seabird Group was our Local Host for our plan to meet in Hobart, Tasmania. They invested substantial time and effort to find venues and plan events that we unfortunately were not able to visit. Nonetheless we appreciate their work on behalf of WSC3 and encourage all of you to thank them when you see their members in Gathertown or elsewhere during our virtual meeting. Their willingness to host created the initial excitement for WSC3 and without that our vWSC would not have been possible.

We also wish to thank the Science Program Committee, the Virtual Committee, and the Early Career Scientist Committee for their hard work planning the logistics, events, and schedule for vWSC3. These committees also had to deal with changing parameters and short timelines that made what is always a challenging task even more challenging. The Travel Awards Committee also invested time and effort in developing procedures for awarding travel funds that ultimately would not be implemented. 

Our ability to shift from an in-person to a virtual meeting, and to do so in a way that would be financially feasible, was due to the effective efforts of The International Fundraising Committee and to our financial sponsors. The IFC raised funds to support WSC3 and then, through the good relationships they built with sponsors, ensured we could re-envision how those funds could be used to support a virtual conference that would be affordable and high-quality.

We all owe the WSU Board of Directors and the Representatives of the Member Societies a great deal of thanks. They are the ones who manage the WSU and, for the past 18 months, have had to have a series of challenging meetings and conversations, have had to make a series of difficult choices, have had to do all of that while considering the short- and long-term health of WSU and the World Seabird Conferences, and did this while also managing their own challenges at their day jobs. We are grateful for their diligence, patience, foresight, and throughout all of the meetings, their collegiality. Also – a 6-year term is quite a commitment!

There would not be a WSC3 without a successful WSC1 and WSC2. Thanks go to the Pacific Seabird Group for their support of WSC1 in Victoria, Canada, and to the African Seabird Group for their support of WSC2 in Cape Town, South Africa. In each of these endeavors and for our current conference we were fortunate to work with a dependable and trustworthy partner in Podium Conferences. Michelle Smith and Marischal de Armond have become valued members of our team and have not only helped us plan conferences but have assisted and advised the WSU Chairs and Board on issues above and beyond conference planning. 

As we embark on our vWSC3 week we extend to all of you our thanks for showing up, for being patient, and most importantly for the work you do with seabirds. We are all part of a unique, global community that shares an interest, a fascination, and a passion for birds that make a living in our world’s oceans. We have advanced the science, conservation, and management of seabirds as well the ecosystems they inhabit. We are consistently impressed and motivated by the work you do. 

The WSU formed in 2010 because we saw the need for a global organization to address challenges at a global level. Over the past 11 years WSU has grown, adapted, and evolved to become the community that this week is making vWSC3 a reality. Enjoy the week, appreciate and support the friends and colleagues you have made in the community, and if you see us in a virtual hallway please stop and say hello! 

Thank you for the opportunity to serve all of you and the WSU over the past few years,

Nicholas Carlile, Interim Chair, WSU<br>
Patrick Jodice, 2nd Chair of the WSU<br><br>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rCc-s9eu6og" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JOLEP6uTMuc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



3rd World Seabird Conference

Join us for four days of science, networking and virtual engagement with delegates from around the world!

Elizabeth Bell

1

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Into the unknown - tracking tākoketai/black petrel fledglings across the Pacific.

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES