First breeding record of the Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli at Ile Amsterdam

• Published in: Antarctic Science
• Main Authors: Demay, Jérémie, Delord, Karine, Thiebot, J. B., Barbraud, Christophe
• Other Authors: Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), Université de La Rochelle (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Réserve Naturelle Nationale des Terres Australes Françaises, TAAF, National Insitute of Polar Research, National Institute of Polar Research Tokyo (NiPR)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Antarctic; Giganteus; Indian; Saint-Paul; Tristan; Antarc*; Antarctic Fur Seals; Antarctic Science; Giant Petrel; Giant Petrels
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00958419; https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102014000182

International audience The genus Macronectes comprises two species of giant petrels, restricted to the southern oceans. These large scavenging and predatory seabirds heavily rely on rookeries of pinnipeds and penguins for food. However, greater availability of carrion from expanding populations of fur seals and increased waste from commercial fisheries are thought to be driving the current global trend of increasing northern giant petrel (NGP, Macronectes halli (Mathews)) populations (Patterson et al. 2008). In the southern Indian Ocean, NGPs breed on islands south of the Sub-Antarctic Front (SAF) (Patterson et al. 2008; Fig. S1 in the supplemental material found at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1017/S0954102014000182). To date no NGP breeding attempt has been reported north of the SAF in this region despite common sightings of NGPs from the two islands at these lower latitudes (Amsterdam and Saint Paul, 37°46'S, 77°32'E, Fig. 1; Roux & Martinez 1987), which have large populations of sub-Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus tropicalis Gray, recovering from near-extirpation after sealing (Roux 1987), and large penguin colonies on these islands (Jouventin 1994). Furthermore, the congeneric M. giganteus (Gmelin) is known to breed at such low latitudes in the southern Atlantic Ocean (Tristan da Cunha Island; Patterson et al. 2008). Here we report the first record, to our knowledge, of a Macronectes species nesting on Ile Amsterdam.