Change with age in the attraction and attendance to vessels of wandering albatrosses: conservation implications

• Main Authors: 3rd World Seabird Conference 2021, Weimerskirch, Henri
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Underline Science Inc. 2021
• Subjects: Animal Science; Indian; Diomedea exulans
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48448/0nap-8196; https://underline.io/lecture/34566-change-with-age-in-the-attraction-and-attendance-to-vessels-of-wandering-albatrosses-conservation-implications

Abstract: Albatrosses are well known to be attracted to vessels, but whether it is an innate behaviour, or a behaviour which develops with experience and age is not known. We studied this question in wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) in the Indian Ocean by combining the AIS (Automatic Identification System) data with fine-scale GPS tracking data, obtained through the Ocean Sentinel program, from juvenile, immature, adult and old birds fitted with loggers detecting the presence and locating vessels. We show that attraction and attendances of albatrosses changed extensively with age and differed between vessel types. Fishing vessels were more attractive than other vessels to birds, and juveniles both encountered fewer vessels, and were less attracted to these than adults but this attraction built during the immature phases. We discuss the implication of these results for the conservation of this threatened species. Authors: Henri Weimerskirch¹, Julien Collet¹, Alexandre Corbeau¹, Dominique Filippi², Adrien Pajot¹, Samantha Patrick³ ¹CNRS, ²Sextant Technologies, ³University of Liverpool