Impact and control of feral cats preying on wandering albatrosses: Insights from a field experiment

• Published in: Ecosphere
• Main Authors: Blanchard, Pierrick, Delord, Karine, Bodin, Aymeric, Guille, Kevin, Getti, Tobie, Barbraud, Christophe
• Other Authors: Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement (CRBE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université de Toulouse (UT), Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), La Rochelle Université (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, ANR-10-LABX-0041,TULIP,Towards a Unified theory of biotic Interactions: the roLe of environmental(2010)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: Diomedea exulans Felis catus feral cats field experimentation giant petrels invasive species Kerguelen management nest flooding predation wandering albatrosses; Diomedea exulans; Felis catus; feral cats; field experimentation; giant petrels; invasive species; Kerguelen; management; nest flooding; predation; wandering albatrosses; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Giant Petrels; Wandering Albatross
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04498633; https://hal.science/hal-04498633/document; https://hal.science/hal-04498633/file/BE15_2024.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4792

International audience Invasive alien species are a major threat to seabird species, and the number of impacted species is still increasing. A recent study revealed for the first time that feral cats predated a large albatross species and that without cat control, some albatross populations would markedly decline. We examined this new predator–prey system by individually monitoring known-age wandering albatross chicks with camera traps in a colony experimentally divided into zones with and without cat control. Our design allowed us to investigate how cat control influenced cat abundance and how this in turn influenced the probability for a chick to be predated by a cat. After cat controls, cat abundance was lower in controlled zones than in uncontrolled zones, while a survival analysis showed that the probability for a chick to die from cat predation depended on the zone but not on cat abundance. Our monitoring also provided a fine-scale investigation of the various sources of chick mortality. In addition to cat predation (24% of mortality overall), our data documented predation by giant petrels, for the first time in Kerguelen, and revealed a strong and unexpected effect of nest flooding on chick mortality. Overall, our results underline the need for future studies investigating interindividual variability in cat diet and spatial ecology.