Darwin Plus Project

2013-2015

Photo by Tom Aveling

Project summary Two year project funded by the Darwin Plus Overseas

Territories Environmental Fund

Collaborative project of the University of Liverpool, RSPB,Anguilla National Trust, Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society(JVDPS) and National Parks Trust of the Virgin islands (BVI)

Supported by BVI Government’s Department of Conservation &Fisheries and the Anguillan Government’s Department ofFisheries & Marine Resources

Aims of project

• Provide comprehensive data on the at-sea distribution ofimportant seabird populations

• Work with ANT & JVDPS to establish seabird monitoringprogrammes

• Identify threats facing seabirds in each territory

• These data will be made available for use to enhance strategicsustainable marine planning and marine protected areadesignation

Why study seabirds.....

Photo by Tom Aveling

1) Status of seabirds

Globally seabirds are the most threatened of all avian groups

Schreiber and Lee (2000) cite the loss of seabirds from tropical islands as 90-99%

In the Caribbean region, seabird populations were believed to be 10 times greater pre-European contact

2) Suffer from a wide range of human impacts

3) Good indicators of the health of marine environment

Large and conspicuous so “easy to monitor”

e.g. seabird breeding failure can be caused by overfishing or changes in ocean conditions (sea surface temp)

Monitoring at the breeding colony and at-sea movements can reveal changes in the marine environment

Data collection

Survey Data Anguilla National Trust, all staff and volunteers fully

competent in seabird identification, stages of breeding cycle etc..

Surveys as part of this project and base-line surveys in 2012 reveal Dog island as THE MOST important out of 200 islands in the Lesser Antilles based on globally important populations & number of birds (280,000 breeding adults every year)

Red-billed tropicbird identified as globally important on Dog Island & PPW

Bridled tern globally important on Sombrero

Tracking Data

Attach GPS data loggers to globally and regionally important seabirds from key breeding sites over two breeding seasons to identify feeding areas.

Study sites: Dog Island, Prickly Pear West and Sombrero

Example tracking maps

Types of logger used

Range of loggers used from the relatively cheap IGOTUs, to more expensive remote download loggers

3% of body weight rule

Attached with sticky tape

Marine Important Bird Areas

BirdLife International have defined over 1600 terrestrial IBAs for seabirds

Recent move in identifying marine IBAs: at-sea areas where significant proportion of a globally important population forage

Developed marine IBA R script to identify these important

at-sea areas for globally important populations

Analysis

PPW marine IBA

Brown booby, PPW

Sombrero marine IBA

Brown booby, Sombrero

Dog Island marine IBA

Brown booby, Dog Island

Regionally important populations

Masked booby and Brown booby, Sombrero

Relate foraging tracks to environmental/oceanographic data

Uses for this data.....

Identification of important foraging areas and breeding sites can help Government authorities with marine spatial planning

- Marine protected area designation

-Protection of terrestrial sites, Dog Island

-Assess impacts of management/site protection

Uses for the data

For example. BVI Magnificent frigatebirds – targeted education campaign

Puerto Rico- Para La Naturaleza using data to raise awareness of marine parts

BEST project regional identification of marine corridors within the European OT islands

Parcs naturel, SXM interested in overlaying with marine park zones

Outputs

1) Monitoring guide and threat report

2) Publications: Foraging areas of brown boobies based on 2012 pilot data

Sooty tern paper submitted to Bird study

End of project paper in draft –

soon to be sent to project partners

for review

What will happen to the data?

Survey data held in ANT’s biodiversity database

ANT updated population estimates to BirdLife International’s database

All foraging tracks uploaded onto www.movebank.org and BirdLife International’s Seabird Tracking database: www.seabirdtracking.org/

All data on the CDs and available on request from ANT or Louise

What will happen next?

Further survey work on Dog Island, supported by the Anguilla National Trust and University of RoehamptonFellowship programme

Share data with neighbouring islands (e.g. Saba and SXM)

Further Darwin plus funding for seabird restoration work in BVI

Website:

www.caribbeanseabirds.org.uk

Contact:

louise.soanes@liverpool.ac.uk

Any questions......