2013-2015 Photo by Tom Aveling Project summary Two year project - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Sep 13, 2022 241 likes •554 views

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,

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Darwin Plus Project 2013-2015

Photo by Tom Aveling

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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 of Fisheries & Marine Resources

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Aims of project

Provide comprehensive data on the at-sea distribution of

important seabird populations

Work with ANT & JVDPS to establish seabird monitoring

programmes

Identify threats facing seabirds in each territory
These data will be made available for use to enhance strategic

sustainable marine planning and marine protected area designation

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Why study seabirds.....

Photo by Tom Aveling

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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

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2) Suffer from a wide range of human impacts

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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

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Data collection

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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

ut 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

n Dog Island & PPW

 Bridled tern globally important on Sombrero

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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

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Example tracking maps

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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

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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

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Analysis

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PPW marine IBA

Brown booby, PPW

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Sombrero marine IBA

Brown booby, Sombrero

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Dog Island marine IBA

Brown booby, Dog Island

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Regionally important populations

Masked booby and Brown booby, Sombrero

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Relate foraging tracks to environmental/oceanographic data

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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

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Uses for the data

 For example. BVI Magnificent frigatebirds – targeted education

campaign

 Puerto Rico- Para La Naturaleza using data to raise awareness

f marine parts

 BEST project regional identification of marine corridors within

the European OT islands

 Parcs naturel, SXM interested in overlaying with marine park

zones

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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

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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

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What will happen next?

 Further survey work on Dog Island, supported by the

Anguilla National Trust and University of Roehampton Fellowship programme

 Share data with neighbouring islands (e.g. Saba and

SXM)

 Further Darwin plus funding for seabird restoration

work in BVI

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Website: www.caribbeanseabirds.org.uk Contact: louise.soanes@liverpool.ac.uk