Talman Madsen fell in love with the stars before photography.
Albatrosses are good omens for sailors, but are not having too much luck themselves. The population of female wandering albatrosses that nests on Antipodes Island has plummeted by two-thirds in the past 14 years. This rapid decline has alarmed researchers Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott, who have been studying the species for two decades. There appear to be a number of causes, but the primary one is changing oceanic conditions that force the birds to forage in more northerly waters where the risk of being caught by commercial longliners is higher. Some years have seen female mortality rates as high as 20 per cent. “We think about polar bears with despair, but it’s a rather similar sort of situation here,” said Walker in an interview with RNZ. [caption id="attachment_344954" align="alignnone" width="1066"] Numbers of Antipodean albatrosses are declining on the Antipodes.[/caption] Antipodean albatrosses forage for squid, which is also used as bait by the longliners. While many fishers have a suite of techniques and technology to avoid bycatch, those that don’t risk birds taking the hooks and drowning with the sinking line. As Antipodean albatrosses raise only one chick, and both adults provide food during the first year, the loss of a single adult often means the death of its chick too. Antipodean albatrosses range widely—far beyond New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone, into the stateless realm of the high seas and as far east as Chile’s continental shelf. Regional fisheries management organisations regulate fishers out there in a similar way to those in New Zealand waters, but the level of compliance and reporting of bycatch is debatable. Without better data on where the birds are foraging—and dying—researchers are at a loss to determine the threats to the population. There are some 3000 registered longliners in the Pacific, and it’s uncertain which vessels or jurisdictions they interact with. To complicate matters, female Antipodean albatrosses forage further to the north, in more dangerous waters, and are disappearing at a greater rate than the males, leading to a severely skewed sex ratio. The Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Primary Industries deployed about 75 satellite-transmitting devices on Antipodean albatrosses this year, and in association with the Southern Seabirds Solutions Trust, intend to deploy the same number again next season. The tags track the birds’ locations as they forage, and researchers can overlay this data with the position of fishing vessels operating in the area to determine the risk of contact. If left unchecked, the Antipodes Island wandering albatross could be the first albatross species in the world to become functionally extinct.
When the sun takes a hiatus to the northern hemisphere, it’s tempting to follow… but where?
Craig McKenzie stalks takahē in Te Anau.
Viewing the world through a rectangular frame is becoming a thing of the past now that virtual-reality technology allows people to look around in 360º while watching a video—following the trajectory of a stingray passing overhead, or watching dolphins swim below.
One of the world’s smallest nations is transforming its economy from subsistence to sustainability. Will Niue’s brave new plan work?
Niue has announced its intention to protect 40 per cent of its exclusive economic zone, or 127,000 square kilometres of ocean, from fishing and other extractive activities. The protected area will include deep ocean seamounts and the biodiversity-rich Beveridge Reef. “Our commitment is not a sacrifice; it is an investment for our future and a tribute to our ancestors,” Niue’s Minister for Natural Resources, Dalton Tagelagi, said in a statement. At the same time, Chile also announced an increase in protection, from four per cent to 29 per cent of its waters. By contrast, New Zealand protects 0.3 per cent of its exclusive economic zone, and a proposal to create a sanctuary incorporating the Kermadec Islands has stalled.
For five years Richard Robinson has been heading out into the blue realm far beyond our shores to photograph the pelagic creatures that live there. It wasn’t an assignment as such, but the beginning of a body of work propelled only by curiosity. He began accruing images of events that occur so rarely that few have had the opportunity to photograph them—orca hunting, the birth and first breath of a pilot whale, feeding frenzies that included several hundred animals. Soon, he had the kernel of an idea that began to coalesce around a working title, ‘Where the Buffalo Roam’—a reference to the American West that matched Robinson’s vision of this vast ocean prairie and its cast of leviathans. The project received two big boosts. First, researcher Jochen Zaeschmar allowed Robinson to accompany him on his many trips offshore, where the photographer took up a spotting position high in the crow’s nest. Later, Robinson won the inaugural Canon Personal Project Grant, enabling the completion of the project with the new 5D Mark IV. The coincidence of vision, curiosity and good fortune are captured in the pages of this issue: “Some of the best work of my life,” says Robinson.
Sometimes, the world comes to you.
Barely seven per cent of New Zealand is land. The rest of it, the wet bit, covers four million square kilometres. In 2016, photographer Richard Robinson won a Canon Personal Project Grant that enabled a dozen expeditions into this vast marine prairie, arguably the country’s last great tract of undisturbed wilderness.
Just 1.5 per cent of the world’s reefs are in an undisturbed state, say scientists, and one-third are in New Caledonia, a French territory vulnerable to illegal fishing and unable to agree on a management plan for its marine park—the second largest in the world. Last month, a film crew traveled to one of the most remote reefs on the planet and discovered why conservation can't keep up with ecosystem change.
Three new species of wētā have been discovered, and they make drumming calls to woo females.
Rich Robinson has underwater photography in the blood.
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