The recent inaugural Oceania Seabird Symposium brought together birders, researchers, government and non-government organisations at Auckland University, New Zealand, to learn more about seabird conservation and monitoring efforts taking place across the region.
The Cook Islands was well represented with Kas Silk from National Environment Service, Brennan Panzerella from Muri Environment Care and Alanna Smith from Te Ipukarea Society, sponsored by the Australian Seabird Group, who promote seabird research and conservation in Australasian and the South Pacific. The Cook Islands country report spoke to a range of different seabird conservation activities carried out over the past five years, from rat eradication projects on Suwarrow (Cook Islands National Park), Palmerston and Takutea to enhance ecosystem benefits, including improved ground nesting seabird numbers. New National monitoring surveys for species we rarely see including petrel and shearwater species which come to land at night were also discussed. Petrels and shearwaters have unique tube noses and can either nest on the ground or in crevices and burrows. From this new monitoring project, the local team were able to share more on recent night surveys, which for the first time, revealed hotspots of Tropical shearwater and Tahiti petrel activity within the inland Takuvaine valley area.
