Breeding Seabirds of Gambier Islands, Eastern Polynesia: Numbers and Changes during the 20th Century

Abstract

Summary:We report numbers and distributions of the breeding seabird community of the Gambier Islands (Eastern Polynesia, South Pacific Ocean), obtained in 1995 and 1996. Comparing these data with those collected in 1922, 1965-69 and 1971, we assess the extent of changes in distribution and numbers of seabirds. None of the 14 species recorded previously to 1995-96 has disappeared, but numbers and ranges of all the tern species have decreased. Breeding of three additional species (Pterodroma spp.) has been discovered or confirmed in 1995-96, though their numbers are very small. We also identified an unknown Cookilaria petrel, of which a wing was collected in 1922 on Mangareva, but which was not recorded later. Although seabird diversity on Gambier Islands is high, no species breeds in large numbers. Indeed, several species have tiny population sizes, and concern is therefore expressed for the future of this seabird community.

Seabirds of Easter Island, Salas y Gomez Island and Desventuradas Islands, southeastern Pacific Ocean

“…3). Seabird representatives from these two orders are quite consistent with those reported for other oceanic islands (e.g., Williams, 1960;Benton & Spencer, 1995;Thibault & Bretagnolle, 1999), as they are characterized by high mobility and widespread distributions (Carboneras, 1992).…”

Audubon's Shearwaters Puffinus Iherminieri on Réunion Island, Indian Ocean: behaviour, census, distribution, biometrics and breeding biology

“…It is possible that counts of larger colonies will underestimate due to the non-linear relationship between these variables shown in Figure 6. For instance, on Gambier Island (French Polynesia), the colonies on two study islets were 500 and 1000 pairs (Thibault & Bretagnolle 1999). At these two colonies, call rate was impossible to evaluate because calls were uttered continuously and were not separable by ear.…”

Full Issue

“…Rapa and its associated islets have not been subject to frequent attention from ornithologists, but they were visited by the Whitney South Sea Expedition in April 1921 and February 1922, and more recently by J.-C. Thibault in October-December 1974 and A. Varney in December 1989-January 1990 (Thibault & Varney 1991). During the 1974 field work, four additional specimens of what has generally been assumed to be the same small black-and-white Puffinus were collected on Rapa's offshore islets and are now at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (MNHN 1975(MNHN .1787(MNHN -1790.…”