Albatrosses counted from

space
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
4 May 2017 From the section Science & These are external links and will open in
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Media caption
Peter Fretwell: "We're working on algorithms that will automatically count
the birds"
Scientists have started counting individual birds from
space.
They are using the highest-resolution satellite images
available to gauge the numbers of Northern Royal
albatrosses.
This endangered animal nests almost exclusively on some
rocky sea-stacks close to New Zealands Chatham Islands.
The audit, led by experts at the British Antarctic Survey,
represents the first time any species on Earth has had its
entire global population assessed from orbit.
The scientists report the satellite technique in Ibis, a
journal of the British Ornithologists' Union.

Image caption
Craggy outcrop: At first glance there may not be much to look at...
It is likely to have a major impact on efforts to conserve the
Northern Royals (Diomedea sanfordi).
Ordinarily, these birds are very difficult to appraise because
their nesting sites are so inaccessible.
Not only are the sea-stacks far from NZ (680km), but their
vertical cliffs mean that any visiting scientist might also have
to be adept at rock climbing.

"Getting the people, ships or planes to these islands to count

the birds is expensive, but it can be very dangerous as well,"
explained Dr Peter Fretwell from BAS.
This makes the DigitalGlobe WorldView-3 satellite
something of a breakthrough.
It can acquire pictures of Earth that capture features as small
as 30cm across.

Image caption
...but the more you examine the WorldView-3 images, you begin to notice
white dots
The US government has only recently permitted such keen
resolution to be distributed outside of the military and
intelligence sectors.
WorldView-3 can see the nesting birds as they sit on eggs to
incubate them or as they guard newly hatched chicks.
With a body length of over a metre, the adult albatrosses
only show up as two or three pixels, but their white plumage
makes them stand out against the surrounding vegetation.
The BAS team literally counts the dots.

Image caption
WorldView-3 provides a lot of imagery to the US government
The researchers first checked their methodology at Bird
Island, South Georgia.
This is a unique nature reserve in the South Atlantic where
the nests of another species of great albatross, the
Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans), are individually
marked with GPS locators.
The biggest confounding factor is large, light-coloured rocks.
But the analysis showed the team could get a very close
match between the pixelated birds in the space images and
the nests that were recorded in the ground-truth data.
There tends to be a slight over-counting, which the team
puts down to breeding partners or non-breeding birds also
being captured in a satellite scene.
Applying the technique at the Chatham Islands, the team
counted just over 3,600 nests. This is slightly down on a
manual count of 5,700 that was made in 2009.
Dr Fretwell said: "The breeding numbers we counted were
much lower than we anticipated, which could show us that
the population is declining or it could show just that we had a
particularly poor year. But this illustrates why you have to do
this over several years, and doing it by satellite is going be a
lot cheaper and more efficient."

Image caption
The birds favour sea-stacks known as The Sisters and the Forty Fours
Dr Paul Scofield at Canterbury Museum, NZ, is a co-author
on the Ibis paper.
He described the difficulty of counting the birds in the
traditional way at the group of stacks known as the Forty
Fours.
"The 44s are particularly tricky," he told BBC News. "I once
 waited a whole month on the main Chatham Island for the
weather to clear so I could land.
"Even if you use a plane, it's a problem as planes are only
available infrequently and the wind and cloud prevent flying.
Then if you take photos, you have to count them. That can
take 100s of hours. This technology still requires the satellite
to be in the right place and no cloud but it is certainly
cheaper and more reliable."

Like the other five species of great albatross, Northern

Royals are under pressure for a variety of reasons.
Commercial fishing has depleted the stocks on which these
seabirds also feed, and the baited longline gear used by
some vessels has an unpleasant knack for attracting
foragers and pulling them underwater where they drown.
But the Northern Royals in particular are vulnerable because
of their desire to nest only on the Chatham Islands sea-
stacks. If one big storm rolls through at the wrong time of
year, it can severely dent breeding success.

Fossil sheds light on

'Jurassic Park' dinosaurs
By Helen Briggs
BBC News
2 May 2017 From the section Science These are external links and will open in
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IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
Image caption
Vouivria herd roaming a coastal lagoon
The fossil of a dinosaur that has been languishing in a
museum for decades has been re-examined - and it
turns out to be that of a new species.
Brachiosaurus, depicted in Jurassic Park, now has an early
relative, providing clues to the evolution of some of the
biggest creatures on Earth.
Scientists say the plant-eating dinosaur was longer than a
double-decker bus and weighed 15,000kg.
Its remains were found in the 1930s in the Jura region of
France.
Since then it has been somewhat over-looked, spending
most of that time in storage crates in the National Museum of
Natural History in Paris.
Lead researcher Dr Philip Mannion of Imperial College
London said the dinosaur would have eaten all kinds of
vegetation, such as ferns and conifers, and lived at a time
when Europe was a series of islands.
''We don't know what this creature died from, but millions of
years later it is providing important evidence to help us
understand in more detail the evolution of brachiosaurid
sauropods and a much bigger group of dinosaurs that they
belonged to, called titanosauriforms,'' he said.

Asteroid strike
Titanosauriforms were some of the largest creatures ever to
have lived on land and were very diverse, surviving right up
until the asteroid strike that wiped out most life on Earth.
The new species, given the scientific name, Vouivria
damparisensis, lived in the Late Jurassic, some 160 million
years ago.
"It's the earliest member of a group that includes
Brachiosaurus - one of the most famous dinosaurs we know
- one of the prominent animals in Jurassic Park," Dr Mannion
told BBC News
"And it gives us a much clearer idea of what's going on in the
early evolution of this really important radiation of dinosaurs."

Sauropods
The dinosaur is a sauropod - a sub-group of
titanosauriforms, which include well-known groups such as
Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus and Brontosaurus.
They had very long necks, long tails, and small heads with
thick, pillar-like legs.
Image copyright
SPL
Image caption
Brachiosaurus dinosaurs at water, computer artwork
The fossil predates the previously oldest-known member of
this group by about five million years.
"It starts to give us an idea that these animals were evolving
much earlier than the fossil record previously has indicated,"
Dr Mannion added.
"This pushes back a lot of origin times for a range of
sauropod dinosaurs based on our understanding of how
these different species related to one another."
The re-classification of Vouivria as an early member of the
titanosauriforms will help in mapping their spread across the
Earth, from Jurassic times to the extinction of all dinosaurs.
It is thought that they were present across Europe, the US
and Africa, but became extinct in Europe towards the end of
their reign.
The fossil was discovered in the village of Damparis in the
Jura region of eastern France in 1934.
It was documented scientifically in the 1940s, but has not
been studied in detail since then.
Its scientific name, Vouivria damparisensis, relates to 'La
vouivre', a local folklore legend about a winged serpent.
Dr Mannion examined the bones of the creature along with
scientists at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris
and the CNRS/Universit Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne.
The research is published in the journal, PeerJ.
Follow Helen on Twitter.

'Shocking' levels of PCB

chemicals in UK killer whale
Lulu
By Rebecca Morelle
Science Correspondent, BBC News
2 May 2017 From the section These are external links a
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Media caption
Lulu was one of the most contaminated killer whales ever found (Image:
John Bowler/RSPB Scotland)
One of the UK's last killer whales was contaminated with
"shocking" levels of a toxic chemical, scientists say.
The animal, called Lulu, was found dead on the Isle of Tiree
in Scotland last year after becoming entangled in fishing
lines.
But tests now reveal her body contained among the highest
levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, ever recorded.
The chemicals were banned from the 1970s but are still in
the environment.
Researchers now fear that other animals in Lulu's pod also
have similarly high levels of contamination. The group, which
is found off the west coast of Scotland, is thought to consist
of just eight animals.
Dr Andrew Brownlow, head of the Scottish Marine Animal
Stranding Scheme and veterinary pathologist at Scotland's
Rural College (SRUC), told BBC News that Lulu had
"shocking levels of PCBs".
He said: "The levels of PCB contamination in Lulu were
incredibly high, surprisingly so. They were 20 times higher
than the safe level that we would expect for cetaceans to be
able to manage.
"That puts her as one of the most contaminated animals on
the planet in terms of PCB burden, and does raise serious
questions for the long-term survivability of this group (of UK
killer whales)."

Image caption
Lulu's level of PCBs are among the highest ever recorded
PCBs were used widely in industry during the last century.
The manmade chemicals are extremely stable, resistant to
extreme temperatures and pressures, and have insulating
properties. Because of this they were used in everything
from plastics to paints and electrical equipment.
But after concerns about the toxicity to humans and animals
was raised, a series of bans were put in place around the
world from the 1970s onwards.
However the chemicals take a long time to break down and
have lingered in the environment, particularly in landfill sites
where they can leach into waterways and on into the sea.
They then build up in the marine food chain, which means
top predators such as killer whales are particularly affected.
Dolphins, porpoises are also susceptible.
Levels of PCBs are measured in milligrams per kilogram of
lipids (fatty acids) in an animal's body.

Image caption
Today Lulu's pod has just eight animals and scientists now fear for their
future
Dr Brownlow said: "The threshold where we think that there
is some form of physiological effect caused by PCBs is
around 20-40mg/kg stored within the tissues.
"Lulu had a level of PCBs of 957mg/kg - and this has put her
as one of the most contaminated individuals we have ever
looked at."
Scientists believe Lulu's age, estimated to be at least 20,
may be one reason that the levels of PCBs were so high,
because they had built up over the years.
The chemicals have a range of effects. There is evidence
that they can impair the immune system. They also affect
reproduction, preventing killer whales from bearing young.
"That's certainly what we found in the case of Lulu,"
explained Dr Brownlow.
"Having examined her ovaries, there was no evidence that
she had ever been reproductively active or had ever had a
calf."
The chemicals can also affect the brain. Scientists believe
the contamination could have been implicated in Lulu's
death.
"Killer whales are incredibly intelligent, they are very nimble,
socially aware animals. [Lulu] would have spent most of her
probably very long life existing around the waters of the
West Coast.
"It is potentially plausible that there was some effect of the
PCBs that was in some way debilitating her so she wasn't
strong enough or even aware enough to deal with this
entanglement (in fishing line).
"We very rarely see entanglement in killer whales - actually
this is one of the first cases we have documented."
Image caption
Landfill sites can contain PCB contaminated material
PCBs are a global problem, but a recent study revealed that
European waters are a hotspot because of the level of the
chemicals once used.
It is estimated that there is a million tonnes of PCB-
contaminated material waiting to be disposed in Europe.
But getting rid of them is expensive and difficult - they need
to be incinerated at more than 1,000C to be destroyed.
Prof Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the Department of
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said that the
issue was very concerning but also complicated.
He said: "The records show PCBs have been declining in
concentration in the marine environment, so the regulation
we have in place is working.
"It's just they take a very long time to disappear. Overall I
think we are going in the right direction, but it is going to take
many more years to get to a point where they are going to
disappear entirely."
He added: "Lulu was fairly old, so she will have accumulated
[PCBs] over her lifetime and that's the reason she had such
high levels. It's a legacy she'd carried from her early years,
probably."
Media caption
BBC Newsnight reported last year how PCBs can impact marine mammals
But some scientists think more should be done. Dr Paul
Jepson from the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological
Society of London said PCBs were not an intractable
problem in Europe.
"PCB levels in the United States have slowly declined in
humans and other biota such as fish for many years now,
and the overall PCB mitigation is generally considered to be
successful in the US.
"This is partly related to numerous US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund sites, which the EPA is
actively working to decontaminate. We urgently need a
similar approach in Europe".
Killer whales - and other cetaceans - around the world are
being hit by PCB contamination. But in the UK, with just
eight remaining resident killer whales, the future looks very
bleak.
Scientists have not seen any calves born in the 25 years
they have been studying these animals, and it looks almost
certain that they will eventually vanish from the UK's waters.
Lulu's skeleton is now stored at the National Museums
Scotland collection centre, which has one of the largest
whale collections in the world.
Principal curator of vertebrates' Dr Andrew Kitchener said
the whales remains would be available for scientists to
study.
"What these collections are here for is so we can use them
for the benefit of living animals in the wild today and in the
future. They do have a value for living populations."

Image caption