State of Environment

Indicator 30 - Breeding population of King Penguins at Heard Island

Index - Description | Data | Custodian evaluation | Related resources | Parameters

King penguins at Heard Island (AAD Photo 1943/ B6) by Geoff Moore, 1992

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Indicator Definition

The size of the breeding population of King Penguins at Heard Island.

Responsible
Organisation

Australian Antarctic Division (details)

Custodians

ERIC WOEHLER
eric.woehler@aad.gov.au

INVESTIGATOR
TECHNICAL CONTACT

Australian Antarctic Division
203 Channel Highway
Kingston
Tasmania 7050
Australia
Ph +61 3 6232 3376

Theme Area

Biodiversity

Indicator Type

Condition

Criteria the
Indicator Satisfies

The following 13 out of 15 criteria

1.	Serve as a robust indicator of environmental change
2.	Reflect a fundamental or highly-valued aspect of the environment or an important environmental issue
3.	Be either national in scope or applicable to regional environmental issues of national significance
4.	Provide an early warning of potential problems
5.	Be capable of being monitored to provide statistically verifiable and reproducible data that shows trends over time and, preferably, apply to a broad range of environmental regions
6.	Be scientifically credible
7.	Be easy to understand
8.	Be monitored with relative ease
9.	Be cost-effective
10.	Have relevance to policy and management needs
11.	Contribute to monitoring of progress towards implementing commitments in nationally important environmental policies
13.	Contribute to the fulfillment of reporting obligations under international agreements
15.	Where possible and appropriate, be consistent and comparable with other countries’ and state and territory indicators

For details of indicators, see the State of Environment Bibliography entries 16336 and 16337

Date Input

Monitoring Location

Heard Island (details)

Geographic Coverage is

Rationale For Indicator Selection

The breeding population of King Penguins is related to resource availability
(nesting space and food), behavioural mechanisms (immigration/emigration and
breeding effort/success) in addition to climate change and human impacts such
as fisheries. Monitoring breeding population and interpretation of the data
provides information on changes in the Subantarctic ecosystem.

Design and Strategy For Indicator Monitoring Program

Spatial scale: Heard Island (lat 530 06' 00.0" S, long 730 31' 59.9" E).

Frequency: 2-3 years. Access to remote colonies and other logistical
constraints do not permit annual visits.

Measurement technique: Each colony is visited and individual birds are
counted from the ground by two or three personnel performing replicate counts.
Further counts are obtained by oblique ground and aerial photography. All
breeding individuals in a colony are counted. Considerations regarding
disturbance associated with census visits are also incorporated into
monitoring strategies. The lack of annual census data does not reduce the
value of these long-term monitoring programmes.

Research Issues

The king penguin breeding population at Heard Island has increased at almost
20% per year since the late 1940s; other king penguin populations throughout
the Southern Ocean have also increased, but not as rapidly. At present, there
is no alternative hypothesis to that previously proposed, that these
population increases are sustained by the enhanced availability of myctophids,
the principal prey of king penguins (Woehler et al. 2001).

Data

Timespan: 1948/49 to 2003/04.
Number of data points: 12.

To view or download any of the data, you must be logged into the Data Centre Portal. If you return to this indicator, you will find a Search Data link that will allow you to view or extract the data for this indicator.

Heard Island: Number of breeding pairs

Data Quality, Interpretation and
Analysis of Indicator Data

Censuses of breeding adults are performed and long term trends are determined. Integration with other long term datasets is currently underway through international collaborations, allowing comparison among sites at regional and ecosystem scales. Some analyses and their interpretations have been published (see references), and current analyses will examine population data as they are compiled.

Data Usage Constraints

Some data are published, others are in press and/or under analyses. Contact data compiler for access and use (Dr Eric J Woehler, AAD).

Data Distribution

ERIC WOEHLER
eric.woehler@aad.gov.au

Australian Antarctic Division
203 Channel Highway
Kingston
Tasmania 7050
Australia
Ph +61 3 6232 3376

Data Access Constraints

Some data are published, others are in press and/or under analyses. Contact data compiler for access and use (Dr Eric J Woehler, AAD).

Custodian Evaluation

Date entered

Evaluation

23-May-2002

The King Penguin population at Heard Island has shown a spectacular increase, spanning more than 50 years, with the population increasing at almost 20 per cent per annum since the census was first conducted in 1947 (3 pairs). The population increase at Heard Island is one of the fastest known for any Southern Ocean seabird. Where long-term datasets are available for other breeding locations, King Penguin populations are increasing throughout the Southern Ocean.

7-Nov-2002

Condition scale - 7 - the environment is pristine, in perfect condition, no anthropogenic influences

1 - the environment degraded to the point where rehabilitation is impossible

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

7 - the environment is pristine, in perfect condition, no anthropogenic influences

State of Knowledge scale - 7 - Excellent

1 - Poor

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

7 - Excellent

For definitions of the Scale categories, consult the Explanation of the Status Categories

Related resources

Metadata SOE_seabird_candidate_sp_KP - King Penguin breeding population at Heard Island.

Project 131 - Diet and Population of Fish Predators at Heard Island

Scientific Bibliography 17303 - Woehler, E.J. (1991) Status and conservation of the seabirds of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands In: Seabird status and conservation: a supplement.ed. Croxall, J.P., ICBP Technical Publication 11, 263-277.

SOE Indicator 33 - Annual catch in tonnes of marine species harvested in Australian Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters

SOE Indicator 34 - Sea bird egg contamination

SOE Indicator 36 - Numbers of species protected at various levels of conservation status

SOE Indicator 37 - Species and numbers of species killed, taken or interfered with or disturbed in the Antarctic and the sub-Antarctic for the purpose of scientific research

SOE Indicator 45 - Monthly collections of marine debris from Sandell Bay beach on Macquarie Island (categories and mass)

Taxonomy 1079 - Aptenodytes patagonicus King Penguin

Parameters

The properties link can be used to view details of the parameters measured for this indicator.

Parameter Name	Unit of measure	Properties
Number of breeding pairs		(properties)

The following parameters and/or sensor notes are from the metadata record.

Parameters -
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES > BIRDS
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS > COMMUNITY DYNAMICS
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS > SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS > SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS

Related URL's

http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/mapcat/gis_maps.cfm?title1=heard
Current digital maps of Heard Island.

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SIMR - (State of Environment)

State of Environment

Indicator 30 - Breeding population of King Penguins at Heard Island