PACIFIC 

SEABIRDS 


Volume 23 Number ! 


Fall 1996 


Dedicated To The Study And Conservation Of Pacific Seabirds 

And Their Environment 

The Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) was formed in 1972 out of a need for better communication among Pacific seabird researchers. The 
Group coordinates and stimulates the field activities of members involved in research and informs its members and the general public 
of conservation issues relating to Pacific seabirds and the marine environment. Group meetings are held annually and the PSG publi- 
cation, Pacific Seabirds (formerly the PSG Bulletin), is issued biannually. Current activities include involvement in seabird sanctuar- 
ies, coastal surveys, seabird/fisheries interactions, and legislation. Policy statements are issued on conservation issues of critical im- 
portance. Although PSG's primary area of interest is the west coast of North America and adjacent areas of the Pacific Ocean, it is 
hoped that seabird enthusiasts in other parts of the world will join and participate in PSG. PSG is a member of the U. S. Section of the 
International Council for Bird Preservation. Annual dues for membership are $20 (individual and family); $13 (student, undergraduate 
and graduate); and $600 (Life Membership, payable in six $100 installments). Dues are payable to the Treasurer (see Membership 
page for details and application). 


Pacific Seabirds 

Pacific Seabirds (ISSN 1089-6317) is published twice a year, in the spring and fall, and contains news of interest to PSG members, 
including regional seabird research, conservation news, and abstracts of papers presented at the annual meeting. Pacific Seabirds is an 
outlet for the results of scientific research, as well as articles and shorter items on seabird conservation, seabird research activities, and 
other topics related to the objectives of PSG. All materials and should be submitted to the Editor, while conservation-related material 
should be submitted to the Vice-Chair for Conservation. Back issues of the Bulletin or Pacific Seabirds may be ordered from the 
treasurer: please remit $2.50 each for Vols.1-8 (1974-1981) and $5.00 each for Vol. 9 and later (see Membership Application for de- 
tails and order form). 


World Wide Web Site 

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BlRDNET/PacBirds/ 

Permanent Address 

Pacific Seabird Group 
Box 179/4505 University Way NE 
Seattle, WA 98105 

Editor 

Steven M. Speich, 4720 N. Oeste Place, Tucson, AZ 85749 USA. Telephone: (520) 760-21 10; Facsimile; (520) 760-0228 (call first), 
e-mail: sspeich@azstarnet.com 

Associate Editor 

Bill Sydeman, Point Reyes Bird Observatory, 4990 Shoreline Highway, Stinson Beach, CA 94970 USA. Telephone: (415) 868-1221, 
extension 19, Facsimile: (415) 868-1946, e-mail; wjsydeman@prbo.org 

Associate Editor For Conservation 

Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North 9th Street, Arlington, VA 22203 USA. Telephone: (202) 778-2240, Facsimile: (202) 778-2201, e-mail: 
charrison@hunton.com 


Donations 

The Pacific Seabird Group is a nonprofit organization incorporated under the laws of the State of California. Contributions to the Pa- 
cific Seabird Group are tax deductible (IRS Section 501[c][3]) to the fullest extent allowed by law. 

Pacific Seabirds Submission Deadlines 

All items intended for publication in Pacific Seabirds must be received by The Editor prior to March 15 (Spring issue) and September 
15 (Fall issue). Manuscripts may be submitted at any time. 


PACIFIC SEABIRDS 

A Publication of the Pacific Seabird Group 


Dedicated to the study and conservation of Pacific seabirds and their environment 


Volume 23 


1996 


Number 2 


^**™rPubIications Of The Pacific Seabird Group: Direction, Potential And Opportunity by Steven M. Speich 2 

Seabird By-Catch In Longline Fisheries by Angela K. Kalmer , Rodney M. Fujita and Charles F. Wurster 3 

"'‘InSnce Of Nesting Habitat In The Western/Glaucous-winged Gull Hybrid Zone: A Preliminary Study by Thomas ^ 

P Good Raymond J. Pierotti md Julie C. Ellis * ; 

ScavMging Behavior Of The Waved Albatross In The Galapagos: A Potential Problem With Increasing Longlinmg ^ ^ 

by Godfrey Merlen 

PSGNews 13 

Seabird Conservation 14 

Japan Seabird Conservation.... 

Seabird monitoring 15 

Marbled Murrelet Conservation 1^ 

Pacific Seabird Group Publications 

*^*wlh^ngwn^"d Oregon, Pacific Rim, Canada, Alaska-Russia, Southern California, Northern California 19 

^"mS^nths On A Coral Island (Laysan) By Hugo H. Schauinsland [1899] Translated by Miklos D.F. Udvmdy 

History And Ornithological Journals Of The Tamager Expedition Of 1 923 To The Northwest Hawai.aji Islands, 
and An Annotated Bibliography Of Laysan Island, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by Mark J. Rauzon 

Global Biogeography by Miklos D.F. Udvardy 

1996 Annual Report Of The United States Seafood Industry by Steven M. Speich 

Bulletin Board 39 

In Memoriam: Roger Tory Peterson 3^ 

Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge Created 4^ 

lUCN - Longlining Resolution * 

Report Of The Treasurer - 1996 

Publications 45 

Committee Coordinators - ZZZ r 47 

Life Members 43 

Membership Application/Order Form 49 

Executive Council..... ‘ 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 ® Fall 1996 ® Page 1 


FORUM 


The Publications Of The Pacific Seabird Group: Direction, Potential And Opportunity 


The Pacific Seabird Group, now ap- 
proaching its 25th year of service, has 
established its presence through the host- 
ing of an annual meeting, the activities of 
the executive council and its associated 
committees, and through its publications. 
The last is expressed twice-yearly through 
the publication of Pacific Seabirds 
(formerly Pacific Seabird Group Bulletin) 
and the publication of symposia held at 
annual meetings. This successful configu- 
ration continues but the publication side is 
being refined and supplemented to further 
the professional standing of the Pacific 
Seabird Group, all-the-while offering 
more opportunities and information to 
Pacific Seabird Group members. 

There is a moderately long-standing 
debate within the Pacific Seabird Group 
that continues today, wherein a portion of 
the membership would like to see the 
group publish a formal seabird journal 
while others are opposed for a variety of 
reasons, not the least of which would be 
the impact of such an undertaking on the 
group’s limited resources, now well used 
for other projects. To move forward a 
proposal was presented to the Executive 
Council, and approved, at the annual 
meeting in Sacramento that called for 1) 
the renaming of the bulletin, Pacific Sea- 
birds, retaining the then present contents 
of the bulletin but to publish short techni- 
cal papers and longer technical review 
articles, 2) continue with the Symposium 
series, and 3) initiate a Technical Publica- 
tion series for items otherwise not appro- 
priate for Pacific Seabirds or a sympo- 
sium. All contributions to these publica- 
tions were to be subject to peer review. 
All three are moving forward with more, 
and less, success. 

Pacific Seabirds is starting to attract 
both short technical papers and longer 
review articles, as evident in this issue. 
Effort is being given to encourage the 
submission of manuscripts, including 
technical papers and review articles. 
Thus, the opportunity for members of the 
Pacific Seabird Group to both publish 
their works and to help build the stature of 
Pacific Seabirds and PSG. 

My long term goal as Editor is to build 
the technical aspects of Pacific Seabirds 


through publications while maintaining 
the balance between the technical side and 
the general but none-the-less important 
information traditionally included in pa- 
cific Seabirds. This includes. Abstracts of 
meeting papers, PSG News, Bulletin 
Board, Regional Reports, committee re- 
ports, notices, etc. Here too effort is be- 
ing made to expand the information made 
available to the membership, especially 
activities from the Pacific Ocean basin 
and beyond relating to marine birds and 
their environment potentially of interest 
to, but not normally involving, PSG mem- 
bers. 

The Symposia of the Pacific Seabird 
Group is a successful series that now in- 
cludes eight published symposia, with an 
additional symposium (sea ducks) now 
nearing completion and another in prepa- 
ration (twenty-five years of change in sea- 
birds and their environment) scheduled for 
the 25th annual PSG meeting. Any PSG 
member can propose a symposium, but 
they must be prepared to assume all the 
responsibilities related to the successful 
completion of a symposium. To this end 
symposium guidelines are now being pre- 
pared to help and guide symposia organ- 
izers. The ultimate goal is to produce, and 
publish if appropriate, high quality sym- 
posia that reflect well on the members of 
the Pacific Seabird Group. 

The Technical Publications series is 
the newest element of the Pacific Seabird 
Group publication suite. The series is 
designed to accept a wide variety of po- 
tential publications, of varying length and 
subject matter. This includes manuscripts 
of interest and importance, yet unlikely to 
find other "more traditional” outlets. Al- 
though several projects have been dis- 
cussed, to date only one manuscript has 
been submitted for consideration of publi- 
cation. Suggested projects include seabird 
catalogs, catalogs of seabird colony pho- 
tographs, seabird databases, regional fau- 
nal works, conservation reports, protocols, 
workshop proceedings, etc. Here again 
the opportunity afforded PSG members to 
publish the results of their projects is 
available and only awaits their initiative. 

The increased costs associated with 
traditional publications (journals, books. 


catalogs, etc.) and the widespread avail- 
ability of multimedia formats allows 
greater flexibility in our ability to publish 
works, and to do so more economically. 
There is little doubt that in the future PSG 
will publish utilizing the compact disk 
format, especially for such things as data- 
bases and catalogs, especially those that 
involve large numbers of photographs. 

One of the goals of researchers should 
be to insure that their results are available 
in the distant future: we have an obligation 
to archive our information for use in the 
future. This includes field notes, maps, 
photographs, video, sound recordings, 
data sets, data analyses, etc. One of the 
purposes of the Technical Publication 
series can be to help fulfill this responsi- 
bility. The use of compact disks and the 
print format allows the deposition of the 
publications in traditional repositories, 
and the purposeful placement of such 
items in multiple sites such as museums, 
libraries, archives and laboratories, and 
with interested parties. 

The latest development on the publi- 
cation front involves the establishment of 
a Pacific Seabird Group web site (see in- 
side front cover for address). This obvi- 
ously allows the Pacific Seabird Group to 
reach a much broader and non-traditional 
audience with our messages, information 
and products. All members should visit 
the site and pass your thoughts about the 
site to the Executive Council. The site 
could be expanded to include past issues 
of Pacific Seabirds, protocols, resolutions, 
pictures of seabirds, selected databases, 
and other items of interest. Although 
items can be placed on the web site, that is 
not a substitute for the continued archiv- 
ing of important data sets and information, 
as the web is ephemeral, transient to its 
core. 

There are many opportunities for Pa- 
cific Seabird Group members to publish 
their works, and to help enhance the pro- 
fessional standing of the Pacific Seabird 
Group, and in so doing, their self. The 
initiative has to come from you! 

Steven M. Speich, Editor, Pacific Sea- 
birds and Coordinator, Publications 
Committee 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 2 


REVIEW ARTICLE 


Seabird By-Catch In Longline Y\s\itrKShy Angela K.Kalmer,RodneyM.FujUamA Charles F.V/urster 


Commercial marine fisheries have 
encountered a number of serious problems 
in recent years. Populations of target fish 
species have been depleted by overfishing 
beyond sustainability within many of the 
world’s major fisheries, while non-target 
species have, been significantly damaged 
(Safina 1995, Parfit 1995). Some by- 
catch problems, such as turtles in shrimp 
nets and dolphins in tuna nets, have re- 
ceived high levels of publicity and inter- 
national attention in recent years and are 
on their way to being solved. Less well- 
known is the incidental, yet widespread 
and sometimes catastrophic mortality of 
seabirds, which are being hooked and 
drowned on longlines worldwide, espe- 
cially in the southern hemisphere 
(Brothers 1991, Gales 1993, Murray et al. 
1993). Seabirds are killed in the tuna, sa- 
blefish, swordfish, broadbill, hake and 
other longline fisheries. Seabird by-catch 
poses a serious threat to the survival of 
numerous populations of albatrosses 
(family Diomedeidae) and petrels (family 
Procellariidae). 

Longlining Operations 

Longlines vary in length, number of 
hooks, and the methods by which they are 
set and hauled. In the Japanese tuna fish- 
ery, each longline vessel sets a mainline 
that is between 100 and 130 kilometers 
(60 to 80 miles) long (Safina 1995, Broth- 
ers 1991, Murray et al. 1993). Attached 
to the mainline are 40-meter unweighted 
branch lines carrying fish- or squid-baited 
hooks. It takes about five hours to set the 
lines which carry a total of 2,400 to 3,000 
hooks (Brothers 1991, Anon. 1991). The 
lines are tossed into the water from the 
stern of a slowly-moving vessel. The 
baited hooks then sink to a depth of 60 to 
300 meters (Anon. 1991), where they stay 
for approximately five hours of soak 
time" to catch fish. Then, for the next 
twelve hours, the lines are hauled aboard 
(Murray et al. 1993, Anon. 1991). This 
set-soak-haul cycle continues repeatedly 
throughout a fishing voyage. The charac- 
teristics of deep-water (demersal) longline 
fishing are different from those outlined 
above. The lines are generally of shorter 
length, ranging from one-half mile to ten 


miles long, but they tend to carry more 
hooks (Brothers 1995, C. Oliver, pers. 
comm-). In the US North Pacific longline 
fisheries, longlines range from 0.5 miles 
to several miles in length, with gangion 
lines with hooks every 3 to 8 feet (C. Ol- 
iver, pers. comm.). 

Seabirds Get Hooked And Drown 
Seabirds follow fishing vessels seeking 
food, not because there is a shortage of 
natural food but because they associate the 
vessels with an easy food source (Brothers 
1996), without recognizing the high risks 
involved. While some birds escape with a 
free meal, many seabirds get hooked, 
pulled under water and drowned in their 
attempts to retrieve baits from the hooks. 
Each piece of bait is accessible to seabirds 
for about ten seconds, from the moment 
the baited hook is tossed into the water 
until it sinks out of reach (Brothers 1991). 
A hooked bird can sometimes act as a 
float, making neighboring hooks accessi- 
ble to birds for a longer time. In one in- 
stance, 22 birds were caught in a row on 
consecutive hooks (Brothers 1995). Al- 
though most seabirds get hooked during 
the setting of fishing lines, they can also 
get caught during hauling. 


Impacts Of By-Catch On Seabird 
Populations 

According to a 1993 report commis- 
sioned by the Australian Nature Conser- 
vation Agency, longlining mortality has 
been documented for 12 of the 14 species 
of albatross, and longlining is thought to 
be contributing substantially to the popu- 
lation declines of at least six albatross 
species (Gales 1993). Though the alba- 
trosses have no natural predators of any 
consequence other than humans (Tickell 
1970), the human threat may be enough to 
drive some species to extinction. 

The first study to quantify the impacts 
of longlining on seabirds took place in 
1988. It was estimated that 44,000 alba- 
trosses were killed annually on Japanese 
longlines in the Southern Bluefin Tuna 
fishery in the Southern Ocean (Brothers 
1991). 

Declining numbers of Wandering Al- 
batrosses (Diomedea exulans) in the 


South Georgia and Crozet islands, which 
represent 40% of the world population, 
have been attributed to tuna longline 
mortality (Gales 1993, CCAMLR 1994a, 
BirdLife International 1995). In total, an 
estimated 10% of the world population of 
Wandering Albatross is killed every year 
on longlines (Brothers 1996). Mortality on 
longlines exerts a powerful force on the 
population dynamics of this species be- 
cause it can push the adult survival rate 
below the 96% threshold required to 
maintain a stable population 
(Weimerskirch & Jouventin 1987, Croxall 
et al. 1990). 

The total population size of the Am- 
sterdam Albatross was estimated to be 65 
birds in 1993 (Gales 1993), rendering die 
species extremely sensitive to any longline 
mortality. 

The seabird by-catch problem is great- 
est in, but by no means confined to, the 
southern hemisphere. The 120 vessels of 
the Hawaii-based Bigeye Tuna {Thunnus 
obesus) and Broad-billed swordfish 
(Xiphius gladius), longline fleet killed a 
total of 3,100 and 3,700 albatrosses in 
1994 and 1995, respectively, according to 
NMFS (B. Skillman, pers. comm.). 
Laysan Albatrosses (D. immutabilis) and 
Black-footed Albatrosses (D. nigripes) are 
killed in these fisheries, and Black-footed 
Albatross populations have experienced 
recent declines in the three Hawaiian lo- 
cations monitored by US Fish & Wildlife 
Service (Flint 1995). In the Bering Sea 
and Gulf of Alaska groundfish longHne 
fisheries, an estimated 34,676 seabirds 
were killed between 1990 and 1993, in- 
cluding Laysan and Black-footed alba- 
trosses (NMFS 1995). Documented kills 
of four endangered Short- tailed Alba- 
trosses (D, albatrus) have occurred in 
Alaskan waters since 1983 (NPFMC 
1994, P. Gould pers. comm.). 

Albatrosses and other seabirds are 
particularly susceptible to human-induced 
mortality because, in general, they have 
evolved a life strategy which involves 
delayed maturity (average age of first 
breeding is 10 years), high natural sur- 
vival rates and low reproductive rates 
(only one chick per breeding season) 
(Gales 1993). Albatross chicks are highly 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 3 


REVIEW ARTICLE 


dependent on both parents for egg incu- 
bation, protection and feeding during their 
first year of life (Gales 1993, Murray et al. 
1993). When ionglines kill a breeding 
adult, its only chick will starve to death, 
and its mate’s breeding success will be 
reduced in successive years while it 
searches for a new mate. Because juve- 
niles are disproportionately killed on 
Ionglines, breeding adults may become 
scarce years later (Robertson 1995). 

In addition to the effects on alba- 
trosses, Ionglines also kill petrels, fulmars, 
shearwater^, gannets, kittiwakes, penguins 
and skuas. Special concern for the White- 
chinned Petrel {Procellaria aequinoc- 
tialis) has been expressed by the Commis- 
sion for the Conservation of Antarctic 
Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) 
because this species is frequently caught 
during night setting (CCAMLR 1995a). 
One example of a strong correlation be- 
tween longline mortality and a population 
decline is the 50% decline in Southern 
Giant Petrels {Macronectes giganteus) at 
Heard Island between 1987 and 1993 
(Robertson 1995). 

Economic Impacts 

Seabird by-catch is not only a conser- 
vation issue. It is also an economic issue. 
Bait loss to seabirds costs money in terms 
of the cost of bait as well as the opportu- 
nity cost of not catching any fish. Hooks 
without bait and hooks with birds attached 
do not successfully catch fish. The eco- 
nomic costs of forgone fish are substantial 
considering, for example, the high prices 
paid for premium tuna in Japan, ranging 
from $6,500 to $11,000 or more for a 
single fish (Reid 1995). As a result, 
longline vessels that reduce their seabird 
by-catch may gain an economic advantage 
due to increased fishing efficiency. 

Fishermen Involvement 

Many fishermen are concerned about 
this problem, and some have voluntarily 
adopted effective measures to reduce sea- 
bird mortality (Anon. 1991, Brothers 
1993, Robertson 1995). In a recent US 
development, the North Pacific Longline 
Association, an industry trade organiza- 
tion, proposed that techniques developed 
in the southern hemisphere be adopted by 
longliners in the North Pacific. To protect 
seabirds they suggested that such regula- 
tions be applied off Alaska by the North 
Pacific Fishery Management Council for 
1997. Cooperative moves by fishermen 
themselves offer a preferable and quicker 


solution to this problem than would an 
adversarial process. No one really wants 
to be killing these birds, and fishermen 
must believe in the problem, believe in the 
solutions, and willingly employ the solu- 
tions, since enforcement over the far- 
ranging global longlining fleet would be 
difficult or impossible. 

Expansion In Longline Fleet 

The longline fleet has undergone 
enormous growth in the late twentieth 
century. Between 1955 and 1987, for 
example, the Japanese tuna fishery in the 
Southern Ocean underwent a 5000-fold 
expansion in fishing effort, growing from 
20,000 to over 100 million hooks set an- 
nually (Robertson 1995). In the US be- 
tween 1991 and 1995, the Western Pacific 
pelagic longline fleet experienced a period 
of rapid growth, while fishing effort de- 
clined in the majority of US fisheries 
(NMFS 1995). The expansion of the en- 
tire longline fleet is expected to continue 
as driftnetters shift to alternative fishing 
methods and as developing countries 
search for new economic opportunities (S. 
Bartle, pers. comm.). Growth in longline 
fishing effort reinforces the importance of 
modifying longlining practices as a matter 
of urgency, to render them less desfructive 
to seabirds. 

Conservation Measures 

Measures to substantially reduce sea- 
bird by-catch without compromising, and 
in some cases actually increasing, fishing 
efficiency have been developed. When 
strictly implemented, the measures are 
effective because they reduce seabird- 
vessel interactions and increase the sink 
rate of bait. Some fishermen are re- 
searching and developing new methods. 
The following measures include some of 
the most effective available methods: 
Streamer Lines: Setting a streamer line 
150 meters long from a pole at the stern of 
the vessel makes it difficult for birds to 
seize baits. Several studies of the effec- 
tiveness of a streamer line demonstrate its 
capacity to reduce seabird by-catch by 60- 
88% (Brothers 1991, Anon. 1991, 
CCAMLR 1994a). Streamer lines could 
prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of 
seabirds and save the longline industry 
millions of dollars every year (Brothers 
1991). Streamer lines are inexpensive and 
easy to use (Brothers 1995). 

Night Setting: Restricting the setting of 
lines to nighttime, beginning one hour 
after sunset and ending at least three hours 


before dawn whenever possible, can re- 
duce seabird by-catch by 58-l(X)% 
(Murray et al. 1993, CCAMLR 1994a). 
Also, minimizing deck lighting to that 
which is necessary for the safety of the 
crew helps reduce seabird by-catch. Most 
seabird by-catch occurs during day time 
line setting (Robertson 1995, Brothers 
1995). Many seabirds, including alba- 
trosses, feed by day and rest at night 
(Murray et al. 1993), needing light to 
visually locate prey (Brothers et al. 1995). 
Night setting should be used in combina- 
tion with other measures in order to avoid 
the capture of night feeding seabirds, such 
as petrels, and to offset the higher inci- 
dence of seabird deaths on full or near-full 
moon nights. Furthermore, the impacts of 
night setting on sharks, sea turtles and 
other species should be investigated to 
ensure that new problems are not created. 

Weighted Lines: Adding weights to 
branch lines as close to the hook as possi- 
ble increases the sink rate of bait, thereby 
reducing bait loss to seabirds (Brothers 
1991, Murray et al. 1993, CCAMLR 
1994a, Brothers et al. 1995), 

Underwater Setting: Adapting longline 
vessels for underwater setting has poten- 
tial to eliminate seabird by-catch alto- 
gether. Casting lines out from under the 
stern at about two meters below the sea’s 
surface reduces bait accessibility to scav- 
enging seabirds (CCAMLR 1995a, 
CCAMLR 1994b). This option, however, 
needs to be more thoroughly researched, 
especially in light of its expense. 

Thawed Bait: Using only thawed bait 
and baits with deflated swim bladders 
increases the sink rate of bait. Thus, the 
period during which baits are accessible to 
seabirds on the water’s surface is reduced 
(Brothers 1995, CCAMLR 1994a, Broth- 
ers et al. 1995). Frozen bait and baits 
with air-filled swim bladders tend to float. 

Bait Casting Practices: During line 
setting, there are two ways to throw the 
bait out of the turbulence of the ship’s 
wake and propeller in order to increase its 
sink rate: fishermen can use an automatic 
bait throwing machine or they can educate 
their crew to throw the baited lines at least 
10 meters clear of the ship (Brothers 
1993, Brothers 1996, CCAMLR 1994a). 
Automatic bait throwing machines are 
capable of reducing seabird by-catch by 
90% if used in conjunction with streamer 
lines (Anon. 1991). 

Alternative Waste Disposal Practices: 
Avoiding the disposal of fish and bait 
waste during setting and hauling lessens 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 4 


REVIEW ARTICLE 


the incentive for birds to follow fishing 
vessels in search of food (Brothers 1991, 
Murray et al. 1993, Brothers 1995, 
CCAMLR 1994a, CCAMLR 1995b). 
Fishermen can dispose of waste at port, or 
dump at sea in frozen blocks or in a ho- 
mogenized state. 

Care For Live Birds Caught During 
Hauling: Acting quickly and carefully to 
bring aboard seabirds which are captured 
alive and removing hooks before releasing 
the birds are important practices. Embed- 
ded hooks can cause infection and ulti- 
mately death, and they can be passed on 
from parents to chicks during feeding 
(Brothers 1996, CCAMLR 1994a). 

Fishing Away From Bird Breeding 
Grounds: For vulnerable populations, 
reducing or eliminating fishing effort near 
breeding areas should be considered. 

Conclusion 

While many seabirds are legally pro- 
tected on land, they are not sufficiently 
protected at sea, even though they spend a 
large proportion of their lives at sea. The 
chances that seabirds will encounter 
longline vessels during their lifetimes are 
very high considering the many countries 
involved in longlining (e.g., Argentina, 
Australia, Brazil, Chile, Japan, New Zea- 
land, Norway, Panama, South Africa, 
South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, USA) and 
the large ranges of seabirds on the open 
ocean. 

Although various international treaties 
could be applied to seabird by-catch re- 
duction efforts, action by CCAMLR rep- 
resented the first solid step toward im- 
proving the sustainability of longline 
fishing (CCAMLR 1994a, 1994b, 1995a, 
1995b and OES 1995). Building on this 
momentum, on 22 October 1996, the In- 
ternational Union for the Conservation of 
Nature (lUCN) adopted a Resolution on 
the "Incidental Mortality of Seabirds in 
Longline Fishing." Among other clauses, 
the Resolution called for "the lUCN, its 
members, all States, and regional fisheries 
institutions to reduce incidental seabird 
mortality within longline fisheries to in- 
significant levels for affected species. 
The Resolution was supported by all gov- 
ernments present (about 75), with the ex- 
ception of Japan and Panama, and over 
450 non-governmental organizations. This 
lUCN Resolution is without regulatory 
authority or any force of law; however, 
lUCN is probably the world’s most pres- 
tigious conservation union, bringing to- 
gether governments and environmental 

Pacific Set 


interests to address international conser- 
vation issues. Thus, the Resolution is 
likely to be persuasive to those institutions 
that do have legal authority. Further ac- 
tion will clearly need to be taken on the 
regional, national and local levels, both by 
government agencies and by fishermen, to 
fully implement the goals set out in the 
Resolution and to put an end to this need- 
less destruction of seabirds. 

References 

Anonymous. 1991. Inventions save 
albatross... and profits. Australian Fisher- 
ies 50(1): 34-36. 

BirdLife International. 1995. Global 
impacts of fisheries on seabirds. Prepared 
for The London Workshop on Environ- 
mental Science, Comprehensiveness and 
Consistency in Global Decisions on 
Oceans Issues, 30 Nov. - 2 Dec. 1995, 
27p. 

Brothers, N. 1991. Albatross mortal- 
ity and associated bait loss in the Japanese 
longline fishery in the Southern Ocean. 
Biological Conservation 55; 255-268. 

Brothers, N. 1993. A mechanized 
bait throwing device for longline fisheries: 
performance assessment of a test machine. 
A report prepared for the machine de- 
signer and developer Munro Engineers, 
lOp. 

Brothers, N. 1995. An investigation 
into the causes of seabird mortality and 
solutions to this in the Spanish system of 
demersal longline fishing for Patagonian 
Toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides in the 
South Atlantic Ocean. Falkland Islands: 
Consolidated Fisheries Limited, 42p. 

Brothers, N., A. Foster, and G. Rob- 
ertson. 1995. The influence of bait qual- 
ity on the sink rate of bait used in the 
Japanese longline tuna fishing industry: an 
experimental approach. CCAMLR Sci- 
ence 2: 123-129. 

Brothers, N. 1996. Catching fish not 
birds: a guide to improving your longline 
fishing efficiency. Parks and Wildlife 
Service Tasmania. 74p. 

Bureau of Oceans and International 
Environmental and Scientific Affairs 
(OES), U.S. Department of State. 1995. 
Conservation measures for Antarctic 
fishing under the auspices of the 
CCAMLR. Public Notice 2302. Federal 
Registrar, 60 (238): 63752. 

Commission for the Conservation of 
Antarctic Marine Living Resources 
(CCAMLR). 1994a. Report of the ad hoc 
Working Group on incidental mortality 

drds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1 


arising from longline fishing. SC- 
CAMLR XIII Annex 8, 405-440. 

CCAMLR. 1994b. Extract from the 
rep. of the thirteenth meeting of the Sci- 
entific Committee. Hobart, Australia, 24- 
28 October 1994, 59-74. 

CCAMLR. 1995a. Report of the 

Working Group on fish stock assessment. 
SC-CAMLR-XIV/4, 70-97. 

CCAMLR. 1995b. Report of the 

fourteenth meeting of the Scientific Com- 
mittee. Hobart, Australia, 23-27 October 
1995, 12-19. 

Croxall, J. P., P. Rothery, S.P.C. Pick- 
ering, and P.A. Prince. 1990. Reproduc- 
tive performance, recruitment and survival 
of Wandering Albatross Diomedea exu- 
lans at Bird Island, South Georgia. Jour- 
nal of Animal Ecology 59: 775-796. 

Flint, E. 1995. (unpublished manu- 
script). Interactions between albatrosses 
and pelagic longline fisheries in the North 
Central Pacific. Data obtained from the 
National Marine Fisheries Service by the 
Pacific Seabird Group, 5p. 

Gales, R. 1993. Cooperative mecha- 
nisms for the conservation of albatross. 
Commissioned by the Australian Nature 
Conservation Agency. Hobart, Australia: 
Tasmanian Government Printer, 132p. 

Murray, T.E., J.A. Bartle, S.R. Kalish, 
and P.R. Taylor. 1993. Incidental capture 
of seabirds by Japanese southern bluefin 
tuna longline vessels in New Zealand wa- 
ters, 1988-1992. Bird Conservation Inter- 
national 3: 181-210. 

National Marine Fisheries Service. 
1995. Environmental assessment of pro- 
posed regulations to govern interactions 
between marine mammals and commercial 
fishing operations, under Section 118 of 
the Marine Mammal Protection Act. pp. 
27-28, 89. 

North Pacific Fishery Management 
Council. 1994. Ecosystem Considera- 
tions 1995. Compiled by the Plan Teams 
for the Groundfish Fisheries of the Bering 
Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska, 
pp. 39-40, 70-72. 

Parfit, M. 1995. Diminishing returns: 
exploiting the ocean’s bounty. National 
Geographic 188(5): 2-37. 

Reid, T.R. 1995. The great Tokyo 
fish market: Tsukiji. National Geographic 
188(5): 41-55. 

Robertson, G. (ed.). 1995. First in- 
ternational conference on the biology and 
conservation of albatrosses. Hosted by 
the Australian Antarctic Division and Na- 
tional Parks and Wildlife Service 
(Tasmania). Abstracts. Hobart, Australia. 

996 • Page 5 


REVIEW ARTICLE 


28 Aug. - 1 Sept. 1995, 67p. 

Safina, C. 1995. The world's imper. 
iled fish. Scientific American 273(5): 46- 
53. 

Tickell, W.L.N. 1970. The great al- 
batrosses. Scientific American 223: 84- 
93. 

Weimerskirch, H., and P. Jouventin. 
1987. Population dynamics of the Wan- 


dering Albatross, 2 Diomedea exulans, of 
the Crozet Islands: causes and conse- 
quences of the population decline. Oikos 
49: 315-322. 

Angela K. Kalmer and Rodney M. Fujita, 
Environmental Defense Fund, 5655 Col- 
lege Avenue, Oakland, California 94618 
USA Tel: (510) 658-8008 Fax: (510) 


658-0630 Email: akaImer@edforg; 

rod@edf.org 

Charles F. Wurster, Marine Science Re- 
search Center, State University of New 
York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, New 
York 11794-5000 USA Tel: (516) 941- 
3612 Fax: (516) 632-8820 Email: 
c wurster @ ccmail .sunysb. edu 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 6 


ARTICLES 


InHuence Ot Nesting Habitat In The Weslern/Glancous-Winged Gull Hybrid Zone: A 

preliminary Study by Thomas P. Good, Raymond J. Pierotti and Julie C. Ellis 


The large, white-headed gulls of the genus 
Larus have a northern circumpolar distri- 
bution, and often hybridize in areas where 
they come into contact. Over 50% of 42 
recognized species of Larus are known to 
hybridize (Pierotti 1987a), and at least 
two taxa are thought to be of hybrid origin 
(Panov 1989). The Glaucous- winged Gull 
larus glaucescens breeds in North 
America from the Aleutian Islands in 
Alaska southward along coastal British 
Columbia and Washington to Oregon 
(Bell 1992). In regions of breeding sym- 
patry, L glaucescens interbreeds with 
Glaucous Gulls Larus hyperboreus in the 
Bering Sea (Strang 1977) and Herring 
Gulls Larus argentatus in southeastern 
Alaska (Patten 1980). The largest region 
of overlap and hybridization is with the 
Western Gull Larus occidentalis from 
northern Puget Sound in Washington to 
the central Oregon coast (Bell 1996). 

Hoffman et al. (1978) identified pairs 
on Destruction Island, Washington as 
"pure" or "hybrid" and reported apparent 
assortative mating. Hybrid pairs at that 
colony showed higher hatching success 
than did pairs of L. occidentalis or L 
glaucescens. Subsequent work at several 
sites found egg volume and clutch size of 
hybrids intermediate between L occiden^ 
tails and L glaucescens pairs, suggesting 
a complex, dynamic situation (Bell 1992). 

The ecological and behavioral proc- 
esses maintaining this hybrid zone have 
yet to be understood. The breeding ecol- 
ogy of pairs with one or more hybrids may 
be like that of either parental taxon, or it 
may be unique to hybrids. Breeding suc- 
cess in gulls can be influenced by nesting 
habitat selection and territory quality 
(Pierotti 1982, Pierotti 1987b) and paren- 
tal attendance (Pierotti 1981, 1987b, Mor- 
ris 1987). As part of a larger study to test 
competing hypotheses of hybrid zone 
maintenance, we tested hypotheses that 1) 
nest-site characteristics vary among habi- 
tats and 2) breeding success vanes among 
habitats for breeding pairs at colonies 
within the hybrid zone. 

Methods 

The study was conducted on four is- 


lands in Gray’s Harbor, along the southern 
coast of Washington, at the approximate 
mid-point of the L. glaucescensIL. occi- 
dentalis hybrid zone. Sand Island (46 
57'45"N, 124 03’25"W), Goose Island (46 
58'40"N, 124 04’10”W) and an unnamed 
island (46 57’30"N, 124 03’05"W) are 
islands located in the northern bay, and 
Whitcomb Flats (46 54’40"N, 124 

04’40"W) is an island located in the 
southern bay. Sand Island, Goose Island 
and Whitcomb Flats, in addition to the 
focal species, have had breeding popula- 
tions of Ring-billed Gulls Larus delawar- 
ensis. Double-crested Cormorants Pha- 
lacrocorax auritis and Caspian Terns 
Sterna caspia (Speich and Wahl 1989). 
The islands range from sandbars with drift 
logs and sparse vegetation (American Sea- 
rocket Cakile edentula and Seabeach 
Sandwort Honkenya peploides) to islands 
with large, dense patches of dunegrass 
Elymus mollis and beachgrass Ammophila 
arenaria punctuated by Pacific Willow 
Salix lucida and stands of the reed 
Phragmites australis. Herbaceous species 
grow interspersed with the grasses, re- 
flecting seaside plant communities of the 
nearby mainland. 

During egg-laying in May 1995, we 
marked and numbered 432 nests on the 
four colonies by attaching flagging to 
vegetation or driftwood stuck in the sand 
or writing directly on drift logs adjacent to 
nests. For each nest, we categorized 1) 
nesting habitat as sand, grass or reed, 2) 
its colony position as center or edge, and 
3) the natural screen adjacent to the nest 
(wood, grass, reed). We measured the 
angular extent (0-360 ) of natural screens 
and the distance and compass direction to 
the nearest neighbor. Nearest neighbor 
distances were reciprocally-transformed 
and angular extent of screens were square- 
root transformed to achieve homogeneous 
variances prior to analyses of variance. 

We calculated indices of breeding 
success, including clutch size, hatching 
number, hatching rate (hatchlings/egg), 
chick survival to two weeks, fledging 
number, fledging rate (fledglings/egg) and 
egg loss, from data collected during twice- 
weekly visits to each island. Al each nest- 


check, we marked new eggs and measured 
their length, breadth and mass. We 
weighed chicks and banded chicks with 
celluloid bands and United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service aluminum bands at 
weights above lOOg. We performed nest 
checks until chicks fledged in August. 
Hatching rate, chick survival to two 
weeks, and fledging rate were arcsine- 
transformed to achieve homogeneous 
variances prior to analyses of variance. 

Results 

Of 325 active nests (those with at least 
one egg) on the four colonies, 179 were in 
"sand", 110 were in "grass" (primarily 
dunegrass, beachgrass, sedges Carex spp. 
and the herb Potentilla anserina) and 36 
nests were in reed habitat (Phragmites 
autralis). Nest microhabitat measure- 
ments varied among the three habitats. 
The mean angular extent (nlse) of natural 
screens adjacent to nests was greater in 
reeds (275 nl2 ) and grass (236 n9 ) than 
in sand (26 n4 ) (F2, 322-99.5, p<0.001; 
Tukey HSD p<0.05). The percent of 
natural screens which blocked the nearest 
neighbor was greater in reeds (88%) and 
grass (80%) than in sand (13%) (2=223, 
df=2, p<0.001). Nesting density varied 
among habitats; nearest neighbor dis- 
tances (nlse) were significantly lower in 
reeds (3.9 n0.2m) and grass (3.9 n0.3m) 
than in sand (6.2 nO.4) (F2, 322=5.5, 
p-0.005; Tukey HSD p<0.05). 

Breeding success at these colonies was 
extremely low overall and was strongly 
influenced by nesting habitat. The pro- 
portion of large clutch sizes was greatest 
in reeds; one- egg clutches were most 
common al nests in sand habitat and two 
and three egg clutches were more common 
at nests in grass and reed habitats (2=60.5, 
df=4, p<0.01; Figure 1). Hatching rate 
was greatest in reed habitat and lowest in 
sand habitat (F2, 322=19.6, p<0.001). 
Chick survival rate to two weeks was 
greater in reed and grass habitats than in 
sand habitat (F2, 322=16.6, p<0.001). 
Fledging rate was greater in reed and 
grass habitats than in sand habitat (F2, 
31 1=24.4, p<0.001) (Figure 2). 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 7 


ARTICLES 


V) 

ai 

>1—^ 

CO 

o 

"0 

u 

4-1 

o 


0 

«L> 

O 

♦-( 

a> 

fx^ 


100 


90 — 


80 


70 


60 


SO 


40 


30 


20 


10 


Bgg 

Egg 

Bgg 


Saad 


Grass 


Reeds 


Figure 1 . The distribution of clutch sizes in sand, grass and reed habitats on islands in Grays Harbor, 
Washington- 


Discussion 

Nest-site characteristics and measures 
of breeding success varied significantly 
among nesting habitats at these colonies. 
Nests in reed and grass habitat are closely 
spaced and surrounded by structure which 
is more likely to separate nearest neigh- 
bors. This can reduce aggression among 
neighbors (Ceziily and Quenette 1988) 
and enable pairs to nest more densely 
(Davis and Dunn 1976, Vermeer et al. 
1988, Bukacinska and Bukacinski 1993, 
but see Murphy et al. 1984). Natural 
screens other than vegetation can act as 
visual or physical barriers; the heteroge- 
neity of rocky habitats enables Herring 
Gulls to nest more densely (Pierotti 1982, 
1987b), especially when avoiding nesting 
adjacent to the larger and more aggressive 
Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus 
(Good ms). Group defense is enhanced 
by breeding colonially, however predation 
on eggs and chicks, especially by con- 
specifics, may be facilitated by dense 
nesting (Hunt and Hunt 1976, Pierotti 
1982, 1987b, Vermeer et al. 1988, Spear 
and Anderson 1989, Good ms). 

In Grays Harbor, large drift logs and 
other flotsam serve as screens for gulls in 
sand habitat. However, the quality of ter- 
ritories in sand habitat in terms of screen 
extent and direction relative to neighbors 
appeared to be lower. As avian predators 
are the main predators, structure above the 


nests may be critical. Territories in sand 
habitat also tend to be larger, requiring 
more time spent on defense (Ewald et al. 
1980). 

Breeding success varied among habi- 
tats (see Fig. 2), however chick survival 
rates were less variable and were a conse- 
quence of egg survival rates. Pairs that 
defended eggs to hatching generally de- 
fended chicks to fledging regardless of 
habitat. Egg and chick mortality vary 
among habitats in gulls (Burger 1974, 
Pierotti 1982, 1987b), often directly re- 
lated to extent or distribution of vegeta- 
tion (Burger 1974, Jehl and Chase 1987). 
Rates of egg loss were extremely high at 
nests in sand habitat, where neighbor in- 
teractions and aggression were highest and 
nest attendance lowest. In the reeds, pairs 
that nested down tunnels lost few eggs. 
Pairs spent almost no time interacting with 
neighbors and a great deal of time loafing 
nearby in adjacent clearings. Pairs in reed 
habitat also initiated breeding earlier than 
in grass or sand habitats, which may con- 
tribute to greater nest success. 

Predation by congeners was the pri- 
mary cause of egg loss. While few gulls 
were egg specialists, occasional predation 
was widespread. Bald Eagles Haliaeetus 
leucocephalus are opportunistic predators 
on gull eggs, chicks and adults. We found 
evidence of eagle predation more often in 
sand and grass habitats than in reed habi- 


tat. Eagles affected breeding 
success indirectly; adult gulls 
fly up off nests en masse in 
response to eagles ("dreads"), 
creating opportunities for egg 
predation by gulls. Eagle 
abundance on the islands var- 
ied considerably. 

We regularly recorded up 
to 10 eagle observations/day, 
and we observed dreads sev- 
eral times daily. On May 23, 
we simultaneously observed 2 
adults and 5 juveniles on Sand 
Island and 2 adults and 7 ju- 
veniles on "No Name" Island. 
Egg loss due to eagle presence 
devastates breeding murres 
Vria aalge on Tatoosh Island, 
Washington (Parrish 1995) 
and cormorants Phalacroco 
rax auritis and P. pelagicus 
on Mandarte Island, British 
Columbia (Verbeek 1982) by 
creating predation opportuni- 
ties for gulls and Northwest- 
ern Crows Corvus caurinus. 
Gull breeding success due to egg loss in 
Gray's Harbor (0.03 chicks fledged/egg) 
was lower than the lowest breeding suc- 
cess reported for L glaucescens (0.10; 
Murphy et al. 1984) or L. occidentalis 
at the Farallon Islands, California (0.25 in 
the El Nino year of 1983; Penniman et al. 
1990). On these islands, selecting habitats 
that minimize egg predation undoubtedly 
increases annual and lifetime breeding 
success. 

This hybrid zone appears to be stable 
(Bell 1992). Future research will deter- 
mine if this is due to hybrid inferiority 
balanced by gene flow (dynamic equilib- 
rium), or if hybrids which may be mal- 
adapted in the parental communities may 
be relatively well-adapted in the area of 
mixed ecology (geographically bounded 
superiority) (Moore 1977). We will test 
the above hypotheses by comparing pat- 
terns of habitat choice, diet, mate and 
chick feeding regimes, incubation and 
brooding attention and territory and chick 
guarding among breeding pairs (L. occi- 
dentalism I L glaucescens, hybrids and 
combinations thereof). Gray’s Harbor 
may be unique; half of the breeding indi- 
viduals are hybrids (phenotypically inter- 
mediate). Additional study sites in the 
hybrid zone (Destruction, Tatoosh and 
Protection Islands, WA) will be investi- 
gated to test the importance of habitat 
selection and proportion of hybrid phe- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 8 


ARTICLES 


notypes over a greater geographic scale. 
References 

Bell, D. A. 1996. Genetic differen- 
tiation, geographic variation and hybridi- 
zation in gulls of the Larus glaucescens- 
occidentalis complex. Condor 98: 527- 
546. 


defense investments, and vegetation 
structure. Ecology 61: 80-87. 

Hoffman, W., J. A. Wiens, and J. M. 
Scott. 1978. Hybridization between gulls 
(L. glaucescens and L. occidentalis) in the 
Pacific Northwest. Auk 95: 441-458. 

Hunt, G. L., and M. W. Hunt. 1976. 
Gull chick growth: the significance of 


■ 


m ■ ■ 

•X) 

. . . 

.e* ■ ■ 

■ 

m ■' 

44 ■ 

. ..©■ 

M ■■ 


tiO 


:■ 

..a 

o 

•X3 

XJ 

. - iH 

4.J- ■ ■■ 

■ . .CS - ' . 

■ 

■'.o 

o 


H 


Figure 2. Breeding success of gulls as a percent of eggs laid in sand, grass and reed 
habitats on islands in Grays Harbor, Washington. "Viable" includes all but addled 
eggs. Error bars represent ISE. (*=p,0.05 by Turkey HSD test) 


Bukacinska, M., and D. Bukacinski. 
1993. The effect of habitat structure and 
density of nests on territory size and ter- 
ritorial behaviour in the Black-headed 
Gull (Larus ridibundus L.). Ethology 94: 
306-316. 

j Burger, J. 1974. Breeding adapta- 
I tions of Franklin’s Gulls (Larus pipixcan) 
I to a marsh habitat. Animal Behavior 22: 
5 521-567. 

j Ceziily, F., and P.-Y. Quenette. 1988. 
j Role des ecrans naturels attenant au nid 
I chez le Goeland Leucophee (Larus cachL 
naans michahellis). Alauda 56: 41-50. 

Davis, J. W. F., and E. K. Dunn. 
; 1976. Intraspecific predation and colonial 

breeding in Lesser Black-backed Gulls 
Lurujj^rcur. Ibis 118: 65-77. 

Ewald, P. W., G. L. Hunt, and M. 
Warner. 1980. Territory size in Western 
Gulls: importance of intrusion pressure, 


growth rates, timing of breeding and ter- 
ritory size. Ecology 57: 62-75. 

Jehl, J. R., Jr., and C. Chase, III. 
1987. Foraging patterns and prey selec- 
tion by avian predators: a comparative 
study in two colonies of California Gulls. 
Studies in Avian Biology 10: 91-101. 

Moore, W.S. 1977. An evaluation of 
narrow hybrid zones in vertebrates. 
Quarterly Review of Biology 52: 263-277. 

Morris, R. D. 1987. Time partition- 
ing of clutch and brood care activities in 
Herring Gulls: measure of parental qual- 
ity? Studies in Avian Biology 10: 68-74. 

Murphy, E. C., R. H. Day, K. L. Oak- 
ley, and A. A. Hoover. 1984. Dietary 
changes and poor reproductive perform- 
ance in Glaucous- winged Gulls. Auk 101: 
532-541. 

Panov, E. N. 1989. Natural hybridi- 
zation and ethological isolation in birds. 


Moscow, USSR: Nauka Press. 

Parrish, J. K. 1995. Altering ecologi- 
cal interactions by habitat modification: a 
restoration technique for Common Mur- 
res. Pacific Seabirds 22(1): 40. 

Patten, S. M. 1980. Interbreeding and 
evolution in the Larus glaucescens-Larus 
argentatus complex of the south coast of 
Alaska. Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins 
University, Baltimore. 

Penniman, T. M., M. C. Coulter, L. B. 
Spear, and R. J. Boekelheide. 1990. 
Western Gull. Pp. 218-244 in Seabirds of 
the Farallon Islands: Ecology, Dynamics, 
and Structure of an upwelling System 
Community, D. Ainley and R. Boekel- 
heide, eds. Stanford University Press, 
Palo Alto, California. 

Pierotti, R. J. 1981. Male and female 
parental roles in Western Gulls under dif- 
ferent environmental conditions. Auk 98: 
532-549. 

Pierotti, R. J. 1982. Habitat selection 
and its effect on reproductive output in the 
Herring Gull in Newfoundland. Ecology 
63: 854-868. 

Pierotti, R. J. 1987a. Isolating 
mechanisms in seabirds. Evolution 41: 
559-570. 

Pierotti, R. J. 1987b. Behavioral con- 
sequences of habitat selection in the Her- 
ring Gull. Studies in Avian Biology 10: 
119-128. 

Spear, L. B., and D. W. Anderson. 
1989. Nest-site selection by Yellow- 
footed Gulls. Condor 91: 91-99. 

Speich, S. M., and T. R. Wahl. 1989. 
Map Area 174: Copalis Beach, South. Pp. 
410-433 in Catalog of Washington seabird 
colonies. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
Biological Report 88(6): 1-510. 

Strang, C. A. 1977. Variation and 
distribution of Glaucous Gulls in western 
Alaska. Condor 79: 170-179. 

Verbeek, N. A. M. 1982. Egg preda- 
tion by Northwestern Crows: its associa- 
tion with human and Bald Eagle activity. 
Auk 99: 347-352. 

Vermeer, K., D. Power, and G. E. J. 
Smith. 1988. Habitat selection and nest- 
ing biology of roof-nesting Glaucous- 
winged Gulls. Colonial Waterbirds 11: 
189-201. 

Thomas P. Good, Raymond J. Pierotti 
and Julie C. Ellis, Department of System- 
atics and Ecology, University of Kansas, 
Lawrence, KS 66045 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 9 


ARTICLES 


Scavenging Behavior Of The Waved Albatross In Galapagos: A Potential Problem With 

Increasing Long-Lining? by Godfrey Merlen 


In 1994, the population of Waved Alba- 
tross Diomedea irrorata was estimated at 
15,000 breeding pairs (Anderson 1995a). 
Well over 99% of their breeding activity 
is confined to Espanola Island in the Ga- 
lapagos Archipelago. By attaching satel- 
lite transmitters to breeding birds during 
the incubation period, Anderson (1995b) 
was able to show that his sample (n=5) 
foraged over the continental shelf off 
Peru. However, the present report of a 
census carried out later in the same year 
shows that scavenging near the Galapagos 
Archipelago may also be an important part 
of Waved Albatross feeding. The pro- 
posed introduction of new fishing tech- 
niques (longlining and squid fishing) near 
the islands could result in a new conser- 
vation problem in an already beleaguered 
archipelago. 

An unpublished report by the author 
on the occurrence and feeding activities of 
the Waved Albatross suggested that the 
birds are, to a greater or lesser extent, 
scavengers when in the waters near the 
archipelago during the breeding season. 
An excellent opportunity to further these 
observations on the distribution and scav- 
enging behavior of Waved Albatross came 
when the author was asked by David Parer 
and Elizabeth Parer-Cook, of the Austra- 
lian Broadcasting Corporation, to accom- 
pany them on a reconnaissance trip to the 
western part of the archipelago, aboard the 
motor yacht Samba between 1 and 14 
September 1995 (Figure 1). We main- 
tained a dawn-to-dusk survey on nine full 
days. On the other days, the Samba was 
anchored or made short journeys. Obser- 
vations were made on these short trips 
also. The survey was carried out mainly 
by two observers (G. Merlen and D. Day), 
using 8x binoculars, but additional help 
was provided by the crew of the Samba, 
Naturalist Guide M. Garcia, and by D. 
Parer and E. Parer-Cook, There was an 
excellent observation platform in the form 
of the flying bridge 3.5m above sea level. 

During the mostly calm weather, the 
distinctive white heads and necks of the 
Waved Albatross facilitated observation 
on the sea. Higher winds caused the birds 
to soar above the horizon, which also 
aided the count in more adverse condi- 
tions. We avoided counting birds twice 
by only searching ahead of the boat. At 
any time that the boat stopped, circled, or 


made other maneuvers, the census was 
ended. 

Where large concentrations of alba- 
tross were encountered, several counts 
were made by independent observers. 
After leaving such an area, no counts were 
made for half an hour. The average speed 
of travel was 8 knots and all positions 
were plotted by GPS. 


which include tunas, sardines, jacks and 
sharks (pers. obs.). 

The development of a feeding frenzy 
seemed a fixed pattern. Dolphins found 
the food and Blue-footed Boobies fol- 
lowing overhead. Once the food was ac- 
cessible to the birds, they began to dive on 
it, Frigatebirds, which had kept up, often 
at considerable height, then descended to 


Albatross in flight were usually alone, 
although a few to many were often in the 
same area. On the water small groups (1- 
3) were common. 

By far the greatest concentrations were 
found where Blue-footed Boobies Sula 
nebouxii were or had recently been feed- 
ing. On one occasion, 389 albatross were 
closely associated with several other spe- 
cies in a feeding frenzy. Such activities 
were frequent offshore in deep water, 
when Magnificent Frigatebirds Fregata 
magnificens. Common Dolphins Del- 
phinus delphis. Blue-footed Boobies, 
Masked Boobies Sula dactylatra. Waved 
Albatross, White-vented Storm-Petrels 
Oceanites gracilis, Wedge-rumped Storm- 
Petrels Oceanodroma tethys, and Galapa- 
gos Sea Lions Zalophus californianus 
were present. Inshore (in shallower water 
or between the central islands) Bottle-nose 
Dolphins Tursiops truncatus may replace 
Common Dolphins. Feeding frenzies are 
associated with concentrations of fish. 


mob the boobies, causing them to dis- 
gorge their recently gathered fish; if this 
occurred, the fish was eaten by the 
Frigatebirds. Albatross, which were pre- 
ent in these associations, also tried to take 
advantage of the melee by moving in and 
grabbing at the disgorged food. This was 
observed on dozens of occasions. We saw 
up to four albatross around one "downed" 
booby. Albatross did not seem to mob the 
boobies initially, but appeared to depend 
on the aggression and flying ability of the 
Frigatebirds, Storm-Petrels picked up 
whatever morsels were left over. 

These feeding activities were highly 
dynamic and moved over the ocean at 
speeds of up to 3-4 knots. Some lasted for 
hours, but many broke up after 20 minutes 
or so. Prediction of such events is ex- 
tremely difficult, as the productivity of the 
region is controlled by upwellings and 
fronts between water masses, which are 
unpredictable and unstable in themselves. 
On two consecutive days we found boo- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 10 


articles 


bies and albatross in the same area to the 
south of Cape Hammond (southwest Fer- 
nandina). However, the great concentra- 
tion along the equator was ephemeral and 
not repeated over three further days of 
observation. Perhaps it was due to 
changes in oceanic conditions or perhaps 
it was because on the first day (7th Sep- 
tember) we witnessed an attack (0 09.4'N 
91 44.0’W) by 7 Orcas Orcinus orca on 
the feeding Common Dolphins. They 
killed at least one dolphin, and the small 
pieces that remained were scavenged by 
storm-petrels,, ffigatebirds and albatross. 
Albatross also scavenged a large dead 
squid (O^’ 19.9’S 91° 43.4’W), later identi- 
fied as Angistrocheirus lesevri. Large 
concentrations of albatross were always 
associated with these feeding frenzies. 

During the 24 days of observations 
(the cumulative time of the two reports), 
not a single albatross was seen feeding on 
live prey. Harris (1973) reported that the 
main food of breeding Waved Albatross 
was fish and squid. Since Blue-footed 
Boobies do not eat squid, the albatross 
must gather this themselves or gather it 
from other birds that frigatebirds attack 
such as Swallow-Tailed Gulls Creagrus 
furcatus. Some of the fish (Clupeids) 
found in albatross stomach contents in 
Harris's study could have been scavenged. 
Harris (1973) observed the interaction of 
albatross with boobies and felt that this 
behavior did not contribute greatly to their 
diet. However, the frequency with 
which we observed this albatross behavior 
leads me to believe that at least at times, 
or at certain stages of life, it may be im- 
^ portant. 

When concentrated feeding by boobies 
I and dolphins began, it seemed to act as a 
signal, sucking in other birds, including 
i albatross, from a great distance. The 
I spacing of the birds over the ocean 
! seemed such that the individuals were in 
sight of their neighbors at any particular 
i moment, although not necessarily in direct 
^ sight of all the birds in the area. The 
; movement of those nearer the fray may 
J have caused others, further away and not 
i in sight of the feeding activity, to move in 
the same direction. 

This process sometimes continued 
until very large numbers of boobies were 
present (>1000), although often the proc- 
ess broke up before such large accumula- 
tions gathered. Thus, although many 
solitary boobies and albatross were seen, 
spaced over a huge area of ocean, it was 
highly probable that they were capable of 


quickly joining various concentrated 
feeding groups. This system could be 
important, as it would allow a population 
of boobies to survey the ocean and 
quickly lake advantage of any feeding 
opportunity that occurred. The albatross, 
clued in to the reaction of the boobies or 
using their own eyesight, could take ad- 
vantage of this system, allowing them to 
scavenge more efficiently in areas where 
food was more abundant. 

Masked Boobies Sula dactylatra, the 
other common diving sea bird near the 
islands, were not a major feature of the 
feeding activity and they never repre- 
sented more than 5% of the boobies feed- 
ing. The figure was often as low as 2%. 

It is not easy to ascertain the exact 
relationship of the organisms involved in 
feeding frenzies, because, in the Galapa- 
gos, Common Dolphins are very nervous 
of the close approach of vessels. This 
may be due to the presence of purse seine 
tuna boats, which often set their nets on 
the dolphins, because tunas associate with 
them. Or perhaps any strange noise 
alarms them since their predator, the orca, 
is present year round. 

It seems that the Waved Albatross is, 
at least at some times a scavenger. From 
the duration of the observations and their 
limitation to daylight, it is not possible to 
say how important this method of feeding 
is, nor is it possible to state the importance 
of feeding frenzies, even though this 
feeding technique is extremely common. 
Should it be important, then the availabil- 
ity of food to scavenge has to be main- 
tained. This, in turn, means that the 
structure of feeding frenzies and the well 
being of all their components (fish, dol- 
phins, boobies, frigatebirds) may be of 
importance to the feeding, and, ultimately, 
to the breeding success of Waved Alba- 
tross. In this uncertain situation, it is vital 
to maintain the viability of this pelagic 
trophic system that is found in the western 
part of the Galapagos Archipelago. 

One of the reasons that the marine 
environment has remained relatively un- 
touched until the last few years is that the 
fishing fleet has been slow, local, and 
primitive in the techniques used. At pres- 
ent (1996), there is enormous pressure to 
allow local fishermen to increase the ton- 
nage of their fleet. This is in part because 
of the lure of anticipated riches in the 
ocean in the form of migratory fish, but 
also because the conservation of coastal 
marine resources requires reduced fishing 
pressure near the shoreline. A large in- 


crease in the fleet could have serious and 
unforeseen consequences for the marine 
environment, especially if strong measures 
are not taken to control fishing activities. 

One of the "new" techniques to be 
introduced is the use of longlines to har- 
vest the valuable Yellow Fin Tuna Thun- 
nus albacares and other pelagic fish in the 
waters surrounding the archipelago. As it 
is, longliners are already arriving from the 
mainland of Ecuador. The effects of 
longlining on albatross in other parts of 
the world has been catastrophic (e.g., de la 
Mare and Kerry 1994, Gales 1993.). Al- 
batross scavenge from the baited hooks as 
they enter the water. It is not known 
whether Waved Albatross will adopt the 
same habit once this food source becomes 
available to them. However, with the 
knowledge that the birds are not only 
scavengers, but also feed largely on squid 
(Harris 1973), which is a popular bait for 
longlining, it is inadvisable to ignore the 
effects that may result .from opening a 
fishery without further studies. In order to 
protect the assemblage of animals that 
may help to ensure the future of the en- 
demic Waved Albatross, an overall pro- 
tection should be given to the waters 
within the Marine Resource Reserve (15 
nautical miles seaward from the perimeter 
of the Archipelago) by prohibiting poten- 
tially dangerous fishing techniques within 
this area. This is not only for the protec- 
tion of single species, but for the well be- 
ing of the ecosystem. 

I would like to thank David Parer and 
Elizabeth Parer-Cook for giving me the 
opportunity to travel with them. Also to 
the crew of the Samba for the use of their 
keen eyes and especially to David Day. 

My appreciation is also extended to Dr. 
Mike Harris and Dr. Sarah Wanless for 
their help in preparing this manuscript. 

References 

Anderson, D. 1995a. Census of 
Waved Albatross, 1994: final report to the 
Charles Darwin Research Station, June 
19, 1995. Unpublished report, deposited 
in the Charles Darwin Research Station, 
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos. 

Anderson, D. 1995b. Ecological and 
population dynamics of Waved Albatross: 
preliminary report to the Charles Darwin 
Research Station, June 23, 1995. Unpub- 
lished report, deposited in the Charles 
Darwin Research Station, Puerto Ayora, 
Galapagos. 

Gales, R. 1993. Co-operative mecha- 
nisms for the conservation of albatross. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 1 1 


ARTICLES 


Australian Nature Conservation Agency 
and Australian Antarctic Foundation, 
Tasmanian Government Printer, Hobart. 

Hanris, M. P. 1973. The biology of 
the Waved Albatross Diomedea irrorata 


of Hood Island, Galapagos. Ibis 115; 
483-510. 

de la Mare, W. K. and K. R. Kerry. 
1994. Population dynamics of the Wan- 
dering Albatross, Diomedea exulans, on 
Macquarie Island and the effects of mor- 


tality from longline fishing. Polar Biology 
14: 231-241. 

Godfrey Merlen, Puerto Ayora, Galapa- 
gos. 11 September 1996 


Figure 1. Survey route of the yacht Samba in the western part of the Galapagos Archipelago 1-14 September 1995. Locations of ob- 
servations of Waved Albatross and of feeding concentrations are shown on survey route track. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 12 


PSG NEWS 


SEABIRD 

CONSERVATION 


The Pacific Seabird Group worked on a 
wide variety of seabird conservation is- 
sues during the past 18 months. Members 
who have information about issues that 
may benefit from PSG involvement or 
who wish to review documents and to 
assist the Conservation Committee in 
drafting PSG letters should contact me. 

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Resto- 
' ration 

I PSG's Seabird Restoration Workshop, 
i funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 
S Trustee Council, focused on the science of 
seabird restoration and was a great suc- 
cess. An international group of more than 
40 biologists, including scientists from 
Great Britain, Belgium, France, New 
1 Zealand, Japan and Canada, met in 
i autumn 1995 in Alaska. During the past 
i year, the Restoration Committee and the 
^ Conservation Committee have been 
i drafting a report to summarize practical 
advice and recommendations to guide the 
1 EVOS and other trustee councils on how 
5 best to restore seabirds iryured by oil 
i spills. We hope to release a final report in 
; early 1997. 

During the past five years, PSG has 
j sent 15 letters commenting oh restoration 
] plans and annual work plans that tl^ 

! EVOS trustee council prepared. PSG's 
conunents on the 1996 annual work plan 
^ focused on the need to provide more 
1 funding for Marbled Murrelet work, and 
^ this effort was successful. Our comments 
1 in 1995 supported projects for predator 
^ control on Seaguam Island, investigations 
j on the status of Kittlitz’ Murrelets, and 
I studies of the relationship between seabird 
i populations and forage fish. 

^ In 1995, the EVOS trustee council 
’ began a wholesale reappraisal of the list of 
' injured seabirds. For several years, the 
trustee council had spent seabird restora- 
tion funds exclusively on Common Mur- 
^ res Harlequin Ducks, Marbled Murrelets 
and Pigeon Guillemots. PSG's comments 

in 1993, 1994 and 1995 objected to this 
approach because it ignored the damage 
done to other seabirds. The EVOS Trus- 
tee Council has recently added Kitthtz’s 


Murrelets, four species of loons and three 
species of cormorants to the list of injured 
seabirds. We congratulate the trustee 
council and its staff for making this mid- 
course correction, and acknowledge that 
few public officials revisit their past deci- 
sions. 

Endangered Species 

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service 
(FWS) began steps to list the Short-tailed 
Albatross in U.S. waters when it placed 
this species on its candidate list in August. 
Curiously, current federal regulations list 
it as endangered "worldwide except 
USA." Gerald Winegrad of the American 
Bird Conservancy (ABC) has been in- 
strumental in persuading FWS to assign 
the listing process to the Alaska regional 
office instead of Portland, which should 
expedite the listing. PSG has worked with 
ABC and the Environmental Defense 
Fund to insure that FWS does not revise 
the incidental take permit for the long-line 
fishery to allow a take of more than the 
current two Short-tailed Albatrosses per 
year. 

FWS remains undecided whether to 
list the Hawaii population of Harcourt's 
Storm-Petrel Oceanodroma castro endan- 
gered, although a petition was filed six 
years ago. FWS has conducted surveys of 
this species in Hawaii. Biologists found a 
few additional areas where birds can be 
found, and located more birds than the 
1990 estimate of one hundred pairs 
(Harrison, Telfer and Sincock, Elepaio 
50:47-51). 

PSG's Executive Council in January 
1994 directed the Xantus’ Murrelet Tech- 
nical Committee to prepare the necessary 
documentation to file a petition to declare 
the Xantus' Murrelet endangered or 
threatened. During spring 1994, PSG 
informed FWS and the California De- 
partment of Fish & Game that a petition 
may be filed, and held a meeting with bi- 
ologists and agency staff to exchange in- 
formation on the status of this species. 
PSG's efforts to list the Xantus' Murrelet 
have not moved forward because Interior 
has not provided PSG with its recent in- 
formation on the status of this species. 
The Conservation Committee is consid- 
ering filing a Freedom of Information Act 
request with Interior if the pertinent in- 


formation is not made available soon. 

Albatross By-Catch in Long-Line Fish- 
eries 

In mid- 1995, PSG sent a series of 
Freedom of Information Act requests to 
the southwest regional office of National 
Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) re- 
questing government information regard- 
ing the by-catch of albatross in the bigeye 
tuna and broadbill swordfish longhne 
fisheries that operate out of Hawaii. 
NMFS had refused to provide this data to 
FWS, and anecdotal information sug- 
gested there might be a conservation 
problem. We quickly received a substan- 
tial amount of information, and our pre- 
liminary review indicated that this fishery 
poses potentially serious problems for 
Black-footed and Laysan albatross. Ap- 
parently spurred (and perhaps embar- 
rassed) by PSG's request to obtain scien- 
tific information, NMFS has recently 
analyzed its data and estimates that 3,000 
albatross were killed in each of the last 
two years by the 120 boats in Hawaii's 
longline fleet. 

Conservation Measures for Antarctic 
Fishing 

In early 1996, PSG responded to a 
request for public comment from the Divi- 
sion of Polar Affairs, U.S. State Depart- 
ment published in the Federal Register. 
PSG expressed strong support of the fish- 
ery conservation measures that were 
agreed upon at the Fourteenth Meeting of 
the Commission for the Conservation of 
Antarctic Marine Living Resources 
(CCAMLR) Convention Area in Tasma- 
nia. We noted that the proposed measures 
are similar to those endorsed at the First 
International Conference on the Biology 
and Conservation of Albatrosses. PSG 
has long supported reasonable gear re- 
strictions and area closures for long-line 
fisheries, including the closure of the wa- 
ters adjacent to seabird colonies in Hawaii 
to long-line fisheries in 1991. Long-line 
fisheries can seriously harm seabird 
populations when seabirds are impaled on 
hooks and subsequently drown. Scientific 
reports indicate that tens of thousands of 
albatrosses and petrels are killed in the 
Antarctic, especially the southern Bluefin 
Tuna long-line fishery (see Fall 1995 Pa- 


• Volume 23. Number 2 • Fall 1996 


1 a 


PSG NEWS 


cific Seabirds, page 20). According to a 
1993 study by Rosemary Gales, at least 
six albatross species have declined due to 
the long-line fisheries in this area. 

PSG suggested that the measures be 
enforced by an observer program, and 
noted that many petrel species are noctur- 
nal foragers that may die when nets are set 
at night. PSG also endorsed the concept 
of a protective limit on the catch of krill 
{Euphausia suberba), and noted that hu- 
man experience in virtually every marine 
fishery has been that catch limits are not 
considered or adopted until there has been 
a major crash in the fishery or major harm 
done to species depending on that re- 
source. 

The State Department adopted the 
proposed regulations and specifically dis- 
cussed PSG's comments in the Federal 
Register notice that announced the final 
rule. This may be the first instance of 
PSG being mentioned in a Federal Regis- 
ter notice. 

Proposed Pulu Keeling National Park, 
Australia 

In late 1995, PSG wrote to the Austra- 
lian Nature Conservation Agency in Can- 
berra to support a proposed national park 
at North Keeling Island, in the Territory 
of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This 
spring, we received a reply from the Aus- 
tralian government indicating that the park 
has been established, and thanking PSG 
for its comments. 

North Keeling is uninhabited and is 
the only island among the 27 Cocos Is- 
lands where seabirds still nest, including 
about 50,000 Red-footed Boobies, several 
thousand Greater and Lesser frigatebirds, 
as well as White Terns, Noddy Terns, 
Sooty Terns, Masked Boobies, Brown 
Boobies, White-tailed Tropicbirds, Red- 
tailed Tropicbirds and an endemic Buff 
Banded Rail. The Australian Nature Con- 
servation Agency has been working with 
the Cocos Islanders to promote a conser- 
vation ethic, and may attempt to re- 
establish seabirds on the southern, inhab- 
ited islands. 

Enforcement of Migratory Bird Treaty 
Act Offshore 

In April 1996, PSG wrote to Secretary 
of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Attorney 
General Janet Reno and Under Secretary 
of State Timothy Wirth to ask that the 
U.S. Department of the Interior enforce 
the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the 200- 
mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). 


Interior enforces this Act only to the 12- 
mile territorial sea, not the 200-mile EEZ. 
Interior's inactions are based upon several 
questionable Solicitor's opinions from the 
1980s by Don Barry, a senior FWS offi- 
cial. When the Senate ratified the USA- 
Russia Migratory Bird Treaty in 1973, the 
negotiation report for the U.S. delegation 
stated it intended to apply the treaty to the 
high seas out to 200 miles. 

Recently enforcement officers of FWS 
have been unable to prosecute intentional 
and wanton destruction of seabirds in the 
Bering Sea by U.S. fishermen because the 
activities took place beyond the 12-mile 
territorial sea, PSG has raised this issue 
every year since 1991, either to FWS or 
the Secretary of the Interior. In recent 
years, the American Ornithologists Union, 
National Audubon Society, World Wild- 
life Fund and American Bird Conservancy 
have joined PSG in urging FWS to extend 
jurisdiction over migratory birds through- 
out the EEZ. We may be making some 
progress. Apparently the Solicitor’s Of- 
fice in Interior now agrees that its legal 
opinions are wrong (even illegal), but has 
preferred to let them stand during this 
election year. Courage seems to be an 
endangered species within the Solicitor's 
Office. 

American Bird Conservancy 

Malcolm Coulter and I are PSG's 
delegates to the American Bird Conser- 
vancy, where we bring seabird issues to 
the attention of the broad ornithological 
conservation community through its Pol- 
icy Council. Independently, I serve on 
ABCs board of directors and am Secre- 
tary to the board. Gerald Winegrad (202- 
467-8349) has served as ABC’s director of 
government relations for almost a year. 
Gerald has done an outstanding job on 
many issues, including a seabird by-catch, 
banning pesticides that harm birds in Latin 
America, and predator control. Gerald 
arranged the attendance of Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Interior George Frampton at 
the April Policy Council meeting, and 
PSG chair Bill Everett used this opportu- 
nity to urge Frampton to do more fox 
control work on seabird colonies in 
Alaska. 

Other Issues 

Among the many other recent activi- 
ties of the Conservation Committee are; 
Renominating Jim King to continue on the 
Public Advisory Group to the EVOS 
Trustee Council; 


Writing a letter of support for morato- 
rium of oil leasing in Lower Cook Inlet, 
which may have influenced the decision to 
postpone the lease sale; assisting Partners 
in Flight in setting conservation priorities 
for North American seabirds; and com- 
menting on a draft eider management plan 
for the Circumpolar Seabird Group. 

Craig S. Harrison, Vice Chair for Coser- 
vation 


JAPAN SEABIRD 
CONSERVATION 


The Pacific Seabird Group's Japan Sea- 
bird Conservation Committee (JSCC) 
together with the Japan Alcid Society 
(JAS) conducted a week long survey on 
the Shiretoko Peninsula and nearby Mt. 
Mokoto in Hokkaido, Japan this summer 
to look for evidence of breeding by the 
Asiatic Marbled Murrelet (Brachyram- 
phus marmoratus perdix). Funding came 
from a grant from the Nature Conserva- 
tion Society of Japan (NACS-J). 

Up to now, the sole record of breeding 
in Japan has been a puzzling account from 
1961 of an adult attending a ground nest 
in a grassy clearing on Mt. Mokoto in 
northeastern Hokkaido (the northernmost 
of the four main islands). The adult was 
killed and confirmed to be a Marbled 
Murrelet, however it appeared to have 
been attending a clutch of not one but 
three eggs. Not surprisingly, recent ex- 
amination of the eggs has suggested that 
they were not Marbled Murrelet eggs at 
all. The PSG-JAS team, therefore, hoped 
to come back with clear evidence of 
breeding. An additional goal was to train 
people for future, more comprehensive 
surveys. 

The researchers included, from North 
America, Kim Nelson, Tom Hamer, Lora 
Leschner, Anthony Gaston, Will Wright, 
and John Fries, and from Japan, Koji Ono, 
Yoshihiro Fukuda, Kuniko Otsuki, Takeo 
Akama, Mihoko Sato, Mitsuki Matsuda, 
and Yasuhiro Kawasaki. From June 30 to 
July 7, the team conducted vegetation 
surveys, early morning watches for fly-ins, 
and interviews with local researchers and 
park staff. No solid evidence of breeding 
was gotten this time. A more detailed de- 
scription of the surveys will be included in 
the next issue of Pacific Seabirds, and a 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 14 


cc 

h 


P- 

bi 

la 

bi 

al 

tl 

P 

ir 


i p 

! SI 

! 

] c 

i a 

3 D 

J 

I p 

! V 

c 

: C 

1 f 

^ i 

^ i 

? i 

! r 

^ i 

? ^ 

i 

1 i 

i 

i ( 


I 


PSG NEWS 


complete report will be published by the 
JAS in late November. 

The Marbled Murrelet surveys were 
part of the JAS’s continuing study of the 
breeding status of Alcids in Japan begun 
last year. One product of this study has 
been the compilation of a catalogue of 
alcid breeding grounds in Japan. Although 
the current version is in Japanese, the JAS 
plans to publish future revised catalogues 
in English. 

The JAS has also created a Japanese- 
language web page in order to promote 
public understanding of and support for 
seabird conservation efforts in Japan 
(http://www2.gol.com/users/kojiono/). It 
currently registers about 20 users per day, 
and many of these have become JAS 
members via the internet. A combined 
JSCC-JAS web page in English has been 
planned for the near future. 

Evidence of the heightened interest in 
wildlife and conservation in Japan was 
clearly seen this year with the construction 
of the Haboro Seabird Information Center, 
the first of its kind in the country. Located 
in Haboro, Hokkaido, the mainland town 
in which Teuri Island (28 km offshore) is 
incorporated, it will serve as a center for 
public education, seabird research, and 
international scientific exchange in the 
field. The facility will also help promote 
^ ecotourism on Teuri Island which boasts 
eight breeding species of seabirds includ- 
ing Spectacled Guillemot and the largest 
colony of Rhinoceros Auklets in the 
world. As seen from the observation plat- 
form in the middle of the colony, the 
spectacle of over a hundred thousand 
Rhino Auklets hurtling in from the sea at 
sunset, bills laden with fish, and a force of 
thousands of Black-Tailed and Slaty- 
Backed Gulls engaged in aggressive 
kleptoparasitism dazzled those PSG mem- 
bers who attended the International Sea- 
bird Forum in Haboro this past summer. 
The center is scheduled to open next 
spring. 

Koji Ono and John Fries, 

Chiba, Japan 


SEABIRD MONITORING 


The rallying point of this Committee s 
work is the creation of a comprehensive 
database for time series data on Pacific 
seabird populations and reproductive pa- 

Pacific Seabirds 


rameters. The Committee has made sig- 
nificant strides toward realization of the 
Pacific Seabird Monitoring Database 
during the past year as a result of the 
dedicated efforts of many people. 

Through interagency agreements with 
various offices of the U.S. Fish and Wild- 
life Service and National Park Service, the 
National Biological Service (recently rea- 
ligned as the Biological Resources Divi- 
sion of the U.S. Geological Survey) has 
funded the work required to collate, edit, 
and key-enter cumulative data Ifom a 
number of important seabird monitoring 
projects in North America and the Ha- 
waiian Islands. The NBS (BRD) has also 
entered into a cooperative agreement with 
PSG to manage contracts for data entry by 
non-governmental cooperators. At the 
present time, agency cooperators (and 
principal contacts) include the Alaska 
Maritime National Wildlife Refuge 
(Vernon Byrd), Alaska Peninsula National 
Wildlife Refuge (Donna Dewhurst), To- 
giak National Wildlife Refuge (Lisa 
Haggblom), Alaska Migratory Bird Man- 
agement Office (David Irons), Oregon Scott A. Hatch 
Coastal National Wildlife Refuges (Roy — 

Lowe), Channel Islands National Park 
(Paige Martin), and the Hawaiian and 
Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuges 
(Beth Flint). Through the PSG-BRD Co- 
operative Agreement, we are presently 
working with Point Reyes Bird Observa- 
tory (Bill Sydeman) and Simon Fraser 
University (Doug Bertram). 1 would also 
note that others, especially Tony Gaston 
(Queen Charlotte Islands) and Yutaka 
Watanuki (Teuri Island in northern Ja- 
pan), have made significant contributions 
of data in the absence of any financial 
support. 

I would especially like to acknowledge 
the heroic efforts of Charia Sterne, whom 
I was fortunate enough to employ a little 
over a year ago, and who has since been 
working full-time on this project. Most of 
our progress on the managerial and proj- 
ect development side this year is attribut- 
able to her. Charia has developed a PC- 
based data-entry application using Micro- 
soft Access and extensive original docu- 
mentation for its use. She distributes 
these products to cooperators and has es- 
tablished herself as a sort of single-handed 
support network. I personally do not see 
how the Committee could hope to achieve 
its ambitious goals without someone of 
Charla’s capability and initiative dedi- 
cated to the task. As we move along, 

Charia increasingly will be able to focus 

Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 15 


on development of software tools for 
query, analysis, and presentation of time 
series data. 

This project is well-funded by the 
BRD again this fiscal year, and while the 
Seabird Monitoring Committee has previ- 
ously identified some priorities for data 
entry, I encourage anyone with suitable 
monitoring data to contact me, Charia, or 
any Committee member regarding your 
need for support and proposed schedule 
for getting data into the system. We con- 
tinue to offer protection against improper 
or preemptive use of your data by others. 
No data have yet been publicly released, 
and none will be until contributors are 
satisfied with policies the Committee is 
developing for ethical use of the database. 

I believe I speak for all our current 
cooperators, as well as everyone on the 
Committee, in saying that the more in- 
volved one becomes in this project, the 
more one realizes how valuable and long- 
overdue the effort to collate seabird 
monitoring data on a large scale really is. 


MARBLED MURRELET 
CONSERVATION 


As your new Marbled Murrelet Tech- 
nical Committee (MMTC) Technical Co- 
ordinator I would like to invite you to 
participate in the many activities and sub- 
committees that MMTC has organized. 
My goal is to facilitate communication 
between the various researchers and land 
managers involved in our activities, and 
promote participation by all groups and 
individuals in this process. Over the past 
six years the Pacific Seabird Group and 
the MMTC has been a leader in helping 
resolve difficult conservation issues asso- 
ciated with the Murrelet. I hope we can 
be just as active over the next two years. I 
would like to thank Nancy Naslund, our 
coordinator for the past two years, for her 
efforts and contributions to the MMTC. 

Communications 

Several letters regarding important 
conservation issues associated with the 
breeding habitat of the Marbled Murrelet 
were drafted and sent to appropriate agen- 
cies and individuals. These communica- 
tions are summarized below. 

3/13/96 - A letter was sent to Bill 


PSG NEWS 


Clmton, (President of the United 
States),Kathleen McGinty (director of the 
President’s Council on Environmental 
Quality), Dan Glickman (Secretary of the 
U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture), Bruce Babbitt 
(Secretary of the U.S. Dept. Of Interior), 
Jack Ward Thomas (Chief of the U.S. 
Forest Service), and Michael Spear 
(Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service) outlining the Executive Council’s 
concern about the effects of the Federal 
Salvage legislation (HR 1944 [P.L. 104- 
19]) on the survival and recovery of the 
Marbled Murrelet. Because the legisla- 
tion allowed the harvesting of green trees 
as well as other damaged trees it could 
have a significant impact on Marbled 
Murrelet populations. We indicated our 
support of attempts by the USES to pro- 
vide timber sale purchasers alternate tim- 
ber volume located outside of these 
known breeding areas. 

4/17/96 - A letter was sent to Jack 
Ward Thomas (Chief of the U.S. Forest 
Service) concerning the affects of the 
Federal Salvage Legislation on the sur- 
vival and recovery of the Marbled Mur- 
relet. We voiced our support of locating 
alternate timber volume outside of breed- 
ing areas and providing this volume to 
timber purchasers. We also made a re- 
quest that any substitute volume be taken 
from areas that are unsuitable habitat for 
Marbled Murrelets, and to do so in a way 
that minimized the impacts to larger con- 
tiguous stands of suitable habitat. 

4/23/96 - A letter updating several 
aspects of the Pacific Seabird Group Mar- 
bled Murrelet Survey Protocol was sent to 
all interested parties. The letter clarified 
some aspects of Murrelet behavior such as 
circling, talked about the annual variabil- 
ity in detecting birds, and reviewed sev- 
eral aspects of using tree climbing tech- 
niques to locate nest sites. 

4/22/96 - Several members of the Pa- 
cific Seabird Group Executive Council 
and MMTC coordinators responded to a 
subpoena from the Scott Timber Company 
by providing documents related to 
MMTC activities over the last 10 years 
(1986-1996). These documents included 
communications, meeting agendas and 
notes, workshops or symposia agendas or 
notes, membership lists, names of com- 
mittee coordinators, and back issues of the 
Pacific Seabird Group Bulletin. The sub- 
poena was concerning a lawsuit filed by 
Scott against the U.S. Forest Service over 
some timber sale contracts. 

7/15/96 - A letter was sent to Michael 


Spear (Director of the USFWS) that pro- 
vided information to assist land managers 
in making accurate habitat suitability as- 
sessments to determine whether a stand 
should be surveyed for Marbled Mur- 
relets. Concern was expressed about the 
potential loss of occupied sites across the 
range of the Murrelet because of inaccu- 
rate habitat assessments. General recom- 
mendations were made about how to con- 
duct these habitat assessments and we 
suggested that the MMTC may draft some 
guidelines outlining a standard methodol- 
ogy that could be used to help land man- 
agers make these determinations. 

7/31/96 - A letter was sent to Ms. 
Molly McCammon (Executive Director of 
the Exxon Valdez Oil spill Trustee Coun- 
cil) approving the efforts to investigate 
forage fish within the spill zone and sup- 
porting funding of research on the Mar- 
bled Murrelet. Funding that had been 
provided to Murrelet research was in 
jeopardy for FY97. 

8/14/96 - A letter was sent to Dan 
Glickman (Secretary of Agriculture) and 
Bruce Babbitt (Secretary of Interior) con- 
cerning the definition of "nesting" within 
the Federal Salvage Legislation. We sup- 
ported the idea that occupied behaviors of 
Marbled Murrelets are strong indicators of 
actual nesting and that many occupied 
sites do not contain any known nests be- 
cause of the difficulty of locating nests 
and lack of effort. We recommended that 
they classify occupied Marbled Murrelet 
stands as nesting areas. 

Workshops 

A workshop designed to examine the 
statistical aspects of surveying and sam- 
pling populations of Marbled Murrelets in 
the marine environment was sponsored by 
the Pacific Seabird Group, U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, and USFS Redwood 
Sciences Laboratory. The Workshop was 
held on November 4-6th in Portland, Ore- 
gon and was attended by over 40 re- 
searchers and land managers. A stan- 
dardized marine survey protocol for Mar- 
bled Murrelets is one product that may be 
produced by the workshop along with 
clarifications and guidance concerning the 
statistical and analytical methods that can 
be used to analyze marine survey data. A 
publication reviewing the presentations 
and results of the workshop may be pub- 
lished by the Pacific Seabird Group. 

Protocols 

A letter clarifying some aspects of the 


PSG Marbled Murrelet Inland Survey 
Protocol was sent out by the editors of the 
protocol on 4/23/96. 

A draft protocol outlining standard 
methods and approaches for gathering 
data on the forest structural characteristics 
of Marbled Murrelet habitat is planned to 
be available at the January 1996 meeting 
for review. The protocol is being drafted 
by Danielle Prenzlow, Thomas Hamer and 
Kim Nelson. 

A marine survey protocol is being 
drafted by Sherri Miller and other sub- 
committee members to help marine re- 
searchers standardize marine survey 
methodologies for Marbled Murrelets. 

International Conservation Activities 

Several members of the Pacific Sea- 
bird Group (Kim Nelson,' Thomas Hamer, 
John Fries, Will Wright, Laura Leschner, 
Tony Gaston) traveled to Japan in June to 
assist and train Japanese researchers of the 
Japanese Alcid Society in conducting in- 
land surveys for the Long-Billed Murrelet 
(Brachyrampus marmoratus perdix) on 
the Island of Hokkaido. No birds were 
detected but surveys (and other research) 
will likely continue in 1977. These mem- 
bers also attended a seabird workshop in 
Haboro-Cho and visited a seabird research 
center on Teuri Island. 

Marbled Murrelet Recovery Team - 
U.S. 

The USFWS Marbled Murrelet Re- 
covery Team met for three days in Octo- 
ber of 1996 to put finishing touches on the 
final Marbled Murrelet recovery Plan. 

The Draft Recovery Plan was devel- 
oped over the last two years by the Re- 
covery Team and Agency/State consult- 
ants appointed by the USFWS Regional 
Director. A final plan is expected to be 
completed this winter. 

Tom Hamer 


PACIFIC SEABIRD 
GROUP PUBLICATIONS 


The Publications Committee general 
functions to support, encourage and pro- 
vide guidance to publication projects. 
Other than Pacific Seabirds, PSG publica- 
tions include Symposia and Technical 
Publications. 

At present there are two Symposia in 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 23, Number 2 » Fall 1996 ® Page 16 


jiref 

jprin 

first 


jiora 

ledit 

jsen. 

|ioos 

-jfliar 

joni 

jDuf 

|ine£ 


;0il 

^edil 

land 


jfor 

Pub 

;Tec 

icatt 

iWa 


iseal 

4 


Ipar 

|res] 

jstei 

leve 


jdisl 

Icat 

Isea 

iThi 


pe 

i 


I 


P 

jF< 


iser 

jpli 

;Sig 
I vat 

bet 

in^ 

In 

of 

aw 

ere 


J 


PSG NEWS 


^preparation, one near submission for 
Sprinting and the other in formation. The 
Ifirst, already seen as a symposium at the 
llasi annual meeting deals with the behav- 
ioral ecology of sea ducks and is being 
lediied by Ian Goudie and Maraget Perer- 
sen. The topic of the second concerns, 

; loosely, twenty-five years of change in 
imarine bird populations and their envi- 
Ironment, and is being organized by David 
iouffy for a symposium at the 25th annual 
j meeting and eventual publication. 

^ A draft manuscript, the Exxon Valdez 
I Oil Spill Seabird Restoration Workshop, 
jedited by Ken Warheit, Craig Harrison 
land George Divoky, has been submitted 
ifor publication as the first PSG Technical 
Publication. Other discussed potential 
Technical Publications include seabird 
jcalalogs for California, Oregon and 
IWashington, catalogs of photographs of 
I seabird colonies, regional marine bird 
faunal works, and marine bird databases. 

I The committee has discussed and is 
I about to circulate draft guidelines, pre- 
jjpared by George Divoky, that set out the 
(responsibilities and requirements for all 
1 steps from the inception to holding, and 
leventual publishing, of PSG Symposia, 
j There is agreement that the process 
pleading to all PSG publications must in- 
iclude peer review and that all PSG proto- 
icols should thus appear as PSG Technical 
^Publications. 

i The use of multimedia formats for 
^publications is being discussed. Compact 
disks seem ideally suited for publishing 
catalogs of seabird colony photographs, 
Seabird colony catalogs and databases. 
Ilhis format allows for easy application to 
jweb pages. 

Steven M. Speich 


JPSG AWARDS - CALL 

Ifor nominations 


^ Several years ago PSG instituted a 
kries of awards to recognize the accom- 
iplishments of individuals who have made 
significant contributions to either conser- 
vation, science, or education regarding 
seabirds, or who have made an outstand- 
ing contribution to the success of the PSG. 
In order to provide structure to the process 
of selecting worthy individuals to receive 
awards, in Victoria the Executive Council 
created the Awards Committee, consisting 


of the Chair-elect, the current Chair, and 
past Chair, to solicit and review nomina- 
tions. The Past Chair coordinates this 
committee. The committee will make 
recommendations to the full Executive 
Council, who will in turn vote on awards 
to be presented at future meetings. There 
is no mandate to present these awards at 
every meeting. 

The Awards Committee would like to 
receive nominations as appropriate, in two 
categories; Lifetime Achievement and 
Special Achievement. To nominate a 
candidate, please prepare and submit a 
brief statement of the individual’s accom- 
plishments and contributions to Mark 
Rauzon (see last page of this volume for 
address). If the nomination you submit is 
accepted, you should be prepared to con- 
duct a short presentation on the individual 
at a PSG meeting, and write a summary 
for Pacific Seabirds. The deadline for 
submissions for awards to be presented at 
the 25th Annual PSG Meeting in January 
of 1998 is December 1996. 


TENYO MARU 
RESTORATION PLAN 


The draft Tenyo Maru Oil Spill Resto- 
ration Plan will be completed in late fall 
of 1996 and will hopefully be available 
for public review in December 1996. The 
PSG Restoration Committee will meet in 
Portland during the annual PSG meeting 
in January and will discuss the restoration 
plan. Contact Ken Warheit for informa- 
tion on meeting time and place. 


PACIFIC SEABIRDS 
SUBMISSION DEADLINE 


The deadline for submitting materials to 
be included in the next issue of Pacific 
Seabirds is March 15, 1997. All material, 
except those relating to conservation is- 
sues, should be sent to The Editor. Con- 
servation related material should be sent 
to the Vice-Chair for Conservation, the 
Associate Editor for Conservation. Gen- 
eral news items of interest to the member- 
ship for placement in the Bulletin Board 
and PSG News are always welcome. 
Please contact the editors of Pacific Sea- 
birds for formatting instructions prior to 


submitting items. 

The editors of Pacific Seabirds are 
particularly interested in receiving short 
technical notes and longer review articles 
relating to seabirds and their environment. 
Submitted articles will be sent out for peer 
review before their potential acceptance 
for publication in Pacific Seabirds. 
Manuscripts may be submitted at any 
time. 


PSG WEB SITE 


Thanks to the coordinating efforts of 
Craig Harrison, and Robert B. Hole, Jr. of 
New Mexico State University, the Pacific 
Seabird Group now has a web site: 

<tp ://w w w.nmnh . si . ed u/BIRDNET/P acB ir 
ds/>. Please visit the site and bring your 
comments and suggestions to the Execu- 
tive Council meeting for discussion. The 
Publication Committee is looking for an 
individual who can take the responsibility 
for maintaining the site for the PSG. 


EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 
MEETING OPEN TO 
MEMBERS 


Everyone is welcome to participate in 
Executive Council meetings, which take 
place during our annual meeting (this year 
on January 8 from 13:00-17:00 and Janu- 
ary 11 from 13:30-14:00). If you have a 
special interest in the workings of the PSG 
or wish to become a future member of the 
Executive Council we recommend you 
attend all Executive Council meetings. 


CALL FOR EXECUTIVE 

COUNCIL 

NOMINATIONS 


Nomination of potential candidates to 
serve on the PSG executive Council, 
starting after the 1988 annual meeting, are 
now being accepted by the Elections 
Committee. The availability and interest 
of potential nominees should be deter- 
mined prior to their nomination. Contact 
the Elections Committee for details and 
list of positions that will be available. 


Slpnhirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 


PSG NEWS 


1997 ANNUAL MEETING IN PORTLAND, OREGON 


The 1997 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird 
Group will be held at the Marriott Hotel in downtown 
Portland, the Rose City, from 8-12 January 1997. The 
meeting will include plenary and special paper ses- 
sions that focus on the health and ecology of the near- 
shore ecosystem (tentative title). A meeting an- 
nouncement, with registration materials and a call for 
papers, will be mailed in early September 1996. 
Deadlines for abstracts and registration will be 1 Oc- 
tober and 1 November 1996, respectively. 


If you have any questions please contact: 

Local Committee Chairs: 

Dave Renwald, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 91 1 NE 1 1th 
Ave., Portland, OR 97232 or Martin Nugent, Oregon 
Department of Fish and Wildlife, P.O. Box 59, Port- 
land, OR 97207. 

Registration Chair: 

Tara Zimmerman, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 91 1 
NE 1 1th Ave., Portland, OR 97232. 

Program Chair: 

5. Kim Nelson, Oregon State University, Department 
of Fisheries and Wildlife, 104 Nash Hall, Corvallis 
OR 97331. 


Daily Schedule 


Wednesday 8 January 

Preconference meetings - open to everyone 
Executive Council 

Marbled Murrelet Technical Committee 
Seabird Monitoring 
Other committees 
Welcome reception in evening 

Thursday 9 January 

Plenary session morning 
Paper sessions afternoon 
Evening reception 

Friday 10 January 

Paper sessions morning and afternoon 
Poster session evening 

Saturday 11 January 

Paper sessions morning 
Committee meetings in afternoon 
Executive Council 
Conservation Committee 
Other committees 
Business meeting 
Evening banquet 

Sunday 12 January 

Field trips morning and afternoon 


5ecWr* • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996»Page 18 


iB 


’W 


W! 

) 

.j 

jWa 
land 
jnet; 
|cha 
^cha 
Igea 
.jbyc 
Isigi 
3 Mo 

kill 

jfeei 

|twi: 

^laco 

jnet: 

I fisl 

3nq 

lAu, 

leye 

jtrai 

vat 

inU 

of 

|ch£ 

jgle 

gle 

Jtim 

pie 

rep 

pe: 

^ me 

qu> 

:pai 

ifbc 
j nal 
' vid 
■ Sei 
:PT( 

; gal 
; cal 
nel 
ou 
ini 
ch: 
me 
ey. 
mi 

W 

ini 


REPORTS REGIONAL 


Washington and Oregon 


Washington 

Washington Sea Grant, University of 
Washington, continues to compare seabird 
and salmon catch rates in modified gill- 
nets and across times of day (morning 
I change of light, daytime and evening 
; change of light) in an attempt to develop 
■ gears and techniques that reduce seabird 
bycatch is salmon drift gillnets without 
; significantly reducing salmon catch, 
i Modified gear included monofilament 
j gillnets with the upper seven feet or 15 
: feet of gillnet replaced with highly visible 
•twine and traditional nets equipped with 
! acoustic alerts or pingers. Experimental 
inets and traditional nets (control) were 
i fished in the San Juan Islands area of 
North Puget Sound from 28 July to 29 
^ August 1996 targeting Fraser River sock- 
^ eye salmon. Data set includes seabird 
transects at established locations, obser- 
^ vations of seabird and marine mammal 
' interactions with the gillnets during each 
j of 668 sets, necropsies and food habit 
^ characterization of all 344 seabirds entan- 
gled in the fishery, as well as, bird entan- 
glements and fish catch by gear type and 
; lime of day. Databases are mostly com- 
plete, analyses are in progress, and a final 
report will be published in March 1997. 

: Results will be presented at the PSG 
meeting in January. 

Ed Melvin is the PI, Loveday Con- 
quest is the Co-PI doing statistical com- 
parisons using GLIM techniques, and 
Monique Wilson is doing necropsies and 
food habit characterizations and coordi- 
nated observer activities. Funding is pro- 
^ vided by the National Marine Fisheries 
Service and the Washington Sea Grant 
Program. In addition, Tim Brown is 
gathering and synthesizing seabird by- 
catch literature focusing on coastal gill 
nets and longlines for publication in vari- 
ous forms and Chris Thompson, Wash- 
ington Department of Fish and Wildlife, is 
characterizing the molt patterns of Com- 
mon Murres entangled in the 1996 sock- 
eye fishery in an effort to understand their 
migration pattern into Puget Sound. 

Joe Galusha and Jim Hayward of 
Walla Walla College continue to study the 
influence of Bald Eagle movements over 


the Glaucous-winged Gull colony on Pro- 
tection Island, Jefferson County, WA. 
The maximum number of eagles using this 
island for feeding and roosting has in- 
creased from 8 to 19 in the last four years. 
The eagles spend most of their time on 
logs at the high tide line or on the shingle 
beach during lower tides. The presence of 
dead seal pups and placental afterbirth 
seem to be the primary attractors. 

Though the gulls continue to respond 
frantically to each eagle flight over the 
colony, few adult gulls or chicks have 
been taken. It is not clear if these distur- 
bances have affected the breeding behav- 
ior and success of these and other seabirds 
(Pelagic and Double-crested cormorants. 
Pigeon Guillemots) using this island. 
Further work will focus on diurnal pat- 
terns of eagle and seabird use of various 
parts of the island. 

Martin G.Raphael and Diane Evans 
of the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific North- 
west Research Station collaborated on 5 
Marbled Murrelet studies in 1996. They 
completed the third year of at-sea surveys 
during the breeding season in the San Juan 
Islands. Their objectives were to refine 
existing protocols for such surveys, de- 
termine distribution and abundance, and 
estimate productivity based on the ratio of 
juvenile birds in the population. They are 
especially interested in whether 
pre-breeding and post-breeding estimates 
of density can be used to infer reproduc- 
tive success. Preliminary estimates sug- 
gest that fewer murrelets were detected 
around the islands than previous years; 
data on juvenile ratios are not yet avail- 
able. They conduct this on-going study 
with the Pacific Southwest Research Sta- 
tion, National Council for Air and Stream 
Improvement, and Sustainable Ecosystems 
Institute. 

For the second year, they joined with 
the Quilcene Ranger District of the Olym- 
pic National Forest to evaluate Marbled 
Murrelet habitat characteristics at the 
stand and watershed levels. Inland dav/n 
surveys were conducted following PSG 
protocol in three watersheds, each varying 
in level of fragmentation. Habitat attrib- 
utes were measured at occupied and unoc- 
cupied sites. GIS analysis is now under- 
way to correlate habitat structure, land- 
scape pattern, and occupancy. 


Also for the second year, Martin and 
Diane collaborated on a study of the risk 
of Marbled Murrelet nests to predation. 
Sustainable Ecosystems Institute and the 
Lab., in cooperation with the Washington 
Department of Natural Resources, Ray- 
onier Timber Co., the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, and National Council on 
Air and Stream Improvement, are investi- 
gating how the numbers of potential 
predators change with forest stand struc- 
ture and forest fragmentation, and how the 
risk of murrelet nests to these predators 
increases or decreases under different 
forest conditions. Fifty one corvids were 
radio-tagged and monitored, and 168 arti- 
ficial nests were each followed for 30 days 
on the west side of the Olympic Peninsula. 
Preliminary results suggest that the inter- 
relationship between forest patterns and 
human activity may be the biggest influ- 
ence on predation risk. Even a large for- 
est stand may not buffer a nest from the 
intrusion of predators associated with a 
campground, whereas if the human influ- 
ence is removed, risk of predation may 
decrease with more contiguous forest. 

Martin and Diane initiated two new 
pilot studies in 1996. The first pilot study 
intended to use radio-telemetered mur- 
relets to investigate inland habitat use and 
the correlation of foraging and resting 
areas in Hood Canal with habitat distribu- 
tion on adjacent Olympic National Forest 
lands. Capture efforts with net guns dur- 
ing the day and dip nets at night were un- 
successful. When compared to other 
capture projects using the same tech- 
niques, their results suggest that density of 
birds and possibly time of year influence 
capture success. They collaborated on a 
subsequent (post-breeding) capture effort 
in the San Juan Islands with much greater 
success (12 captures using dip nets at 
night). They will attempt to use the same 
technique next ye^ during the breeding 
season. The National Council on Air and 
Stream Improvement and Sustainable 
Ecosystems Institute are cooperators on 
this study. Their second new pilot study 
was conducted in collaboration with 
Brian Cooper of Alaska Biological Re- 
search, Inc., which investigated the feasi- 
bility of using radar to obtain an index of 
abundance for Marbled Murrelets at four 
drainages in the northeastern Olympic 


cific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 19 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


Peninsula. Brian Cooper also began 
work with Paul Henson of the USFWS 
on a study testing die use of radar for 
population monitoring of Marbled Mur- 
relets in Oregon. Initial results of these 
pilot radar studies suggest that radar is a 
valuable tool for obtaining indices of 
abundance of Marbled Murrelets on a 
watershed scale and that radar techniques 
show promise as a long-term monitoring 
tool. Specifically, radar data suggest that 
the audio-visual technique is not suitable 
for estimating numbers of murrelets flying 
up and down drainages: 50 times more 
birds Were detected on radar than 
audio-visually. Further, it appears that 
murrelets in Olympic Peninsula drainages 
were flying into nesting stands in substan- 
tial numbers before standard protocol sur- 
veys began: a consistent peak in in- 
land-bound movements occurred -40-80 
min before sunrise, followed by a seaward 
exodus that ended ~1 h after sunrise. In 
Oregon, however, preliminary data indi- 
cate that inland-bound movements oc- 
curred later than at the Olympic Penin- 
sula. Radar counts of murrelets increased 
steadily during the summer, with mean 
counts nearly tripling between May and 
July. Within a month, day-to-day varia- 
tion in radar counts was relatively low 
(CV = 14-29%). 

Kenneth Warheit has been working 
with Mary Mahaffy (USFWS) and 
Denise Daley (Makah Tribe) in designing 
and drafting the Restoration Plan for the 
Tenyo Mam Oil Spill. This restoration 
plan will focus primarily on seabird resto- 
ration activities (mostly Common Murre 
and Marbled Murrelet) in Washington and 
Oregon, and secondarily on kelp restora- 
tion in Washington. Ken has received a 
grant to work on Common Murre popula- 
tion genetics in British Columbia, Wash- 
ington, and Oregon, in an attempt to de- 
lineate population boundaries and to bet- 
ter assess population-level effects result- 
ing from anthropogenetic activities such 
as oil spills and gillnet bycatch mortality. 
Ken will also incorporate the genetic 
analysis with morphometric analyses pre- 
viously conducted to address several 
evolutionary biology questions. 

Jean Takekawa of Nisqually National 
Wildlife Refuge (NWR) Complex, is 
working with Refuge staff to complete a 
public use plan and environmental as- 
sessment at Dungeness NWR. The draft 
was released this past summer and de- 
scribed reduced public use areas and types 
of uses to better protect a variety of mi- 


gratory birds, including seabirds. The 
final plan/EA will be completed this fall. 
Jean assisted Louise Vicencio, biologist 
at Nisqually NWR, in conducting annual, 
breeding seabird surveys at San Juan Is- 
lands NWR. Ulrich Wilson, Washington 
Coastal Refuges Office, continued to con- 
duct long-term monitoring of seabirds. 
Bald Eagles, and Peregrine Falcons. 

Oregon 

In 1996, Thomas Hamer worked on 
developing a Predictive Model of Habitat 
Suitability for the Marbled Murrelet and 
Habitat Rating Strategy for the Elliott 
State Forest. The goal of this research 
conducted by Hamer Environmental was 
to determine the forest characteristics that 
could predict site occupancy by Marbled 
Murrelets on the Elliott State Forest in 
southwestern Oregon. In 1995, a Habitat 
Conservation Plan (HCP) for the Marbled 
Murrelet and Northern Spotted Owl was 
completed by the Oregon Department of 
Forestry (ODF) and the USFWS for the 
Elliott State Forest. The HCP included a 
landscape level plan with a 60 year inci- 
dental take permit for the spotted owl and 
a six year permit for the take of potential 
Marbled Murrelet nesting habitat. The 
plan conserved Marbled Munelet nesting 
habitat through a system of long rotation 
basins, reserve areas, protection of all 
known occupied sites, and a system of 
riparian management zones During the 
six year HCP time frame, 2,380 acres of 
unsurveyed potential nesting habitat are 
planned for harvest, using a habitat rating 
procedure to minimize risk of harvesting 
occupied habitat. The purpose of predic- 
tive habitat model was to use forest char- 
acteristics proven to be important to Mar- 
bled Murrelets to predict occupancy and 
assess the suitability of a stand as nesting 
habitat. The results of this rating system 
placed a stand of potential habitat into 
one of three categories: 1) low; 2) medium 
or; 3) high probability of occupancy. 
Timber harvest within a basin would then 
be allocated to the lowest quality habitat 
present to minimize take. 

A line transect method was developed 
to sample the habitat that allowed biolo- 
gists to uniformly sample every acre of a 
stand in a unbiased manner and was likely 
not to miss sampling small inclusive 
patches of suitable habitat. Forty-one 
forest variables were measured at a sam- 
ple of 21 occupied and 21 unoccupied 
stands. Data from occupied and unoccu- 
pied stands were analyzed using a t-test 


for independent samples, forward stepwise 
logistic regression procedures, and a cross 
validation technique that allowed testing 
the results of the model on an independent 
sample of stands. 

Results of the t-test showed eleven 
habitat variables were significantly differ- 
ent at p. 0.05 and seven variables were 
significantly different at p. 0.01. These 
variables included the availability of po- 
tential nesting platforms (five variables), 
the density of conifer trees with platforms 
(four variables), percent moss cover and 
moss depth on the surface of tree limbs 
(five variables), average percent slope, 
and the presence of multiple canopy layers 
(two variables). The most significant tests 
were associated with variables that meas- 
ured platform density, moss cover and 
moss depth. 

Logistic regression was used to test if 
one or more forest variables would accu- 
rately predict stand occupancy. Unlike 
the t-test approach, logistic regression was 
able to examine interactions between vari- 
ables and thus was to predict which com- 
bination of variables would best predict 
occupancy of a stand by murrelets. The 
two variables in the model positively re- 
lated to occupancy included the density of 
5 inch diameter platforms (large limbs) 
and percent slope. Moss depth or moss 
cover variables were likely not included in 
the model, even though they were impor- 
tant variables from results of the t-test, 
because platform diameters and counts are 
made with the moss cover included in the 
estimate of diameter. Thus platform 
counts take into account the presence and 
depth of moss on the tree limbs. One 
hundred percent of the stands with low 
probabilities of occupancy (<.25) were 
correctly predicted to be unoccupied by 
this model. Prediction accuracy for stands 
with a high probability of occupancy 
(>.75) were good with 82% correctly pre- 
dicted to be occupied. In addition, the 
model had consistent high predictability 
after cross validation procedures were 
conducted. Under cross validation, 80% 
of the stands were correctly predicted to 
be unoccupied for low probability stands 
(<-25) and 80% were correctly predicted 
to be occupied for stands with a high 
probability of occupancy (>.75). 

The study produced a habitat model 
that could predict occupancy of a stand by 
murrelets and a habitat rating strategy for 
the Elliott State Forest HCP that had high 
accuracy, was reliable, and could be used 
to minimize the take of potential breeding 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 ® Page 20 


sii 

se 

oc 

th 

St; 

m 

cc 


w 

se 

cl 

re 

n: 

tc 

(s 

ir 

h. 

o: 

V 

tr 

ii 

d 

SI 

ii 

a 

h 

£ 

ti 

P 

n 

V 

f 

r 

c 

t 

r 


1 

1 

1 

1 

I 

] 

( 

I 


B- ^ ^ B' SUB ^ B 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


sites. With the new model results, an as- 
sessment of the amount of potential take 
occurring from the activities proposed in 
the HCP was possible. In addition, a 
standardized, repeatable, and reliable field 
method of measuring the variable habitat 
conditions on the Elliott was developed 
that could be used to rate future stands. 

The study produced information on the 
forest characteristics associated with Mar- 
bled Murrelet breeding habitat in the Ore- 
gon Coast Range that could be used for 
future management direction and led to an 
increased understanding of murrelet nest- 
ing ecology. 

S. Kim Nelson and Amanda Hub- 
bard continued to conduct research on 
Marbled Murrelet Habitat Associations on 
the Elliott and Tillamook State Forests in 
western Oregon in 1996. This was the 
second year of a 5-year project. Tree 
climbing was again used to locate mur- 
relet nests in occupied habitat. Four old 
murrelet nests were located, bringing the 
total to 1 8 nests on these two state forests 
(state total is 45). Two of the nests were 
in Douglas-fir trees and two in western 
hemlock trees. One nest was in an 
old-growth forest, two in mature forests 
with remnant old-growth trees or hemlock 
trees with mistletoe deformations, and one 
in a young stand (about 66 years old) 
dominated by red alder. In the this young 
stand, individual and patches of mistletoe 
infested hemlock trees remained after fire 
and logging providing suitable nesting 
locations. 

An additional old nest was found on 
BLM lands (Coos District) by climbing 
trees in an old-growth forest that was pro- 
posed for use in a fish habitat improve- 
ment project. No active murrelet nests 
were found in Oregon this summer for the 
first time since 1990. 

Detections of murrelets appeared to be 
very low on these forests and throughout 
much of Oregon. Even some known oc- 
cupied sites had no detections. Perhaps 
the warm water and changes in ocean cur- 
rents had an impact on food availability 
and thus nesting attempts this breeding 
season. 

A one year cooperative study with 
Paul Henson of the USFWS, Thomas 
Hamer of Hamer Environmental, and 
Kim Nelson of Oregon State University, 
will be conducted in the spring and sum- 
mer of 1997 to determine if Marbled 
Murrlets are negatively affected by human 
disturbance. Other cooperators include 
the USFS, BLM, private industry, and 

Pacific Seabirds 


state forestry and wildlife agencies in 
Washington, Oregon and California. It is 
hypothesized that murrlets, like many 
other seabirds, may be sensitive to 
noise-generating activities such as timber 
harvest and road repair, but there is no 
formal research on this issue specific to 
marbled murrelets. The following ques- 
tions will be answered: 1) are nesting mur- 
relets responsive to proximal human ac- 
tivities that generate aural or visual stim- 
uli, such as chainsaw usage, operation of 
heavy equipment, and road repair?, 2) 
what is the nature of the behavioral re- 
sponse to the stimulus, and is there a po- 
tential mechanism for adverse affect (such 
as abandonment of eggs and young)?, and 
3) how should current management stan- 
dards be adjusted in response to these 
findings? 

The research study will attempt to 
locate up to six active murrelet nests from 
efforts of the intensive tree climbing re- 
search projects described previously and 
other ongoing survey efforts. Baseline 
behavioral information will be collected at 
each nest and then a regime of experi- 
mental disturbances applied to each nest. 

In general, nests will be disturbed up to 
three times each week through the course 
of the nesting season. Depending on re- 
sults, this information may be used to re- 
fine current management practices. 

Colin Dillingham continued inland 
surveys for Marbled Murrelets this past 
season. The Siskiyou National Forest, 
Rogue River National Forest, and Med- 
ford Bureau of Land Management have 
compiled all surveys and have determined 
what we believe to be a fairly accurate 
inland distribution map, which follows 
closely what he and others published in 
the Biology of the Marbled Murrelet: In- 
land and at Sea Symposium Proceedings 
(Northwestern Naturalist 76(1): 33-39). 
Essentially, 1995-1996 results support 
findings of the published manuscript, i.e. 
murrelets are not found further than 28 km 
inland in the Oregon portion of the Kla- 
math Province. Colin also continues to 
compile pelagic bird observations for 
Curry County, Oregon. 

The Oregon Department of Fish and 
wildlife is currently updating the statewide 
Marbled Murrelet database in their Cor- 
vallis office. Greg Sieglitz and Melissa 
Platt are compiling the 1994 & 95 data 
under the auspices of a Sec. 6 contract 
with the USFWS. 

Pat Jodice continued his radio te- 
lemetry study of Marbled Murrelets along 

Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 


the central Oregon Coast during 1996. 
Only 5 birds were captured as compared 
to 9 last summer. Although he was not 
able to obtain any inland locations from 
these telemetered birds he was able to 
obtain a fair amount of marine habitat use 
data. Pat also continued to conduct inland 
surveys in the Oregon Coast Range. His 
field crew conducted 50 surveys each at 
three sites in two stands in Valley of the 
Giants throughout the summer. Numbers 
of detections at these sites appear to be 
quite a bit lower than in 1994. A sum- 
mary of each of these projects appears in 
an FY96 annual report which is available 
from Pat by request. 

Under the direction of Dr- Jan Hod- 
der of OIMB, students continued with the 
long-term Pelagic Cormorant monitoring 
project at Cape Arago. Some nest site 
abandonment was recorded and produc- 
tivity was down with only a few nests 
managing to produce more than a single 
chick. 

Roy Lowe and David Pitkin of the 
Oregon Coastal Refuges Office continued 
seabird monitoring projects during the 
summer of 1996. The 1996 breeding sea- 
son began late and was very poor for some 
species. Common Murres suffer the 
greatest impacts due to poor ocean pro- 
ductivity. In late-June through early-July 
a massive dieoff of adult murres occurred 
along the Oregon coast. The dead birds 
washed ashore from Gold Beach, in 
southern Oregon, to Long Beach, Wash- 
ington with peak numbers of dead birds 
recorded from Bandon to Pacific City, 
Oregon. Every carcass recovered or in- 
spected in the field contained a brood 
patch indicating that the dieoff involved 
local breeding populations and not im- 
mature nonbreeders. The dieoff occurred 
at the time period when murre chicks 
would normally be jumping from the 
rocks. An aerial reconnaissance was 
flown on 27 June from Cascade Head, 
Oregon to Castle Rock near Crescent City, 
California and revealed a colony aban- 
donment rate of 25-75%. Very few murre 
chicks were produced along the north and 
central Oregon coast and none likely sur- 
vived more than 1-2 weeks at sea. Very 
low numbers of murres were apparently 
produced along the southern Oregon coast 
extending into northern California and the 
survival of these birds is also question- 
able. Linda Glaser of the National 
Wildlife Health Center assisted with the 
investigation of the murre dieoff. No in- 
fectious agents were found to be involved 


' Page 21 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


in the dieoff and it appears that the dieoff 
was the result of food shortage during a 
critical period for murres. Almost all of 
the carcasses necropsied were extremely 
emaciated with no recordable body fat. 
The weight of the recovered birds aver- 
aged more than 200g lighter than birds 
collected in 1995. 

Pelagic Cormorants also had a poor 
year at colonies monitored annually near 
Newport. This year recorded the second 
lowest number attempting to nest at these 
sites since monitoring began in 1988. 
Also of interest was the almost complete 
failure of Western Gulls to produce young 
at Yaquina Head colonies this year. 

Bob Loeffel and Sara Brown contin- 
ued to conduct their long-term beached 
bird mortality transects near Newport, 
Oregon. Their data was crucial in defin- 
ing the magnitude of the murre dieoff this 
year. During June and July they recov- 
ered 200 dead adult murres on their 4.6 
mile beach. This constituted the largest 
number of dead adult murres recovered on 
their beach during a two month period 
since their study began 19 years ago. An- 
other indication of the poor year for mur- 
res was the fact that they recorded no dead 
murre chicks on the beach this year for 
only the second time ever (1993 was the 
other year when none were produced at 
Oregon colonies). In years of normal 
murre production over 4(X) chick are re- 
corded here. Four Marbled Murrelets, 
three of which were hatching year birds, 
were also found dead during beached bird 
surveys by Roy Lowe and Bob Loeffel. 

Roy Lowe 


Pacific Rim 


Ross Sea: David Ainley, of H.T. Harvey 
and Associates, and Peter Wilson (NZ) 
(and fi-iends) are beginning a project that 
will attempt to answer the question: Why 
do Adelie Penguins breed in colonies of 
differing size? And why have small colo- 
nies been increasing faster than large ones 
for the past 15 years? Project includes-at 
each of 3 colonies within one colony 
cluster (metapopulation)-radio telemetry 
(to determine degree to which individuals 
fi-om different colonies feed in the same 
area); direct and stable isotope analysis of 
diet; breeding success; immigra- 
tion/emigration; and foraging effort 


(developing an automatic scale to identify 
and weigh individual birds), 

California Current: D. Ainley and L. 
Spear, also of H.T. Harvey and Associ- 
ates, are monitoring the disposal of 
dredged materials disposal in the deep 
ocean off San Francisco. Includes weekly 
trips of mud scows/tugs and regional 
oceanographic cruises. Deep ocean dis- 
posal is a new option for dredged materi- 
als; EPA and Army Corps are watching it 
closely. 

Alaska: David Ainley and Glen Ford 
(ECI) are involved in the APEX project in 
Prince William Sound. They will be 
modeling seabird breeding and trophic 
interactions towards an understanding of 
why certain species have not recovered 
from the Exxon Valdez Oil spill. 

Pacific: Larry Spear and Chris Ribic 
(U. Wisconsin), with Steve Buckland 
(UK), are developing the statistics by 
which to accurately determine at-sea den- 
sities (and variances) of seabirds as de- 
termined from strip censuses. With D. 
Ainley, they are applying the technique to 
estimate population size of a few dozen 
central Pacific seabird species. 

D. Ainley has been involved with the 
Friends of the Red Road who, among 
other things, are attempting to preserve 
the small populations of Newell’s Shear- 
waters that are breeding in the Puna Dis- 
trict of Hawaii (Big Island). Potential 
impacts include increased lighting (to 
which fledglings are attracted) and pow- 
erlines (into which fledglings and adults 
fly), and the mining of gravel from small 
cinder cones, which comprise the nesting 
habitat of the species in the District. 

General Note: changes in eastern Pa- 
cific avifauna seems to be afoot these days 
(or is it just a temporary glitch?). During 
the past 18 months the following seabirds 
of the Peru Current and Galapagos region 
have been sighted in the California Cur- 
rent, most for the first time in recorded 
history: Light-mantled Sooty Albatross, 
Salvin's Albatross, Parkinson's Petrel, 
Dark-rumped Petrel and Swallow-tailed 
Gull. 

David Smith of the State of Hawaii, 
Division of Forestry and Wildlife - Oahu 
reports State Seabird Sanctuaries and 
other seabird nesting colonies in the 
County of Honolulu (including Kure At- 
oll) were surveyed using a combination of 
incidental visits and observation, on-site 
mapping, direct counts, estimation counts, 
point counts, and helicopter and fixed- 
wing aerial photo analysis. The State is 


developing permanent survey plots and 
identifying the preferred survey method- 
ology in order to reduce disturbance and 
provide accurate counts. Partial support 
for this project has been provided through 
Pitman-Robertson Funds from the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Estimates of nesting pairs were made 
for Laysan and Black-footed albatross, 
Red-footed, Brown, and Masked boobies, 
Brown and Black noddies, Red-tailed 
Tropicbirds, Great Frigatebirds, Grey- 
backed, White, and Sooty terns, Christmas 
and Wedge-tailed shearwaters, Bonin and 
Bulwer’s petrels, and migratory shorebirds 
(Ruddy Turnstones, Bristle-thighed Cur- 
lew, Golden Plovers, Wandering Tattlers, 
etc,). 

Scott Johnston reports the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service’s Ecological Serv- 
ice's office in Honolulu recently reorgan- 
ized to more fully implement ecosystem 
management. Self-directed work teams, 
staffed by biologists with diverse back- 
grounds, now focus on specific islands or 
islands group. 

The teams include the Big Island, 
Kauai, Oahu, Maui - including Molokai, 
Lanai, and Kahoolawe, Mariana Islands, 
American Samoa, and Remote Islands. Of 
most interest to PSG members due to the 
significant seabird resources is the Re- 
mote Islands team which is encompasses 
all U.S. jurisdiction in the Pacific. The 
team overlaps considerably with the 
Service’s Remote Island Refuge (Refuge 
staff serve unofficially on the Remote 
Islands Team). 

The Remote Island Team is currently 
developing "ecosystem" plans for each of 
the U.S. jurisdiction islands. The plans 
will highlight the significant resources of 
each island and outline needed research to 
help prioritize conservation in the area. 
Anyone interested about the Remote Is- 
land Team can contact Scott Johnston 
(See Executive Council List for address). 

A number of PSG members recently 
began discussion of tropical seabird con- 
servation and how the PSG can be more 
involved. To facilitate further discussion 
of the issues and solutions to tropical sea- 
bird conservation in the Pacific, and how 
PSG can use its considerable influence to 
make a difference, an informal meeting 
will be held at the Annual Meeting in 
Portland. Your participation is much- 
welcomed, now, in Portland, or at any 
time. Please watch for the announcement 
at the meeting. 

Vanessa Gauger, University of Hawaii, 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 22 


reel 

wh« 

the 

rest 

Isla 

part 

Noi 

Hal 

mo: 

run 

1,0 

Hal 

eac 

tim 

(ca 

flet 

be^ 

bar 

wa 

Pai 

anc 

fou 

ne5 

bin 

ligl 

To 

est 

pr€ 

for 

the 

yej 

ref 

die 

nu 

thj 

ph 

ad 

k\ 

inj 

ne 

ge 

tic 

CO 

su 

re! 

Se 

ic« 

ec 

U 

to 

bi 

til 

4( 

C( 

PJ 

ta 

tc 


recently moved to La Jolla, California 
where she is writing her dissertation for 
the University of Hawaii. Her dissertation 
research in the Northwestern Hawaiian 
Islands was on reproductive behavior and 
parent-offspring interactions of Black 
Noddies. 

Cathleen Natividad-Hodges, 

Haleakala National Park, continues to 
monitor endangered Hawaiian Dark- 
rumped Petrel nests. There are about 
1,000 known, mapped burrows at 
Haleakala, of which 60-80% are entered 
each year by petrels. The Park also con- 
tinues to maintain traps for alien predators 
(cals, rats, and mongoose). Banding 
fledglings will begin October 7, a process 
begun in 1990. 152 fledglings have been 
banded this year, at the time this report 
was submitted. 

During the week of October 14th, the 
Park staff anticipate many calls for petrel 
and Wedge-tailed Shearwater that are 
found in urban areas. (The shearwaters 
nest outside of the Park at sea level.) The 
birds become conftised by bright urban 
lights and often crash into the ground. 
Together with the State Division of For- 
estry and Wildlife, the Park sends out 
press releases and posters for public in- 
formation. Most groundings occur during 
the new moon, which is October 12. Last 
year, 10 petrels and 11 shearwaters were 
reported and retrieved (2 of each species 
died). 

Park staff has also been consulted on a 
number of Environmental Assessments 
that involve petrels: GTE Hawaiian Tel 
plans on installing a fiber optic ductline 
adjacent to a petrel colony; The Federal 
Aviation Administration plans on install- 
ing microwave dishes at their remote site 
near a petrel colony; State of Hawaii, to- 
gether with local television and radio sta- 
tions, plan on building a "antenna farm” to 
consolidate antennas that are near the 
summit of Haleakala, and adjacent to pet- 
rel colonies. Staff from the Ecological 
Services office of Fish and Wildlife Serv- 
ice are also being consulted on these proj- 
ects. 

Mark Rauzon is working with the 
U.S. Marine Corps at Kaneohe Bay, Oahu 
to assist recovery of the red-footed boo- 
bies at Ulupau Crater. In August, an un- 
timely fire caused by artillary killed about 
40 boobies (about 1800 nests were 
counted in 1996.) The Marines were in the 


reel the nesting birds out of harms' way by 
providing alternative nest sites for the 
future. 

Scott M. Johnson 


Canada 


This report summaries information on the 
recent field season for a few major proj- 
ects. No one has actually analyzed their 
data yet, so this is based on first impres- 
sions only. I have allowed my informants 
to speak for themselves. 

At Large 

Thijs Kuiken of the Department of 
Veterinary Pathology, University of Sas- 
katchewan, has just completed the field 
component of a three-season study of 
Newcastle Disease (ND) and other mor- 
tality factors at a colony of Double-crested 
Cormorants at Dore Lake, Saskatchewan. 
An outbreak of ND in 1995 has permitted 
comparison of mortality factors in out- 
break and non-outbreak years. Laboratory 
studies in parallel with this work have 
focused on the immunological responses 
of nestlings to the ND virus, susceptibility 
to infection and the duration of virus 
shedding in infected birds. Wanjala Lu- 
simbo, of the same Department, is doing 
laboratory studies of the effects of exter- 
nal oil contamination on avian embryos; 
chicken and mallard embryos are being 
used as general avian models. 

The Canadian Cooperative Wildlife 
Health Centre (CCWHC) continues to 
monitor the occurrence of diseases of all 
kinds in Canadian wildlife, including ma- 
rine birds on Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic 
coasts. The CCWHC assists wildlife bi- 
ologists with information and advice re- 
garding wildlife disease issues and pro- 
vides a variety of wildlife health services 
such as diagnosis of disease conditions. 
The July 1996 issue of the CCWHC 
Newsletter (available free of charge) con- 
tains short articles on a wreck of fulmars 
on the Pacific coast during the winter of 
1995 and of the mortality events in Red- 
head Ducks and in Tundra Swans in the 
Great Lakes region. The CCWHC can be 
contacted in Canada at 1-800-567-2033, 
internationally at 306-966-5099 or via 
electronic mail at ccwhs@sask.usask.ca. 

Atlantic 


REGIONAL REPORTS 

John Chardine summarized Canadian 
Wildlife Service activities during the 1996 
season in insular Newfoundland: 

At Witless Bay (Great and Gull Is- 
lands), Baccalieu Island and Cape St. 
Mary's, overall breeding success of Black- 
legged Kittiwakes was much higher in 
1996 than in the years 1990-1995 and 
phenology was earlier by 2-r weeks. Gull 
predation of kittiwake eggs and chicks at 
Witless Bay was less significant than in 
previous years. However, kittiwake suc- 
cess was still significantly higher at colo- 
nies without large gulls (Baccalieuand 
Cape St. Mary's) than at colonies with 
gulls (Witless Bay). Capelin came in- 
shore earlier in 1996 than in recent years 
but not as early as 1980s. Water tem- 
peratures were higher in April and May 
this year and the spring diatom bloom 
occurred two weeks early. 

Factors affecting breeding success of 
Herring Gulls were assessed for about 100 
pairs on Gull Island. Breeding success 
was low in 1996. Mean clutch size was 
low but egg survival was high. Breeding 
failure occurred mainly during the chick 
rearing period when conspecific predation 
of chicks was high. 

The impacts of tour boat operations on 
the behavior of murres. Razorbills, puf- 
fins, and kittiwakes nesting on Gull Island 
was assessed to provide guidelines for 
provincial managers and the tour boat 
operators.” 

Ian Jones reports the activities of the 
Atlantic Cooperative Wildlife Ecology 
Research Chair in 1996 in Newfoundland 
and Labrador: 

At the newly restored field station at 
Gannet Islands, Labrador a long-term 
study was initiated at the site of intensive 
work in the 1980s by Tim Birkhead and 
David Nettleship. Ian, Tarmo Poldmaa, 
Monica Kidd, Mark Hipfner, and Ra- 
chel Bryant (M.Sc student, Memorial 
University) measured seabird productivity 
and diet and commenced marking birds 
for demographic work. Overall, produc- 
tivity was high, although capelin were 
virtually absent from Common Murre 
chick diet (in previous years Common 
Murres fed their chicks almost entirely on 
capelin while Thick-billed Murres fed 
their chicks blennies). In 1996 both spe- 
cies' chicks grew on blennies alone. 
Thick-billeds seemed to be working hard, 
with a maximum dive depth of 174m re- 
corded on a depth gauge recovered from 
an adult provisioning a chick. Thick- 
billed Murre populations continued to 


process of installing a 20,000 gallon water 
ank to irrigate native Hawaiian vegetation 
:o act as a succulent firebreak and to di- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 23 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


expand at this site. Arctic Fox were re- 
stricted to a single island in the archipel- 
ago and thus had reduced impact this year. 
Atlantic Puffin chicks were fed larval fish 
and managed to fledge in the absence of 
capelin. Over 600 adults were colour- 
marked for survival studies. Razorbills 
had rather low fledging success, possibly 
due to a shortage of sandlance. 

At Hebron Fiord in northern Labrador, 
Michael Rod way, John Goss and Ian 
Fong investigated the distribution and 
habitat preferences of the threatened East- 
ern Harlequin Duck in a collaborative 
project vl'ith Scott Gilliland (CWS), Ian 
Jones and Bill Montevecchi. The field 
team discovered the first nest of this spe- 
cies recorded from eastern North Amer- 
ica. In addition to the nest find, their use 
of river and estuarine habitats was docu- 
mented in this area, part of the proposed 
Tomgat National Park. 

At Gull Island in Witless Bay, New- 
foundland, Ed Hearne (M.Sc student of 
Ian Jones and John Chardine) investi- 
gated the impact of tour boats on breeding 
seabirds. Murres and kittiwakes seem to 
be fairly well habituated to the presence of 
tour boats, but Razorbills may be being 
negatively affected since they were ob- 
served deserting their nest sites at the ap- 
proach of vessels. Significant disturbance 
due to Jet skis, recreational boaters, and a 
helicopter chartered by the Discovery 
Channel (a Toronto based cable channel) 
were observed. A fishing vessel went 
aground and leaked fuel at nearby Green 
Island in the Witless Bay Ecological re- 
serve, raising concern about threats posed 
to seabirds by uncontrolled boating in this 
area. 

In the Bay of Fundy, Tony Diamond 
(ACWERN, University of New Bruns- 
wick) is collaborating with David Nettle- 
ship and Colin MacKinnon of the Cana- 
dian Wildlife Service to establish long- 
term studies of diet and demographics in 
Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, and Arctic 
and Common terns on Machias Seal Is- 
land. He writes; "M.Sc student Krista 
Amey completed her second field season 
there in 1996, when weather and feeding 
conditions lowered nesting success of all 
four species way below 1995 levels. In 
1995, Honours student Bridget Morrison 
compared impacts of disturbance created 
by tourists and researchers. Ph.D student 
Kim Mawhinney completed a second 
year studying brood ecology of common 
eiders; eider broods again suffered almost 
complete predation from Great Black- 


backed Gulls despite an experimental par- 
tial cull and complete hatch-prevention of 
gulls. The 2 pairs of Razorbills Kim 
found on South Wolf in 1995 - the first 
nesting recorded there, within the new 
Black-legged Kittiwake colony (see Ca- 
nadian Field Naturalist, in press) - had 
increased to at least 4 pairs in 1996. Ph.D 
student Falk Huettmann is investigating 
relationships between distribution patterns 
of seabirds at sea and environmental pa- 
rameters, using the PIROP database for 
seabirds and incorporating many satellite- 
derived and other digital databases. In 
Labrador, Ian Jones' studies of diets and 
demographics will parallel those on Ma- 
chias Seal Island, and allow comparison 
with CWS work there in the early 1980s." 

From the Dartmouth, N.S., office of 
the C.W.S., David Nettleship reports: 

Studies of Atlantic Puffin continued at 
Machias Seal Island, New Brunswick, 
with assessment of productivity, condition 
of young at fledging, and resightings of 
birds banded as fledglings in earlier years 
(study initiated in 1984). Production in 
1996 was relatively low, possibly related 
to a diminished supply of food during the 
chick-rearing period (absence of herring). 

Analyses ofbreeding populations of 
Northern Gannet in Newfoundland (Cape 
St.Mary's, Baccalieu, and Funk Island) 
were completed in winter 1995-96. A full 
status report of the North American gan- 
net population is scheduled for publication 
in early 1 997. 

A major analysis of the seabird world 
of Labrador is nearing completion. This 
is a region of incredibly high sea-cliffs 
with a myriad of islands and inlets, which 
together with patterns of ice break-up and 
movement, influence greatly the biologi- 
cal productivity of the Labrador Sea and 
its use by seabirds. The 423 seabird colo- 
nies, comprising over 500,000 seabirds of 
13 species, display a fascinating non- 
random pattern of distribution with con- 
centrations of avian biomass associated 
with upwelling waters and converging 
currents. About 75% breed at five major 
"hot spots". This study is to be completed 
in March 1997. 

Arctic 

The Canadian Wildlife Service camp at 
Coats Island continued through its 13th 
season, jointly operated by Tony Gaston 
and Grant Gilchrist. It was another very 
early year and the Thick-billed Murre 
colony continues to expand, with new 


ledges colonized in several areas, mainly 
by 4-6 year old birds. The usual quota of 
about 2000 murres was banded, including P’ 
about 300 adults from which blood sam- ^ 
pies were taken by Gabriella Ibarguchi ® 
who has started an M.Sc. (Queen’s Uni- 
versity) on within-colony genetic struc- 
turing. In addition to the usual demo- & 
graphic work, a project was undertaken on ^ 
the effect of egg-size on hatchling size and 
intensive observations of chick diets were 
made to examine individual variation in 
adult feeding. A party including Vicki 
Johnston (Canadian Wildlife Service), vi 

Jean-Louis Martin (Centre National de si 

Recherche Scientifique, Montpellier), R 

Steve Smith and Jane Whitney (Foxe ni 

Basin Project) visited Prince Charles Is- si 

land, one of the remotest areas in the ir 

northern hemisphere. The island is an 
important breeding area for Sabine's R 

Gulls, jaegers and Red Phalaropes as well h 

as several other species of shorebirds. ti 

I; 

Pacific ^ 

Wendy Beauchamp, Simon Fraser Uni- (' 

versity, describes the 1996 (third) field y 

season on Marbled Murrelet Habitat and s: 

Demography in Desolation Sound/ Theo- a 

dosia Inlet, B.C.; "This research is a co- c 

operative project led by Fred Cooke d 

(NSERC/CWS Wildlife Ecology Chair, d 

Simon Fraser University) in conjunction n 

with Gary Kaiser (C.W.S.), Tony Wil- c 

Hams (SFU), Kathy Martin f 
(CWS/Uni versity of B.C.) and the B.C. c 

Ministry of Forests. Wendy Beauchamp c 

and Lynn Lougheed (SFU) and crew ran n 

a capture and banding program in Theo- t 

dosia Inlet during June - August during t 

which time 105 murrelets were captured. r 

Of these, 95 new individuals were banded 1 

and 10 individuals were recaptured from 
previous years. A total of 493 murrelets ■] 
have been banded in this population since 
1991- In conjunction with graduate stu- ( 

dent Cecilia Betanconrt-Lougheed ] 

(SFU), 50 Marbled Murrelets were tagged , 
with radio transmitters, some of which , 
were also individually color-marked with ^ 

either nasal disks (n=10) or temporary , 
wing tags (n=48). Boat-based transect | 

surveys and telemetry were conducted to j 
determine seasonal movements and for- 

i 

aging locations of birds during the breed- ^ 
ing season. Aerial telemetry was con- ^ 
ducted with the assistance of Sean Boyd 
(C.W.S.) in attempts to locate nests and to , 

track movements of murrelets on birds on ^ 

the water. Behavioural observations of 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 24 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


fish-holding by murrelets were conducted 
by Pascal Dehoux (CWS) to estimate the 
proportion of the murrelet population 
which was feeding chicks in the area. 
Blood samples were collected from all 
banded birds and DNA sexing and hor- 
monal analysis will be conducted by 
graduate student Brett Vanderkist (SFU). 
Recently completed analysis of DNA from 
birds banded in 1994 and 1995 (n=177) 
indicates a skewed sex ratio of about 2 
males: 1 female. Hormonal assays will be 
used to determine breeding status of indi- 
viduals which, will be compared to Cas- 
sia's Auklets on Triangle Island, B.C. 
Radar to record the number and lime of 
night that Marbled Murrelets use Theodo- 
sia Inlet as a flight corridor was conducted 
in conjunction with Doug Bertram 
(SFU). A pilot capture project of a popu- 
lation of Marbled Murrelets using a dif- 
; ferent forest ecosystem was conducted in 
i the Queen Charlotte Islands (Moresby 
i Island) by Gary Kaiser and crew where 9 
^ Marbled Murrelets were banded and 
^ blood sampled in June. Irene Manley 
t (SFU), and crew continued her second 
f year of forest activity surveys and inten- 
I sive nest searches in the Desolation Sound 
I area. This data on forest habitat use will 
F complement the information on marine 
t distribution and inventory work con- 
i ducted by the B.C. Ministry of Environ- 
I ment on the Sunshine Coast for a more 
complete picture of habitat requirements 
i for this species. This year, 380 trees were 
climbed, and 23 new nests were found in 
old-growth stands. At least 2 of these 
; nests hatched successfully. Several of the 
i trees showed evidence of re-nesting at- 
tempts (multiple nest cups). The total 
number of nests found in this area since 
1994 is 32." 

Doug Bertram reports on research at 
Triangle Island in 1996: "The CWS /SFU 
j Triangle Island Seabird Research Station 
j operated from 21 March until 25 August. 
Reproductive success of Cassin's Auklets 
was low; many chicks perished or fledged 
at low weights. Hugh Knechtel (SFU) 
examined parental morphological attrib- 
utes and body condition (as gauged by 
blood physiology) and its effects on chick 
growth, and size at age of fledging. We 
are investigating the use of blood physi- 
ology as a gauge of breeding status in 
Cassin's Auklets in a comparative study 
with the Marbled Murrelet (see Desola- 
tion Sound project). Food samples deliv- 


ducted by Dave Mackas from the Insti- 
tute of Ocean Sciences, Department Of 
Fisheries and Oceans. Cassin's Auklet 
nestling growth and diet from Triangle 
Island will be compared to Anne Har- 
fenist's results from Frederick Island in 
the Queen Charlotte Islands. Doug Ber- 
tram and Alan Burger (University of 
Victoria) deployed a radar unit to track 
Cassin's Auklet activity and timing of col- 
ony attendance for 10 consecutive nights 
near hatching. An intensive ongoing 
capture/recapture program for Cassin's 
Auklet demographics completed its third 
year thanks largely to Laura Cowen and 
Mike Wiley. 

Rhinoceros Auklets experienced low 
hatching success and low fledging suc- 
cess. Laura Jones (SFU) examined Rhi- 
noceros Auklet parental provisioning rates 
in relation to chick condition (gauged by 
size at age and blood physiology). Chick 
growth and diet will be compared with 
the same measures from Anthony Island in 
the Queen Charlottes and Seabird Rocks 
on the West Coast of Vancouver Island 
(Gail Davoren, University of Victoria). 
Demographic studies of Rhinoceros Auk- 
let adults also completed year three. 
Tufted Puffins experienced almost com- 
plete reproductive failure. For a second 
year, Colleen Cassidy St. Clair 
(University of Alberta) examined the ef- 
fects on gull kleptoparasitism and nest 
location on puffin fledging success. A 
pilot supplementary feeding study was 
initiated. Blood samples were collected 
from chicks to examine body condition 
and for comparison with Rhinoceros 
Auklet nestling blood parameters. The 
small Common Murre population on Tri- 
angle Island appeared successful, as 
gauged by nesting activity and food deliv- 
ery rates. Suzanne Romaine (working 
for Julia Parrish, University of Wash- 
ington) used decoys to examine the effects 
of social aggregations on attendance be- 
haviour. Photographs of the breeding 
colony taken during a 1989 census were 
repeated." 

Alan Burger reports on seabird re- 
search at the University of Victoria: Mar- 
bled Murrelet research continued in the 
Carmanah-Walbran valleys for the sixth 
consecutive year. This year we expanded 
the range of habitat types being investi- 
gated in the forest, and did some pilot 
studies using satellite-imagery to charac- 
terize murrelet habitats. Sharon 
Dechesne is wrapping up her M.Sc study 
of Marbled Murrelet vocalizations. Mi- 


chelle Masselink began her M.Sc. re- 
search on the role of Steller's Jay as a 
predator of Marbled Murrelets. Using 
radio-telemetry and point-count sampling 
she is investigating habitat use by the jays 
in disturbed and undisturbed forests in 
which murrelets are known to nest. At-sea 
surveys of seabirds along the West Coast 
Trail continued, with the support of Pa- 
cific Rim National Park, with the primary 
focus being to determine Marbled Mur- 
relet distributions, habitat preferences and 
seasonal chronology. Alan Burger and 
Trudy Chatwin of the Wildlife Branch 
(B.C.Ministry of Environment, Lands and 
Parks) began an extensive program of 
research and monitoring of Marbled Mur- 
relets in Clayoquot Sound. Radar cen- 
susing was done at fifteen watersheds, and 
inland surveys were made in most water- 
sheds. At-sea surveys were done by John 
Kelson and Adrienne Mason as part of 
this project. Gail Davoren's M.Sc study 
of Rhinoceros Auklets at sea and at the 
Seabird Rocks colony continued for the 
second year, with the goal of determining 
the effects of variable prey distributions 
and densities on foraging and breeding 
behaviour. Field work was completed in 
Alan Burger’s study of seabird oceanog- 
raphy on the shelf off Vancouver Island, 
and data analysis and write-up are in prog- 
ress. 

Anne Harfenist continued her study 
of Cassin's Auklet demography at Freder- 
ick Island, in Haida Gwaii (Queen Char- 
lotte Islands): "Our chicks did fine again 
and the timing of breeding was similar to 
the last two years. Food samples were 
collected and have been sent for analysis. 
Our banding went well and we should be 
able to produce an estimate of adult sur- 
vival this year. We caught at least three 
birds banded as chicks in earlier years. 
With Todd Golumbia of Parks Canada, I 
completed the second year of a study of 
Rhinoceros Auklet chick growth and pro- 
visioning at S'gan Gwaii. Timing was 
approximately one week later than in 1995 
and food was mainly sandlance and her- 
ring. Following all that, we visited 
Englefield Bay to monitor raccoons and 
shot the only one seen on a seabird island 
- on Helgesen. There were lots of scats in 
the den entrance, most containing feathers. 
No evidence of raccoons was found by 
Parks Canada on any of their seabird is- 
lands. 

Elsewhere in Haida Gwaii, the 
Laskeek Bay Conservation Society, con- 
tinued to monitor Ancient Murrelets and 


ed to nestlings were collected and coor- 
inated with a zooplankton cruise con- 

Pacific Seabirds 


* Volume 23, Number 2 • Fail 1996 • Page 25 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


other seabirds at East Limestone Island 
and adjacent areas. Camp was run by 
Colin French and Virginia Collins. It 
was another early year for nesting, and 
reproductive success of Ancient Murrelets 
was high, with monitored burrows pro- 
ducing a record average brood size at de- 
parture. Total numbers of chicks trapped 
increased for the first time since 1990, 
perhaps because there have been no rac- 
coons active on the island during the last 
two breeding seasons. Two birds banded 
as chicks on the island are now breeding 
in monitored burrows; one 3, the other 5 
years old. ' Numbers of Marbled Murrelets 
and other birds seen on transects at sea 
were lower than normal, but weather was 
generally rather unsettled and may have 
caused problems for observers. 

Your humble Canadian compiler: Tony 
Gaston. 


Alaska-Russia 


Beth Agler and crew (Fish and Wildlife 
Service) ran small boat surveys of Prince 
William Sound during March and July 
1996 to estimate population abundance of 
marine birds. The surveys were the same 
as those conducted after the Exxon Valdez 
oil spill during 1989-91 (Klosiewski and 
Laing 1994), 1993 (Agler et al. 1994), and 
1994 (March only, Agler et al. 1995). We 
used three 25-foot Boston Whalers to sur- 
vey transects divided among three strata: 
shoreline, coastal-pelagic, and pelagic. 
We then used a ratio estimator to estimate 
population abundance. Estimated popula- 
tion abundance of all marine birds in July 
was lower (246,575+41,400) than 1993 
(371,327+58,189), and estimates for 
March were lower (253,001+34,917) than 
those from 1994 (320,470+62.640). 

Dee Boersma and crew (University of 
Washington) are still writing up research 
based on their Barren Island work. Sev- 
eral papers are in progress on various as- 
pects of the breeding biology of Fork- 
tailed Storm-Petrels and examining 
decadal variance in the breeding parame- 
ters of several seabirds in the Barren Is- 
lands. 

David Irons and Rob Suryan are 
continuing their studies of Black-legged 
kittiwakes in Prince William Sound 
(PWS) as part of the Alaska Predator Eco- 
system Experiment (APEX) funded by the 


Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. 
In conjunction with other APEX seabird 
and forage fish projects in PWS and 
Lower Cook Inlet, data are being col- 
lected to quantify changes in kittiwake 
productivity and foraging relative to for- 
age fish composition and abundance. 
Detailed studies of kittiwake productivity, 
chick growth, adult body condition, diets, 
and foraging are being conducted at three 
colonies in PWS and the remaining 24 
colonies are surveyed to determine popu- 
lation size and productivity throughout 
PWS. In addition to APEX -related top- 
ics, they are continuing long-term projects 
to study productivity, foraging, and sur- 
vival of known-age birds. 

Alexander Ya. Kondratyev reports 
that his team (laboratory of coastal ecol- 
ogy) conducted field investigations in the 
Northern Sea of Okhotsk. They have two 
on-going cooperative projects with Alas- 
kan specialists. In the Seabird Colony 
Catalog project (with Kent Wohi and 
Vivian Mendenhall, USFWS), they 
checked a number of the colonies in the 
northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk. They 
plan to finish computerizing all the data 
for the project this winter. Another proj- 
ect provides comparative analyses of the 
productivity and demographic state of the 
main seabird species in Gulf of Alaska 
and Sea of Okhotsk, while Scott Hatch, 
continued monitoring of populations at 
Talan Island, focusing on kittiwakes, mur- 
res and auklets. Last Spring his group 
published the third issue of the Bulletin 
"Seabirds of Beringia" with American 
support and participation. A popular in- 
struction manual for seabirds found 
beached or caught in fishery operations 
was also prepared and published by the 
laboratory. 

This winter the group plans to con- 
tinue work on these projects and will pro- 
vide results in the next issue of Pacific 
Seabirds. They also would like to write a 
proposal for a Marbled Murrelet project. 
Observations in 1996 showed that the 
fledged chicks of this species swim down 
streams to the sea in August. In Motikley 
Gulf (northern Sea of Okhotsk) many of 
these chicks reached the coast during low 
tide and were killed by dogs, gulls and 
other predators. They hope to conduct 
intensive investigations of this topic and 
would be happy to invite volunteers, as 
well as researchers and students, to par- 
ticipate in their field work on Talan Island 
and on the Okhotsk Sea coast next season. 

Don Dragoo, Terry Carten, and 


Mike Schwitters conducted productivity 
monitoring and kittiwake survival moni- 
toring at St. George Island during the 
summer of 1996. Art Sowls, Laurie 
Fairchild and Deb Rudis assisted us with 
population monitoring counts during July 
as well. 

Jill Anthony, Ph.D. candidate at Ore- 
gon State University, conducted field re- 
search as part of the EVOS Trustee Coun- 
cil-funded APEX Project on seabird re- 
productive energetics as it relates to diet 
in the Exxon Valdez oil spill area. Jill 
focused on quantifying the energy intake 
of kittiwake broods at Shoup Bay in Port 
Valdez, where Dave Iron's and his field 
crews have been monitoring kittiwake 
productivity. Kittiwake productivity was 
high this year at Shoup Bay. Sand Lance 
appeared to be more prevalent in the diet 
compared with recent years, a hopeful 
sign that sand lance populations in the 
Sound may be recovering. 

Pigeon Guillemot research in Kache- 
mak Bay, funded by the Coastal Marine 
Institute at UAF with help from John 
Piatt's APEX research in Lower Cook 
Inlet, continued for the third consecutive 
year. Alex Pritchard successfully de- 
fended his thesis on the first two years of 
Kachemak Bay Guillemot research. Mike 
Litzow headed up the field crew this year, 
with able assistance from April Nielson. 
They were joined in mid- July by Pam 
Seiser, an M.S. candidate at University of 
Alaska Fairbanks, and her assistant, 
Cynthia Restrepo, who had been work- 
ing on guillemots breeding on Jackpot 
Island in Prince William Sound as part of 
the EVOS Trustee Council- funded Near- 
shore Vertebrate Predators Project. Un- 
fortunately for Pam, Cynthia, and the 
Jackpot Island guillemot population, a 
large (and offensively odiferous) male 
mink made his way out to the island and 
managed to destroy the contents of all the 
40+ guillemot nests there. 

Marc Romano, M.S. candidate at 
Oregon State University, and his assistant 
Mark Kosmerel raised kittiwake and 
puffin chicks in captivity on controlled 
diets at Kasitsna Bay Lab, as part of the 
APEX Project. The chicks were raised on 
pure diets of either pollock, sand lance, or 
capelin to investigate the relative quality 
of these forage fishes as food for nestling 
seabirds. As predicted, the chicks on sand 
lance or capelin diets did better than those 
on the pollock diet. 

Leslie Slater reported that her groups 
is just beginning to analyze their data, but 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 26 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


so far it looks like burrow-nesters (Fork- 
tailed & Leach’s storm-petrels, Tufted 
Puffins & Rhinoceros Auklets) did much 
belter at St. Lazaria in 1996 than in 1995 
(the first years for which they have 
"good," standardized data). They suspect 
that drier weather at critical times during 
the breeding season resulted in fewer bur- 
rows being flooded. They also collected 
diet samples through the chick-rearing 
period to detect any changes there which 
could also affect the breeding effort. 
Ledge-nesting (Common & Thick-billed 
murres, Pelagic Cormorants), crevice- 
nesting (Pigeon Guillemots) and ground- 
nesting (Glaucous-winged Gulls) adults 
were present in similar numbers in both 
years, and their productivity appeared 
similar in both years. They also recorded 
water temperatures (~10 m depth) near 
annual monitoring sites to identify corre- 
lates with prey abundance. 

Lindsey Hayes, Ted Spencer, Mark 
Russell, and Bryan Duggan continued 
studies of the breeding and feeding ecol- 
ogy of Pigeon Guillemots at Naked Island 
in Prince William Sound, Alaska as part 
of the APEX project's 1996 field season. 

Kathy Kuletz reported that she has 
been chained to her desk working on re- 
ports, proposals and manuscripts includ- 
ing "Relative abundance of adult and ju- 
venile Marbled Murrelets in Prince Wil- 
liam Sound, Alaska: Developing a pro- 
ductivity index" with Steve Kendall and 
Debbie Flint; "A productivity index for 
Marbled Murrelets based on surveys at 
sea," with Steve Kendall; Post-fledging 
behavior of a radio-tagged juvenile Mar- 
bled Murrelet" and "Use of Forested and 
unforested nesting habitat by Marbled 
Murrelet in Southcentral Alaska", both 
with Dennis Marks. She also assisted the 
US Forest Service on some inland mur- 
relet surveys on Chichagof Island 
(southeast Alaska), and assisted John 
Piatt's crew in Kachemak. 

From ABR in Fairbanks, came reports 
on the following projects: Bob Day and 
Debbie Flint began studies on the biology 
of Kittlitz's Murrelets in Prince William 
Sound. Betty Anderson and colleagues 
conducted surveys on distribution and 
abundance, nesting densities, and repro- 
ductive performance of Spectacled and 
King eiders in the Kuparuk Oil field of 
arctic Alaska. Rick Johnson and col- 
leagues conducted surveys on distribution 
and abundance of Spectacled and King 
eiders and Yellow-billed, Pacific, and 
Red-throated loons on the Colville River 


Delta of arctic Alaska during nesting and 
brood -rearing. Alice Stickney and col- 
leagues conducted surveys on distribution 
and abundance and reproductive perform- 
ance of Brant in the Kuparuk Oil field. 
They also banded Brant again this year. 
Bob Ritchie conducted extensive aerial 
surveys of Brant colonies across the coast 
of arctic Alaska. Steve Murphy and col- 
leagues conducted bird and mammal sur- 
veys in Prince William Sound. 

Togiak NWR continued monitoring 
shore-based populations and productivi- 
ties of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Coimnon 
Murres, and Pelagic Cormorants at Cape 
Pierce in 1996. Kittiwakes and murres 
were collected for stomach contents in 
May, June, and July. Shore-based popu- 
lations and productivities of kittiwakes 
and murres were monitored at Cape 
Newenham in 1996. Lisa Haggblom 
entered data from Bristol Bay colonies 
into the Pacific Seabird Monitoring Data- 
base, and completed kittiwake and murre 
counts from boat-based photographs taken 
in 1994 for the Walrus Islands State Game 
Sanctuary in Bristol Bay. Scott Hatch, 
Charla Stern, and Lisa Haggblom 
banded 42 adult Common Murres with 
color and steel bands at Cape Pierce in 
July 1996. They noosed the birds while 
standing above them. This was the first 
seabird banding project at Cape Pierce 
and banding will continue in 1997, so that 
adult survival can be estimated. 

Alan Springer is continuing to moni- 
tor diets of seabirds on the Pribilofs in 
collaboration with NMFS and local hunt- 
ers. 

Vivian Mendenhall and Shawn Ste- 
phensen conducted a census of seabird 
colonies on the north coast of St. Law- 
rence Island, in cooperation with Caleb 
Pungowiyi, a native of the island who is 
now a state leader in Native resource 
management. In spite of the usual prob- 
lems with weather, the new data are a vast 
improvement on previous colony cen- 
suses, which were old and imprecise. 
Several new breeding records also were 
obtained. 

Vivian Mendenhall has been ap- 
pointed to the Planning Team of the Nordi 
Pacific Fisheries Management Council. 
The team favors incorporating the needs 
of seabirds into the annual catch limits for 
groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea and 
Gulf of Alaska. Vivian welcomes discus- 
sion about how this should be accom- 
plished, 

Tony Degange drafted a Conservation 


Assessment for the Marbled Murrelet in 
Southeast Alaska. This assessment was 
prepared under the auspices of a memo- 
randum of agreement among the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, 
and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

It was prepared as part of the revision of 
the Tongass Land Management Plan. The 
assessment will be published as a Forest 
Service Technical Report. 

John Maniscalco and Bill Ostrand of 
the APEX Seabird/Forage Interactions 
study participated in 3 cruises focusing on 
different questions. During June, they 
visited sites known to be forage-flock hot 
spots. We watched flocks form to deter- 
mine which species initiated foraging. In 
July they participated in the APEX cruise 
and collected seabird data during both the 
near shore and off shore cruises. In 
August, Maniscalco collected data on the 
SEA programs diel survey. This study 
conducted hydroacoustic surveys of bays 
selected for large herring populations. 
The surveys were repeated 3 times within 
24 hour periods. This study will examine 
the diel movement of forage fish and the 
corresponding response of seabirds. 
During their field work, John and Bill 
rescued four people (equiped only with 
two survival suits) from a burning vessel 
in Prince William Sound. 

Alexander Golovkin reports that the 
economic situation in Russia kept him out 
of field this past summer. He and Kent 
Wohl (USFWS) are discussing the op- 
portunity of monitoring the seabirds of the 
Komandorsky reserve in the future. 

As part of the long-term monitoring 
program on the Alaska Maritime NWR, 
data on productivity, population trends, 
timing of nesting events, and/or food hab- 
its were collected for indicator species of 
fish-eating and plankton-feeding seabirds 
at the following annual monitoring sites: 
Cape Lisburne - Dave Roseneau, Mary 
Portner, and Peter Chance; Bluff - Ed 
Murphy; St. Paul - Lisa Climo, Holly 
Welsh, Jessica Wechtel, Art Sowls, 
Vernon Byrd, and Jeff Williams; St. 
George - Don Dragoo, Terry Cartin, 
Lorie Fairchild, Deb Rudis, Art Sowls, 
and Mike Switters; Aiktak - Susan 
Woodward, and Carl Lunderstadt; Ka- 
satochi/Koniuji - Greg Thomson, Lisa 
Sharf, Jeff Williams, Vernon Byrd, and 
Laura Grefiinius; Buldir - Julian 
Fischer, Lisa Meehan, David Clutter, 
and Pat Ryan; East Amatuli - Arthur 
Kettle, Margi Blanding, Dave Ro- 
seneau, Stephanie Zuniga, Leslie Slater, 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 27 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


Carrie Alley, and Jonathan Meletta; and 
St. Lazaria - Leslie Slater, Sharon Loy, 
Janet Morre, and Chris Maranto. 

In addition to annual monitoring, in- 
termittent sites were surveyed in the east- 
ern Aleutians (i.e. Kaligagan L and nearby 
islets, Egg I., the Baby Islands) by Ver- 
non Byrd, Jeff Williams, Laura Gref- 
flnius, Gary Wheeler, and Art 
Wemmems. 

As part of the "Seabird, Marine 
Mammal, Oceanography Coordinated 
Investigations" (SMMOCI), John Piatt's 
crew from NBS joined Vernon Byrd, 
Jeff Williams, and Doug Palmer aboard 
Tiglax to conduct a characterization of the 
nearshore marine habitat near Kasatochi 
and Koniuji Islands. During APEX field 
work under the direction of John Piatt, 
the USFWS vessel Tiglax rescued two 
adults and two children from the waters of 
Cook Inlet. 

Dave Roseneau and Arthur Kettle 
continued research in the Barren Islands 
in connection with the Exxon Valdez 
Restoration APEX study. Dave Ro- 
seneau, Art Sowls, Vernon Byrd, and 
others continued to analyze stomachs of 
halibut and Pacific cod to evaluate relative 
abundance of forage fish that provide prey 
for seabirds in the Barren Islands, Pribilof 
Islands, and central Aleutians. 

Restoration of seabird populations 
continued in the Aleutians with fox re- 
moval projects at Seguam and Gareloi 
islands, efforts led by Steve Ebbert and 
Tom Paragi. These two islands have 
high potential for recovery of seabirds 
after introduced foxes are removed. 

Art Sowls continued to work with 
local people and other agencies to im- 
prove the rat prevention program in the 
Pribilofs and the shipwreck response pro- 
gram on the Alaska Maritime NWR. He 
also coordinated response to the VifV Cit- 
rus oil spill in the Pribilof Islands. Gary 
Kaiser, CWS, and Jeff Williams evalu- 
ated the potential for removal of Norway 
rats to restore seabirds populations at 
Great Sitkin Island using techniques 
similar to those employed at Langura Is- 
land over the past 2 years. Julian Fischer 
began a study of food habits and contami- 
nants levels in Harlequin Ducks at She- 
mya Island. Mark Krom and Joe Mee- 
han continued the seaduck monitoring 
program at Shemya. 

Scott Hatch spent much of his sum- 
mer in the lower 48 states of the US, but 
oversaw three projects. 


Controlled feeding experiment with 
black-legged kittiwakes on Middleton 
Island; Things went pretty much much 
according to plan— basically, a crew 
headed by Verena Day went to Middleton 
with 3 tons of herring and proceeded to 
feed them to the kittiwakes, one at a time! 
The results should be very interesting, but 
the whole design was compromised to 
some extent by the fact that the natural 
food supply of kittiwakes seemed to be 
much better than anything seen in many 
years. 

Satellite telemetry with common and 
Thick-billed Murres in the Chukchi Sea: 
This is a continuation of his group’s work 
last year (which was funded in part by 
EVOS, now strictly an NBS effort on be- 
half of MMS). During the year we ana- 
lyzed the 1995 data transmitters at the 
Barren Islands, Cape Thompson, and 
Cape Lisburne. Results were presented in 
a report to Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trus- 
tees. This year they scaled down to using 
16 transmitters at one study site, Cape 
Lisburne. 

Paul Meyers and Dan Mulcahy im- 
planted 10 Thick-billed Murres and 6 
Common Murres with satellite transmit- 
ters at Cape Lisburne. Everything went 
well, and they are already getting data. 
Nothing unusual to report at this point— 
the birds have been spending most of their 
time off the Cape Lisburne coast. So far 
there have not been the mortality prob- 
lems observed last year. It's too early to 
sound the all clear bell, but they are opti- 
mistic. They did some post-surgery be- 
havioral observations between the im- 
planted murres and a captured control 
group, that was anaesthesized, and surgi- 
cally sexed. The results show that the 
control birds were much more likely to 
return to the colony and more likely to 
retain their breeding status. Unfortunately 
the implantations disrupted all breeding 
attempts. 

Pacific Seabird Monitoring Database. 
Charla Sterne is orchestrating this proc- 
ess and working on development and use 
of the Pacific Seabird Monitoring Data- 
base (PSMDB), a microcomputer-based 
data management and distribution system 
intended to make the largely uncollated 
and inaccessible volume of North Pacific 
seabird observations available in a timely 
manner. This effort is cooperatively 
sponsored by the National Biological 
Service, several offices of the Fish and 
Wildlife Service and the Pacific Seabird 
Group (who in turn have agreements 


with PRBO and Simon Fraser University 
in place). 

The PSMDB is a relational database, 
designed to work with observations ar- 
ranged in time series, or sets of compara- 
ble observations that can be meaningfully 
plotted on an X-Y graph to show trends 
over time. Each observation represents 
one measurement of a particular popula- 
tion parameter for a given species in a 
given location and year. Ancillary data 
which completes the record includes con- 
tacts, documentation, sponsors and sam- 
pling design information. Among the 
typical parameters to be reported are 
population numbers, productivity, repro- 
ductive chronology, food habits and sur- 
vival. The database consists of 22 tables, 
14 of which are updatable by the con- 
tributor. 

A PSMDB data entry application util- 
izing a run-time version of Microsoft Ac- 
cess has been developed and distributed to 
nine participants from the National Park 
Service (California), U.S. Fish and Wild- 
life Service (Alaska, Oregon, Hawaii), 
Point Reyes Bird Observatory 
(California) and Simon Fraser University 
(British Columbia). Once submitted, the 
data will be compiled. The comprehen- 
sive database will then be redistributed to 
the contributors. The application is cur- 
rently designed for data entry and editing 
only. Other functions yet to be developed 
include: database querying by location, 
species, parameter, etc.; generation and 
presentation of time series plots; statisti- 
cal analysis; and, mapping (GIS) capabili- 
ties. 

Denny Zwiefelhofer reports that the 
main projects on the Kodiak National 
Wildlife Refuge (KNWR) during 1966 
evolved around Harlequin Ducks. KNWR 
finished a third year of spring and late 
summer coastal population surveys and 
began a cooperative study with the Na- 
tional Biological Survey and National 
Park Service, with Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 
Trustee funding. The project involved 
capture, color-banding, and taking of 
blood for genetic typing of coastal Harle- 
quin Ducks from Kodiak, Katmai (Alaska 
Peninsula) and Prince William Sound 
populations. Over 300 harlequins were 
captured from three different bays along 
the Kodiak refuge's western coast, 287 of 
these were color-banded and 167 genetic 
samples were taken. Capture and banding 
are scheduled to continue in Fiscal year 
97. Searching the refuge's major interior 
freshwater habitats for breeding harle- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 ® Fall 1996 • Page 28 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


quins continued in 1996, with two addi- 


tional watershed surveyed. 

Another project, carried out by Heidi 
Brokate at KNWR, involved comparing 
three years of seabird colony photographs 
within a fisheries enhancement are of 
Spiridon Bay, with actual colony counts. 
Many of the photographs were unfortu- 
nately not of the highest quality, but there 
does seem to be potential for using good- 
quality photographs for monitoring small 
colonies. Counts from higher-quality 
photographers were often more than 95% 
of the actual colony counts. The main 
problems seemed to be lighting and dis- 
tance from the colony. Many photo- 
graphic limitations may be mitigated or 
alleviated by utilizing digital 35 mm or 
video cameras that can provide sharper 
images for enlarging. This would also 
provide a digital means of permanently 
documenting annual breeding distribution 
of the surveyed colonies. 

With lots of donations, David Duffy is 
working with the Centers for Disease 
Control to set up a breeding colony of 
Ixodes uriae, the tick vector for Lyme 
borreliosis. David leads the multi- 
investigator APEX PROJECT, examining 
whether food limits recovery of seabird 
populations following the Exxon Valdez 
oil spill. 

David Duffy 


Southern California 


The California Least Tern working team is 
meeting the 13th of November in Hunt- 
ington Beach to discuss this past season’s 
results and to try to come to agreement on 
how to document causes of mortality. 
PSG members Pat Baird, Doreen Stat- 
lander and Tim Burr will attend. 

Pat Baird is continuing a four-year 
study on the foraging ecology and food 
habits of California Least Terns in a study 
supported by the US Navy. She and her 
students are developing a new generation 
of dyes with which to mark birds. These 
dyes will be especially important for sea- 
bird researchers who have had bad luck 
with available dyes which tend to wash 
off. She also is working on Brown Peli- 
can foraging and a forage fish food chain 
study with two of her students. In her 
"spare time" she plays the frame drum in a 
women’s drumming group, Lipushiau, 


which performs at universities and coffee 
houses. 

Lisa Ballance is continuing her stud- 
ies analyzing eastern tropical Pacific sea- 
bird foraging ecology and community 
structure. She is also analyzing data on 
the seabirds of the western tropical Indian 
Ocean that Bob Pitman and she collected 
during 1995. Next year she hopes to 
travel to the north Pacific gyre and the 
Maldives for some more field work. 

Bob Pitman was at sea for most of 
1996, conducting research on marine 
mammal distribution and abundance in 
Antarctic waters, the Gulf of Maine, Gulf 
of Mexico, and waters of the California 
Current. In December, he will travel to 
waters off the coast of Madagascar to 
study the population status of blue whales. 
Next year promises to be much the same, 
with field work planned in Antarctica, the 
north Pacific gyre, and possibly, the Mal- 
dives. He has not forgotten seabirds; he 
continues to work on papers dealing with 
foraging ecology of various species using 
data collected from the 20-some years of 
cruises he has made in the eastern tropical 
Pacific. He has been back in town for an 
amazing five weeks straight, so catch him 
now if you want to talk to him! 

Harry Carter (Biological Resources 
Division, Dixon Field Station) wandered 
down into Southern California territory 
this summer, and worked on 1 ) the annual 
monitoring of Brandt’s and Double- 
crested cormorant colonies throughout the 
Channel Islands; 2) surveys of Xantus’ 
Murrelet at most of the Channel Islands; 
and 3) on the nesting of the Ashy Storm- 
Petrel at Santa Cruz Island. 

The Biological Resources Division- 
CSC (San Francisco Bay Estuary Field 
Station) also continued a Xantus’ Murrelet 
radio telemetry study in the Southern Cali- 
fornia Bight. For more detailed informa- 
tion, see the Northern California section. 

Charlie Collins continues his moni- 
toring contracts on California Least Terns 
and Snowy Plovers in Southern Califor- 
nia with U.S. Navy support. He and stu- 
dent Mike Taylor are continuing studies 
of survival and determining the wintering 
areas of Black Skimmers. They also are 
looking at the growth and development of 
Forster’s Terns. Student Amy Gorospe is 
looking at contaminants and metal accu- 
mulation in a group of terns and skim- 
mers. This is a cooperative project with 
Mike Horn (Cal State Fullerton) and 
colleague 2^d Mason at Cal State Long 
Beach. 


Hugh Ellis is working on energetics of 
Florida Scrub Jays at the Archibald field 
station in Florida. He continues as the 
Director of the Marine and Environmental 
Studies Program at the University of San 
Diego. 

Richard Erickson is consulting on 
coastal sage scrub issues in California, 
working on Pacific Pocket Mice, and do- 
ing research on migrant land birds in Baja 
California. 

Bill Everett continues to do work on 
the ecology of seabirds on Los Coronado 
Islands and on Snowy Plovers on the 
Channel Islands. He is still very busy as 
Chairman of the Pacific Seabird Group 
and has established new criteria for com- 
municating to the Executive Council via e- 
mail. He will implement Robert’s Rules 
of Order at the Portland Executive Coun- 
cil meeting to make the meeting run more 
efficiently. So watch out! No filibuster- 
ing! 

Gene Fowler is in Argentina working 
on adrenal stress hormones on penguins in 
an area about 500 km south of Punto 
Tombo where he worked over ten years 
ago. Gene is still in touch via his Pomona 
e-mail address if you want to contact him. 

Judith Hand has taken a short hiatus 
due to family commitments. 

Michael Horn and his students are 
working at the Bolsa Chica Ecological 
Reserve on the ecology and digestive 
physiology of terns and skimmers nesting 
there. This past summer his student Patri- 
cia Coe worked on the rate of foraging 
and rate of provisioning of adult Caspian 
and Elegant terns to their chicks which 
were held in enclosures on the nesting 
islands. The object of this research was to 
see if the two species differed in their 
rates of provisioning. Rates are being 
analyzed at present. Also, Kristin 
Chavez brought chicks of Elegant and 
Caspian terns into captivity and fed them 
to determine their rates of gut passage, 
their growth, and their maintenance ration 
to see if the digestive process is the limi- 
tation to how often the chicks are fed in 
the field. These results are also currently 
being analyzed. Another student, Wasila 
Dahdul studied the pattern of daily for- 
aging activity in Caspian and Elegant 
terns and in Black Skimmers. These data 
are also being worked up. Mike also has 
comparative data on foraging ecology of 
these birds at Bolsa Chica and the Salt 
Works in south San Diego Bay. Wait for 
the results at the Portland meeting in 
January! Until then, good luck reaching 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 29 


REGIONAL REPORTS 

Mike; he is pretty much incommunicado. 
And just to make sure that he had no spare 
time at all, he put in for and received a 3 
year Sea Grant award to study the food 
chain structure and heavy metal accumu- 
lation in the birds at Bolsa Chica. He will 
be undertaking stable isotope analysis to 
determine trophic position and feeding 
locations at Bolsa Chica Reserve, using 
mass spectrometry to analyze all elements 
in the food chain up through the birds, to 
assay for accumulation of heavy metals. 
These investigations will begin next nest- 
ing season. Mike will have a reference 
site to compare with these data from Bolsa 
Chica, either Elkhorn Slough or Humboldt 
Bay. The trainee working on the Sea 
Grant with Mike will be Darryl Smith. 
And finally (!), Mike is completing re- 
lated work on topsmelt, one of the most 
important forage fishes of these birds. 

George Hunt was invited to a Gor- 
don Conference as co-chair of a working 
group in the Pacific Marine Science Or- 
ganization (Pices) in an effort to estimate 
prey consumption by marine birds and 
mammals from 30 degrees N to the Bering 
Straits. He will attend and present a 
poster at another Gordon Conference on 
Sea Ice ecology to be held in February in 
Nanaimo. He will continue to keep busy 
and out of trouble, attending the American 
Society of Limnology and Oceanography 
in Santa Fe in March, as well as attending 
a forage fish symposium sponsored by 
ICES in Scotland. Student Jen Zamon is 
studying the foraging ecology of bird and 
mammal aggregations in the San Juan 
Islands and has recently been awarded an 
EPA fellowship to support this work. 
Student Libby Logerwell is working with 
George to examine the distribution of 
birds around the Pribilofs. Libby expects 
to finish her Ph.D. by June 1997. Sasha 
Kaitaysky is in the process of finishing 
his Ph.D. thesis on the Sea of Okhotsk off 
Japan where he is studying the develop- 
mental physiology of alcids. He will fin- 
ish his thesis in January 1997 and will be 
moving to Seattle for a post doctorate with 
John Wingfield. Another student, Kyra 
Mills is finishing her Master’s at Irvine in 
December 1996, on mixed species forag- 
ing flocks in the Galapagos with an em- 
phasis on the foraging behavior of the 
Galapagos Penguin. Student Cheryl 
Baduini has just returned from her first 
field season on Tern Island in French 
Frigate Shoals where she is working on 
the foraging behavior and ecology of 
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. She is espe- 


cially interested in whether parents or 
offspring control the rate at which off- 
spring get fed. Just in case he runs out of 
things to do, George is applying to the 
NSF to look at foraging ecology of shear- 
waters at the inner front of the Bering Sea 
and is struggling to write up the results of 
three-years’ worth of field research in the 
western Aleutians where he looked at the 
foraging ecology of auklets with respect to 
hydrography and prey availability and 
abundance. A Canadian group studying 
the north water polynya near northwest 
Greenland has invited George and some 
students to join them if the Canadians are 
funded. Send chocolate covered coffee 
beans to George to help him with his busy 
schedule. 

David Hyerenbach is on a CALCOFI 
cruise and is doing research at Scripps 
Institute of Oceanography. 

Kathy Keane is doing a survey on 
bird abundance and distribution in the 
Ballona Wetlands in order to help in the 
planning for a reconstruction of the largest 
wetland remaining in Southern California. 
She is editing a paper already peer- 
reviewed for publication in Western Birds 
on pelican flight behavior at San Pedro 
breakwater. She presented a poster at the 
Colonial Waterbirds meeting on recruit- 
ment in Least Terns with respect to when 
their parents nested, where they nested 
and whether their parents exhibited any 
mate fidelity, and natal philopatry. She is 
teaching biology courses at various 
schools in the Los Angeles area while 
monitoring numbers of California Least 
Terns in Batiquilos Lagoon and at the Port 
of Los Angeles. 

Libby Logerwell, a graduate student ' 
of George Hunt, is working with a group 
of people from the National Marine Fish- 
eries in the Alaska Fisheries Science 
Center to examine the distribution of birds 
around the Pribilof Islands with respect to 
the hydrography, and in particular, to the 
distribution of zero- and one-year age 
pollock. She will also be working with 
Gordon Schwarzman from University of 
Washington on a statistical analysis of 
spatial organization of these prey and their 
bird predators. 

Paige Martin, Channel Islands Na- 
tional Park, is working on the PSG data 
base entering all their data from 1990 to 
the present, and will eventually include all 
data from 1986 to the present. This year, 
Paige helped coordinate the projects of 
Harry Carter, Frank Gress and Scott 
Newman. One highlight of the summer 


was the banding of Brown Pelicans and nit 
Storm-Petrels in one 24 hour period: the se: 
largest and smallest seabirds in the Park. W 
This breeding season went really smoothly co 
with lots of cooperative arid well- m: 

coordinated effort. More work was com- en 

pleled than usual, thanks to the above sh 
teams of people and to Jennifer Roth, the he 
PRBO field assistant, and to the Channel Bi 
Island National Park volunteer, Shaye V: 

Wolf , who worked with Jennifer on an 

Santa Barbara Island, collecting data. ca 

Pat Mock is about to start research for C* 
a resource management plan for Pt. Mugu V 

Naval Air Station, on San Nicholas and th 

San Miguel Islands. He is also involved L< 
in the Oases Project to compare biodiver- B: 
sity on Air Force training ranges with that R 

of adjacent land which is managed differ- \\ 

ently. He continues to study the impact of st 
noise on passerine and riparian birds, and th 
soon will be involved in an infrared sens- G 
ing project for studying bighorn sheep and th 
antelopes. Later in the year, along with Is 
Hugh Ellis, he will be going to Florida to o 
look at energetics of Florida Scrub Jays at nr 
the Archibald field station. b 

Mark Pierson is involved in a study tl 
of distribution and abundance of shore- h 
birds in Ventura County, trying to target 
which beaches not on military land are e 

most important for shorebirds. Some of p 

the beaches in Ventura County are still F 

"wild" (for Southern California) and are s 

targeted for development. His study (with a 

Mike McCrary) will find which beaches c 

should be managed more for shorebirds g 

and less for development. Mark and t 

Mike are completing their third and final b 

year on this project in cooperation with f 

Jenny Dougan, from UC Santa Barbara, c 

who is a specialist in soft substrates, and s 

who will be sampling for prey species. 

Mark is also conducting a study in cOop- i 

eration with UC Santa Cruz on oil spill ( 

prevention and response in a study funded { 

by CDF&G. He, Mike McCrary, Ken t 

Briggs, and Mike Bonnell (UC Santa t 

Cruz) are flying aerial surveys monthly in . 

the Santa Barbara channel and Santa 
Maria basin (north of Point Conception) ; 
for coastal and marine birds during 8 


months of the year, concentrating their 
effort during the migratory months. The 
purpose of the study is to provide baseline 
data for nearshore divers, deep water al- 
cids and other seabirds, as well as marine 
mammals in order to update data from 15 
years ago. 

Nancy Read at Vandenberg AFB has 
the best-kept secret in Southern Califor- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 30 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


nia: Yandenberg is a Mecca for breeding 
seabirds, California Least Terns and 
Western Snowy Plovers as well as other 
colonial seabirds breed on the rocky 
mainland cliffs there. Unfortunately, only 
endangered species studies are ftinded, so 
she gathers data on the other species in 
her spare time. She has documented 
Brandt’s Cormorants’ breeding on the 
Yandenberg coastline the last two years, 
and she does these counts from shore be- 
cause the colonies are so accessible. 
Colonies are in the north and south 
Yandenberg areas. The breeding species 
that occur there are: Pigeon Guillemot, 

Least Tern, Western Snowy Plover, 
Brandt’s and Double-crested cormorant, 
Rhinoceros Auklet, Black Oystercatcher, 

Western Gull, and Peregrine Falcon. De- 
stroyer Rock/Point Pedernales is one of 
the "hot spots." The number of Pigeon 
Guillemots at Yandenberg comes close to 
the number which breed in the Channel 
Islands (1000 at Point Arguello and 1480 
overall). Near the Least Tern colony 
many Brown Pelicans roost, and Yanden- 
berg’s Peregrine Falcons also nest near 
the seabird colonies, making for many 
hours of good data-collecting. 

Doreen Statlander is a student inter- 
ested in the way seabirds make use of the 
pelagic realm during their foraging trips. 
Particularly, she wants to address how 
seabirds may be relying on hydrographic 
and biological oceanography features 
characterized by high production and ag- 
gregation of prey biomass. Her other in- 
terests of include the use of seabirds as 
biosensors for oceanography, and the need 
for long term population and reproductive 
data to address seabird conservation is- 
sues. 

She has established a collaboration 
with Dick Veit and she is relying on the 
CALCOFI cruises to gather data on alba- 
trosses off southern California. In addi- 
tion to the oceanographic correlates of 
their distribution, she is looking at their 
ship following behavior. 

Stu Warter is still teaching vertebrate 
zoology and marine ornithology at Cali- 
fornia State University Long Beach, His 
graduate student, Mike Aotch, is working 
on aggressive interactions in wintering 
Western Sandpipers. 

Walter Wehtje is still attending UC 
Riverside in a Ph.D. program under Tom 
Scott. He is currently working on land 
birds, looking at their breeding abundance 
and dispersion on San Nicholas Island. 

He is especially interested in juvenile dis- 

Pacific Seabirds 


persal patterns. 

Robin Ward has been working at Sea 
World since 1989, and is a senior avicul- 
turist there, tending seabirds such as pen- 
guins and puffins, many species of water- 
fowl, as well as flamingos (who at least 
get their feet wet, even if they aren't offi- 
cially seabirds), as well as shorebirds. 
Currently she is working in the Penguin 
Encounter and is involved in the manage- 
ment of the breeding season in the alcid 
exhibit where Atlantic and Tufted Puffins 
and Common Murres breed. She began 
her seabird career by volunteering at the 
San Diego Natural History Museum under 
Phil Unitt, preparing bird skins for the 
bird collection there. At the museum, she 
met Bill Everett, and later worked as a 
field assistant under him at Coronado 
Islands studying Black Storm-Petrels. 
After that she became involved with the 
Loggerhead Shrike program on San 
Clemente Island, again with Bill Everett. 
She went on to help out on Project Puffin 
with Steve Kress off the coast of Maine 
Seal Island. The last project she 


on 

worked on was with Julia Parrish 
(University of Washington) on experi- 
ments determining the degree to which 
murres possess an inherit response to gull 
alarms (they played recordings of gull 
alarms and watched the responses of 
Common Murres). She hopes to do more 
field work specializing in alcids and sea- 
birds. She is also interested in helping out 
on the Mexico Committee because she is 
bilingual, and has done some bilingual 
media work. 

Pat Baird 


Northern California 


Sarah Allen and Sarah Koenig (Point 
Reyes National Seashore), in cooperation 
with Point Reyes Bird Observatory, have 
initiated a predator exclosure study with 
Snowy Plovers breeding on beaches 
within the Point Reyes National Seashore. 
During the 1996 season, a total of 10 ex- 
closures were placed over nests on Li- 
mentour and Point Reyes Beaches in an 
effort to protect the nests from predation 
by Common Ravens. Monitoring and 
field work was conducted by PRBO; 
Americorp assisted with deployment of 
the exclosures. The exclosures were re- 
markably successful; a total of 16 chicks 

Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 


fledged this year compared to 4 in 1995. 
The study will continue next year and the 
number of exclosures deployed will be 
increased to 20. Sarah Allen continued 
to oversee the monitoring of Common 
Murre colonies affected by the 1995 
Wayfarer grounding. Monitoring of this 
study is being conducted by PRBO. Ef- 
forts are also underway to augment the 
GIS mapping capacity, of PRNS for oil 
spill response purposes. 

David Ainley and Larry Spear (H.T. 
Harvey and Associates) have participated 
in weekly tug boat trips and three regional 
oceanographic cruises since November of 
1995 in order to monitor potential effects 
of the disposal of dredge spoils on marine 
wildlife at a dump site located 20 miles 
west of the Farallon Islands. This study, 
organized by the EPA and the Army Corp 
of Engineers, is funded by the Port of 
Oakland. Ainley and Spear have also 
been involved with the assessment of 
habitat use and breeding success of Snowy 
Plovers at the Baumberg Tract in Hay- 
ward, California. This 850 acre site is 
slated to be restored to tidal wetland. 
Planning for the restoration work is still in 
progress and involves balancing the needs 
of the plovers with those of the endan- 
gered California Clapper Rail and Salt 
Grass Harvest Mouse. Monitoring of a 
wetland previously restored by H.T. Har- 
vey biologists in the California Central 
Yaliey continued for a second year. In 
1996, 19 breeding pairs of Snowy Plovers 
in addition to several dozen other shore- 
bird species utilized the site. Ainley and 
Spear continue to develop and improve 
statistical techniques to estimate seabird 
populations at sea. Results of one exer- 
cise indicated that at-sea estimates were 
within 2-13% (depending on the species) 
of island-based estimates for populations 
that have been well-studied on land and at 
sea. Ainley and Spear attended a second 
workshop on at-sea census techniques 
during which an agreement on survey 
protocols was reached. The workshop, 
which took place in Cambridge, England, 
was sponsored by the Scientific Commit- 
tee for Antarctic Research. 

Dan Anderson (University of Califor- 
nia at Davis) and his graduate students are 
finishing a five-year study on the effects 
of mercury on Western/Clark's Grebes at 
Clear Lake, California. Aspects of this 
study include on-going population and 
contaminant monitoring and analysis of 
feather elements (conducted by Tom Ca- 
hill) in order to; 1) identify and charac- 


* Page 31 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


terize contaminated habitats; 2) study age 
and sex differences; 3) document trophic 
changes in contaminants; and 4) identify 
geographic variation among groups of 
birds using different lakes. Anderson is 
also working on identifying historical and 
current levels of contamination at Clear 
Lake. Future work in this area will in- 
clude the genetic analysis of grebe popu- 
lations and interchanges, analyses of 
Western/Clark's Grebe interactions (with 
John Eadie), continued research into the 
historical aspects of contamination at the 
lake, and the immunological effects of oil 
and handling stress on coastal-wintering 
grebes (with Ken Briggs and Erik 
Gershwin). Funding and at least one 
graduate student are being sought for the 
work on Western/Clark's Grebe interac- 
tions. Research on the Brown Pelican 
continues; Eduardo Palacios is working 
on a variety of projects including the es- 
tablishment of time/activity budgets and 
habitat use of breeding pelicans, growth 
and development studies, and micro- 
habitat use patterns and influence on peli- 
can performance. Anderson continues his 
research on the long-term population 
trends and conservation status of the sub- 
species and is also working with Jim 
Keith on preparing a 25-year summary of 
contaminants in the Gulf of California. 

Esther Burkett (California Dept, of 
Fish and Game) continued to coordinate 
the monitoring of Marbled Murrelets in 
the Santa Cruz mountains. This research 
was conducted in cooperation with the 
USFWS, NBS (Harry Carter); Yale 
University (Steve Biseiiger and Ben 
Becker); the Santa Cruz Mountains Mur- 
relet Group (Stephanie and Steve 
Singer); and Humboldt State University 
Foundation (John Bolgar). Assistance 
was also provided by the Big Creek Lum- 
ber Company. This year, one active nest 
was discovered in an abandonned squirrel 
nest at Big Basin Redwoods State Park; 
two sets of egg shell fragments and a 
grounded juvenile were also found. At- 
sea surveys were conducted between Half 
Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, CA, focusing 
primarily on the waters around A2^ 
Nuevo Island. 

Harry Carter, Gerry McChesney, 
and Bill Mclver (NBS - California Sci- 
ence Center, Dixon Field Station) con- 
tinue their involvement with several coop- 
erative projects: 1) the Apex Houston 
Seabird Restoration Project (with 
USFWS, National Audubon Society, 
PRBO); 2) status of the Common Murre 


in California, Oregon, Washington, and 
British Columbia (with USFWS); 3) status 
of the Common Murre at the South Far- 
allon Islands (with PRBO and USFWS); 
4) Marbled Murrelet Recovery Team 
(with USFWS); 5) Marbled Murrelet re- 
search in central California (with Califor- 
nia Dept, of Fish and Game and Yale 
University); and 6) annual monitoring of 
Common Murres and Brandt’s and Dou- 
ble-crested Cormorants (with USFWS and 
CDFG). Research on the Channel Islands 
(with Darrell Whitworth and John Gi- 
lardi) is also continuing. These projects 
include: 1) annual monitoring of Brandt’s 
and Double-crested cormorant colonies 
throughout the Channel Islands; 2) Xantus’ 
Murrelet surveys at most of the islands; 
and 3) nesting of the Ashy Storm-Petrel at 
Santa Cruz Island. Radiotelemetry with 
Xantus' Murrelets in the Southern Califor- 
nia Bight (with John Takekawa and 
Laird Henkel - NBS-CSC, San Francisco 
Bay Estuary Field Station) continued in 
1996. Murrelets were captured at night in 
the waters around Santa Barbara Island 
and fitted with radios. Aerial surveys 
were then conducted to track the birds at 
sea. Telemetry work, conducted in coop- 
eration with the Wildlife Health Center at 
UC Davis (with Scott Newman), was 
undertaken in order to study stress arising 
from capture and handling. These radio- 
telemetry studies have been funded by and 
conducted cooperatively with several 
agencies including: U.S. Navy (Legacy 
Resources Management Program and 
Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station); 
CDFG (Wildlife Management Division 
and Office of Oil Spill Prevention and 
Response); USFWS (Sacramento Eco- 
logical Services); NOAA (Channel Islands 
National Marine Sanctuary); and Hum- 
boldt State University. Also of note: as of 
the 1st of October, NBS has become part 
of the U.S. Geological Survey (Biological 
Resources Division - BRD). Fortunately, 
the mission and goals of BRD remain the 
same as those of NBS. McChesney is in 
the final stages of writing his M.Sc. thesis 
on the breeding biology of Brandt’s Cor- 
morants on San Nicholas Island. He 
hopes to have it completed within the next 
few months. 

Frank Gress (California Institute of 
Environmental Health) has been working 
collaboratively with Harry Carter to 
develop a method of characterizing the 
breeding effort and reproductive success 
of Brown Pelicans, Double-crested Cor- 
morants and Brandt's cormorants using 


large-format, high resolution photography. 
This technique, used by the National Ma- 
rine Fisheries Service to census whale and 
pinniped populations, provides 5"x5" 
photographs that are extremely high in 
quality. Comparisons with both 35mm 
photographs and those taken from a 70mm 
Haselblad camera indicate that the method 
holds a lot of promise for obtaining in- 
formation on the reproductive success of 
pelicans and the nesting effort of Double- 
crested Cormorants. For Brandt's and 
Pelagic cormorants, however, photographs 
taken with a 35mm camera still produced 
the best results. Gress and Carter are 
seeking additional funding to conduct 
more surveys using the large-format 
equipment (owned by NMFS) in 1997. 
Because of the increase in numbers of 
Pacific Sardine in southern California 
waters, Gress is hoping to obtain funding 
to update information on the diet of 
Brown Pelicans and Double-crested Cor- 
morants. He also plans to publish an up- 
date of organochlorine contaminant levels 
for these two species in the Southern Cali- 
fornia Bight. 

Jim Harvey and graduate students at 
Moss Landing Marine Laboratories are 
continuing to conduct marine bird and 
mammal surveys in Monterey Bay. They 
are presently conducting 1-2 surveys per 
month until December 1996. The objec- 
tive of the study is to relate the presence 
of predators with hydro-acoustic informa- 
tion that may indicate the distribution of 
prey. In some cases, net sampling is em- 
ployed to determine species composition 
and size within the prey patches. Harvey 
and students are also monitoring the re- 
productive success of Brandt’s Cormorant 
colonies along the Monterey peninsula. 
Specific objectives of this research in- 
clude determining the chronology of 
nesting and fledging success as well as 
estimating the foraging area of birds at 
these colonies. 

John Hunter and Kristin Schmidt 
(Six Rivers National Forest), Howard 
Stauffer (Humboldt State University), 
Sherri Miller and C.J. Ralph (USFS - 
Redwood Sciences Lab), and Lynn Rob- 
erts (USFWS - Areata Office) are com- 
pleting a two-year study of Marbled Mur- 
relet distribution in the southern portion of 
FEMAT Zone 2 (President’s Forest Plan) 
in northern California. No murrelets were 
detected in this region in over 2,184 inten- 
sive surveys. Efforts are currently under- 
way to expand the project into the north- 
ern portions of Zone 2. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 ® Fall 1996 ® Page 32 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


Scott Newman (Wildlife Health Cen- 
ter, UC Davis) concluded the third year of 
data collection for the Baseline Seabird 
Blood Reference Range Project, a study 
funded by CDFG-OSPR. With help from 
numerous collaborators (USPWS, NBS, 
PRBO, CINP, uses, California Institute 
of Environmental Health), blood samples, 
used to determine the health of wild bird 
populations and to assess the impact of 
environmental pollutants on marine bird 
health, were collected during the past sea- 
son from Common Murres on S.E. Faral- 
lon Island, and Xantus’ Murrelets, Brown 
Pelicans, and Western Gulls on Santa 
Barbara Island. Newman also collected 
blood samples from Common Murres as 
part of a beached bird mortality study 
conducted by Ted Buerger, Roy Lowe, 
and Dave Pitkin (USFWS - Portland ES 
Field Office and Oregon Coastal Ref- 
uges). Samples collected from Oregon 
birds will be compared to samples from 
murres on the Farallon Islands in order to 
gain an understanding of regional differ- 
ences in health parameters. Additionally, 
blood samples from Double-crested Cor- 
morants at Spider Island, IL (with 
USFWS - Green Bay, WI) were collected 
and will be compared to samples from 
birds in Oregon and Maryland. As part of 
his ongoing work with OSPR, Newman 
will perform necropsies of Common 
Murre carcasses collected along the cen- 
tral California coast between June and 
September 1996. These data will be 
added to necropsy results taken from 40 
murres that died during the spring of 
1995. 

Point Reyes Bird Observatory 

Farallon Island and Marine Pro- 
grams: Bill Sydeman, Peter Pyle, Mi- 
chelle Hester, Nadav Nur, and Tom 
Schuster continued to monitor the de- 
mography and diet of twelve (potentially 
13) species of seabirds and five species of 
marine mammals at the South Farallon 
Islands. Sydeman and Nur, in coopera- 
tion with Harry Carter and David Gil- 
mer (NBS - California Science Center, 
Dixon Field Station) are developing a 
population viability analysis of Ashy 
Storm-Petrels in California. Tom Smith 
and Derek Girman (SFSU) will conduct 
an examination of genetic differentiation 
among populations of Ashy Storm-petrels 
as part of this research. Hester, Sydeman 
and Nathan Fairman finished a 5th year 
of monitoring Rhinoceros Auklets and 
other seabirds at Ano Nuevo Island, with 


funding from the Monterey Bay National 
Marine Sanctuary and the Coastal Con- 
servancy. Hester is completing her MS 
thesis work at Moss Landing Marine 
Laboratories on the ecology of Rhinoceros 
Auklets in central California. Sydeman 
and Fairman, in conjunction with 
Daphne Hatch (Golden Gale National 
Recreation Area), initiated a study of the 
effects of human disturbance on Brandt's 
and Pelagic cormorants. Pigeon Guil- 
lemots, and Black Oystercatchers breed- 
ing on Alcatraz Island, where over one 
million tourists visit annually. Sydeman, 
Nur, and Schuster, in conjunction with 
Paul Kelly (CDFG - OSPR) are continu- 
ing investigations of the effects of chronic 
oil pollution on seabirds in central Cali- 
fornia. In addition, PRBO is continuing 
with the maintenance and training of Cali- 
fornia’s oil spill wildlife response team. 

Sydeman, Mary Beth Decker, Dan 
Howard (Cordell Bank National Marine 
Sanctuary), and John Mason are investi- 
gating the relationship between the Point 
Reyes Upwelling Plume and the distribu- 
tion and abundance of macrozooplankton, 
larval and juvenile fish, and seabirds. 
This study will examine temporal and 
spatial patchiness in plankton and forage 
fish populations as well as the manner in 
which upper trophic level predators re- 
spond to oceanographic fronts (where 
temperature and salinity change) and prey 
distributions. 

Sydeman, Nur, and Paige Martin 
(Channel Islands National Park) are in- 
vestigating the effects of Western Gull 
and House Mouse predation on the viabil- 
ity of the Ashy Storm-Petrel population on 
the Farallon Islands, and Barn Owl and 
Deer Mouse predation on the viability of 
the Xantus’ Murrelet population of Santa 
Barbara Island. Sydeman, Martin, Jen- 
nifer Roth (PRBO) and Shaye Wolfe, in 
conjunction with the Channel Islands Na- 
tional Park, are continuing to monitor the 
population size, productivity, and phenol- 
ogy of eight species of seabirds on Santa 
Barbara Island. 

Pacific Flyway Project: Gary Page 
and Lynn Stenzel are continuing with the 
process of summarizing many years of 
data from the Pacific Flyway project. 
They have also collaborated with the 
Point Reyes National Seashore and 
USFWS/SFBNWR on predator exclosure 
studies with the endangered Snowy 
Plover. 

Mono Lake: David Shuford com- 
pleted the 15th year of monitoring the 


population size and reproductive success 
of California Gulls in relation to water 
level changes at Mono Lake. 

Other Regions: Shuford arid others 
continued with surveys of all California 
and Ring-billed gull colonies in Califor- 
nia. Shuford plans to produce a status 
review of the Black Tern for USFWS and 
hopes to initiate surveys of interior popu- 
lations of tern species and Double-crested 
Cormorants. 

San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory 

SFBBO celebrated its 15th anniver- 
sary this year. Biologists continue to 
monitor gull and tern colonies in the south 
San Francisco Bay area, including the 
California Gull colony in Alviso (the sec- 
ond largest in the state). Two pairs of 
Black Skimmers nested in the area for the 
third consecutive year. One nest produced 
4 chicks (3 of which were banded), the 
other nest failed. Observatory biologists 
are continuing their efforts to monitor the 
reproductive success of Forster's and 
Caspian tern colonies in their study area. 

USFWS/San Francisco Bay NWRC 

The Apex Houston seabird restoration 
project, led by Refuge biologist Mike 
Parker, was initiated in December 1995. 
Elizabeth McLaren and Susan Schubel, 
with help from Harry Carter (NBS) and 
a host of other people, deployed decoys 
on 12 and 13 January 1996 at Devil’s 
Slide Rock. In early March, Jennifer 
Boyce, Phil Capitolo, and Mari Ort- 
werth, and joined the restoration team. 
Information on attendance patterns, be- 
havior, productivity, diet, and anthropo- 
genic factors was collected from Common 
Murre colonies at Point Reyes headlands, 
Castle Rocks, and Hurricane Point Rocks 
in addition to Devil’s Slide Rock. The 
Refuge is working cooperatively with 
NBS, Humboldt State University Founda- 
tion, National Audubon Society, and 
PRBO on this project. Aerial surveys of 
seabird colonies located throughout cen- 
tral and northern California were con- 
ducted as part of an ongoing effort to 
monitor long-term trends in breeding 
population sizes. 

Refuge biologist Erin Fernandez 
continued to work with PRBO to evaluate 
the effectiveness of predator exclosures to 
protect Snowy Plover nests at the Salinas 
River NWR and several other sites 
throughout the Monterey Bay area. Ex- 
closures were not used during the first half 
of the nesting season on the Refuge. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 33 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


However, high rates of nest loss due to 
maimnalian predators required the use of 
exclosures during the second half of the 
season. Predator management continued 
in early 1996 at the Refuge, Fort Ord, and 
both CDFG and private lands. Results 
indicated that the program was highly 
effective. Sixteen chicks fledged from the 
Refuge, compared to just 3 in 1995. The 
USFWS will fund predator management 
activities during 1997. 

Refuge biologist Joy Albertson and 
others are continuing efforts to monitor 
the recovery of California Clapper Rail 
populations in San Francisco Bay 
marshes. The overall population appears 
to be stable, but recent winter airboat sur- 
veys have detected changes in rail popu- 


lations within certain marshes. Clapper 
Rail numbers have greatly increased in 
areas under intensive predator manage- 
ment (to control exotic red foxes and feral 
cats), however, populations in the West 
Bay, where predator management activi- 
ties are impeded by public use, are de- 
creasing. Albertson completed her Mas- 
ter's thesis on the ecology of the Califor- 
nia clapper rail in south San Francisco 
Bay in December 1995 (congratulations 
Joy!). Her research focused on: 1) the 
impact of non-native red fox predation on 
rail populations, 2) the home-range, 
movement, and survival of rails, and 3) 
the effects of contaminants on rail repro- 
ductive success. 


Other News 

The next California Seabird Research 
Coordination Workshop will be hosted by 
D. Michael Fry at the UC Davis campus. 
The meeting had originally been planned 
for 12-13 December 1996, however, con- 
flicts with other meetings have made it 
necessary to reschedule. New dates have 
yet to be determined, but will likely be 
sometime in early December. For more 
information, contact Mike Fry at 
(916)752-1201. 

Elizjabeth McLaren 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 34 


BOOK REVIEWS 


Laysan Island And Other 
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands 
History And Bibliography 

Atoll Research Bulletin Numbers 432 
434 


No. 432. Three Months On A Coral 
Island (Laysan) By Hugo H. Schauin- 
sland [1899] Translated By Miklos D.F. 
Udvardy 

No. 433. History And Ornithological 
Journals Of The Tanager Expedition 
Of 1923 To The Northwestern Hawai- 
ian Islands, Johnston And Wake Is- 
lands. By Storrs L. Olson 

No. 434. An Annotated Bibliography 
Of Laysan Island, Northwestern Ha- 
waiian Islands By Roger B- Clapp, Mik- 
los D.F.Udvardy and Angela Kay Kepler. 
Issued By The National Museum Of Natu- 
ral History, Smithsonian Institution, 
Washington, D.C., U.S. A. February 1996. 

No. 432. A special issue of the Atoll 
Research Bulletin titled "Laysan Island 
and other Northwestern Hawaiian Islands: 
Early Science Reports with a Laysan Is- 
land Bibliography" includes Dr. Miklos 
D.F. Udvardy's translation of an impor- 
tant journal of Hugo Schauinsland's three 
month expedition to Laysan Island with 
his wife in 1896. Several years in the 
making, this translation by PSG’s second 
Lifetime Achievement Award recipitent is 
an important perspective on Laysan— the 
'gem of the Leeward Hawaiian Islands’ at 
a time before the island was destroyed by 
guano miners, feather hunters and rabbit 
depredations. 

This perspective is especially impor- 
tant now as the USFWS plans to restore 
some of the vegetation of Laysan Island 
to this period. Udvardy himself visited 
Laysan in 1961 with the Harold J. 
Coolidge Expedition and vowed to trans- 
late this volume 30 years ago. We are 
grateful his pledge has been fulfilled. 

As a three time visitor to Laysan, I 
knew nothing of Hugo Schauinsland save 


written observations of the atolls life, one 
hundred years after his expedition. We 
learn that Schauinsland was a gifted young 
zoologist and museum curator in Bremen 
Germany when he was granted a year's 
leave to collect in the Pacific. Hugo be- 
gins his trip in Honolulu and with the help 
of the Guano Company, he gains an invi- 
tation to visit Laysan, perhaps his most 
important stop on an around-the-world 
collecting trip. 

His sense of jingoism is apparent as 
the German-owned H. Hackfield Com- 
pany, who leased the guano works at 
Laysan, provided the ship he sailed on. 


"The first reception on board was unfor- 
gettable!” he writes. " The sailors band, 
consisting of a kettledrum, triangle and 
accordion, tactfully greeted us with the 
masterly performed, pretty song 
"O’Susanna," which is also very much 
appreciated amongst us on the banks of 
the Wiser." 

Schauinsland's observations from 
Laysan include a mix of geology, geogra- 
phy and biology . He reports on the origin 
of guano, "the only reason why mankind 
visits this godforsaken island where only 
birds dwell." His style is quite lyrical, 
even flowery; typical prose of a Victorian 


liirtH Bunchgraw Association 

Beach Morning- glory 

Association 


Scaevola 

Sand-filled Depressions 


his attachment to the Hawaiian Monk Seal 
{Monachus schauinslandi). Now we can 
read his informative and delightfully 

Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fail 1996 • Page 35 


BOOK REVIEWS 


adventurer. Yet the observations are 
unique and important to restoration ef- 
forts. For example, we never knew that " 
The nicest plant on Laysan is, without 
comparison, a man-sized shrub, 
{Sandlewood} ... The splendor of the 
flower lasts only one night; it opens first 
at sundown and its life comes to an end 
the next morning when the sun has hardly 
raised itself above the horizon... Its charm 
is also increased by its intoxicating highly 
pleasant Ifagrance." We never knew that 
"Not too long ago, palms have also lived 
on the island, and, as the many remnants 
of their rotten stumps show, they were 
very numerous. However, the last living 
examples died off a few years ago... it is 
not unlikely that castaways contributed to 
their demise." 

His important observations include 
extinct plants and their associated avi- 
fauna endemic to Laysan. The Laysan 
honeyeater, millerbird, rail, now extinct 
and the extant Laysan finch, and duck 
were tame and abundant. His descriptions 
of seabirds are less noteworthy but none 
the less interesting: 

"Laysan is a true bird paradise; no- 
where on earth is there another place like 
this. The land birds occupy an inferior 
position, enduring their role of barely be- 
ing tolerated by the seabirds who are the 
dominant and ruling class here. Huge 
masses of birds come here to breed!. ..The 
flocks of storm-petrels (Haliplana fuligi- 
nosa Peale) that were milling around in 
the distance, looked like a swarm of bees," 

Two days after he arrived, so did the 
Bonin Petrels. " As if by some stroke of 
magic, the whole appearance of the island 
was transformed... One is awestruck by 
the bird's ability to accurately schedule its 
arrival time, almost to within an hour; 
where is the compass that guides its flight 
through the storms and hurricanes over the 
vast ocean toward this tiny speck of 
land?" 

"In the last days of October, the first 
outposts of the magnificent albatross ap- 
pear, a few days later, from a higher van- 
tage point, the island looks as if it were 
covered by large snowflakes. There is 
hardly a spot from which the dazzling 
white plumage of an albatross does not 
reflect back." 

While Hugo was out collecting speci- 
mens, his wife, "day in and day out, she 
would painstakingly prepare the speci- 
mens truly by the sweat of her brow as 
long as the daylight lasted." She suffered 
silently as cockroaches ate her fingernails 


while she slept but the tiny ants and bee- 
tles that ate her labors of love, specimens. 
"I often found my wife in tears over the 
lost efforts.” All this after she had suf- 
fered a serious disease upon arrival. For 
eight days her condition was guarded, but 
she recovered only to immerse herself in 
preparing specimens with mercury, arse- 
nic and old lace. 

He leaves the island with the impres- 
sion that the "animals on Laysan behave 
as they really are, without any fear. They 
had not yet learned to consider us their 
enemy, and therefore, we were constantly 
in a position (thus unbiased) to study not 
only their objective behaviour, but also 
and more specifically, their emotional life 
and their spiritual character. For example, 
he notes" the chicks of the stoic albatross 
exhibit a quiet, agreeable, but somewhat 
feeble-minded disposition; quite the oppo- 
site from the pedantic, eternally fidgeting, 
sanguinistic tern. The black shearwater 
(Christmas Shearwater) has a decidedly 
melancholy disposition... I can only com- 
pare to the sighing moans and cries of 
lament made by a very unfortunate person 
who is totally depressed about his life and 
the world," When we look at the popu- 
lation declines of albatross due to 
longlining, think about the lost landbirds 
due to introduced rabbits, it easy to relate 
to the shearwater’s depressing lament. 

No. 433. In 1923, the Tanager Expedi- 
tion, a natural history survey of the 
Northwestern Hawaiian islands and be- 
yond, was headed by Dr. Alexander Wet- 
more of the National Museum in Wash- 
ington. Storrs Olson, eminent ornithologi- 
cal paleontologist from the same institu- 
tion, presents the journal of the expedition 
leader’s field observations. The second 
journal is by Donald R. Dickey, "an en- 
thusiatic naturalist of independent means" 
as well as a filmmaker from Los Angeles. 
The journals are accompanied by black 
and white photos selected to create a sense 
of the period of this exploration that we 
can almost glimspe in the recent past: 
Wetmore in his beat-up "smoky the bear" 
hat and wire-rimmed glasses and Dickey 
in a pith helmet looking like The Profes- 
sor from Gilligan’s Island. From their 
writing we also learn of the darkest days 
of Laysan Island. The place experienced 
by Schaunsland has now been descimated 
by rabbits introduced by the guano miners 
in 1903. 

In addition to a biological reconnai- 
sance of Central Pacific islands, the Tana- 


ger Expedition, a joint effort between the 
Bureau of the Biological Survey (U.S. 
Dept, of Agriculture), the Bishop Mu- 
seuem of Honolulu and the U.S. Navy, 
was a biological 'swat' team to finally rid 
Laysan of the rabbits. The island was 
now a wasteland. "Verily the damned rab- 
bits have done their worst, " writes Don- 
ald Dickey, "As far as I can see with the 
glasses and fi-om our hurried trip down the 
island, there is not a living bush or twig or 
spear of grass left on the whole island 
outside of the two poor coconuts trees and 
3 bushes near the house... In my wildest 
pessimism I had not feared such utter ex- 
tirpation of every living plant." 

Wetmore writes in a more formal 
manner, providing rich details of the ani- 
mal life and expedition details. What 
comes across to me was his time spent 
with Eric Schlemmer, son of Max 
Schlemmer, the man who introduced rab- 
bits to Laysan, ostensible for his kids to 
play with, as well as for a meat canning 
business sideline to guano export. 
Schlemmer who was born on Laysan pro- 
vided Wetmore a perspective into the 
Laysan at a time when it was perhaps the 
grandest island north of the equator ( for 
its' relative size). 

I found Dickey's journal more dra- 
matic and personable, for example, as 
Dickey struggled under the inclement 
conditions for filming, he wrote of his 
frustrations and exaltations; 

"Set up the camera and soon had a 
Laysan Finch recorded on film (if all goes 
well and this cursed 100% humidity does 
not wreck me.) As I finished I heard a 
weak but charming song behind me and 
whirled to find one of our pair of Laysan 
Honey Eaters singing his heart out for me. 
Whirled the camera, slammed the focus 
lever, cranked and think I have him. And 
before I had recorded the footage and shot 
Schlemmer came up holding a Laysan 
Rail in his hand. To get all the footage 
possible we turned him loose in front of 
the high speed. Meantime I had held alive 
& unhurt in my hand one of the two 
Laysan Rails we know are left on the is- 
land, ...To think of getting one of the 3 
honeyeaters we know to be alive and one 
of the 2 rails and one of the finches in 
lightning succession was indeed luck." 

Bad luck soon followed, perhaps pro- 
voked by the Expedition members them- 
selves. During a shark killing spree at 
Kure Atoll {a.k.a. Ocean Island} on April 
16, 1923, over 30 sharks were shot out of 
a school of at least 500. On April 25, as 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 36 


BOOK REVIEWS 


a stiff wind blew from the NE., Wetmore 
recalled that "old sailors say the wind is 
due to the many sharks killed at Ocean 
Island. The Hawaiian shark god is of- 
fended and shows his displeasure in this 
manner." While the scientists were 
pinned down, an awesome sandstorm blew 
into oblivion the last three "Laysan red- 
birds." The Laysan rails died off in the 
aftermath. The Laysan ducks and finches 
barely survived because the ducks ate 
brine flies at the lake and the finches 
scavenged on other dead birds. Donald R. 
Dickeys’ diary is worth noting at length on 
this experience; 

"Monday 4-23-23 Rain & mist- 
driving N. gale-clearing to sandstorm in 
afternoon. Hell of a day... "And now I 
must pay for my fun!" Awoke to the shat- 
tering tune of the tent straining at every 
peg... Cursed the Sahara of Laysan and 
decided to declare it Sunday.. .This after- 
noon the clouds broke at times, but the 
gale increased until the whole island 
seemed to be walking— a regular cursed 
sandstorm of the worst sort... Off the south 
end of the island flaps a regular sand 
"banner" Life is hell!. ..to Hell with it and 
its islands, is the way I feel tonight. Tried 
scrambled Man-o’-war bird egg tonight. It 
was doubtless nourishing, but I did not 
relish my share." 

Tuesday 4-24-23. Cloudy-north gale- 
sand storm. Hell of a day. The gale and 
blinding sandstorm continues unabated 
and life in the open or in the tents or tum- 
ble-down shacks is equally unbearable. 
Not much sleep for anyone, but luckily my 
tent has held so far, by turning the fly 
loose... Everyone except smiling George, 
the cook is on edge. Took Eric and 
plowed out into the stinging blast of sand 
...There is not a shearwater burrow en- 
trance visible on higher sand ridges and 
the island seems almost deserted of birds. 
A Man-o'-war colony that had a dozen 
eggs yesterday and another dozen mated 
couples is deserted except for one male & 
one female that are sticking to their eggs. 
The rest have given it up and taken to the 
air leaving a feast for the curlew." 

Wednesday 4-25-23 Broken clouds- 
NNE. gale -sandstorm (third day) hell on 
earth. The terrific cold gale and sandstorm 
continues unabated— almost unbearable- 
getting on our nerves— third day however, 
wind a trifle E of N and scudding clouds 
broken with moments of sun, so we pray 
to heaven it may go down with the sun 
tonight. Outside sand cuts face like a 
knife. .. No sign of let-up tonight but 


sharp rain squalls are laying the sand. 
Birds collected today: #40 - Charadrius d. 
fulvus male, (Golden Plover) found dead- 
too weak to survive sand storm that is 
raging. Many are dying. 

Saturday 4-28-23 -Heavy Rain...At last 
the wind dropped after the worst wind 
siege I have ever experienced, but only to 
veer to the east and bring up the first pro- 
longed torrential downpour we have had. 
We could have caught a cistern full of 
water had we had a cistern instead of pans 
& pots & coal oil cans. By 9:00 it had 
cleared gloriously with the second collec- 
tion of decent clouds for photography we 
have had on the island. " 

The infamous storm was over and 
some species had vanished forever. Wet- 
more and Dickey were there to record the 
end. Storrs Olson provides their journals 
at a critical time as the restoration of 
Laysan is contemplated. The transplant of 
Nihoa Millersbirds to Laysan as well as 
the revegetation of Laysan while the con- 
tinued war against Sandbur, the intro- 
duced noxiuos, continues. 

No. 434. The final paper, an annotad 
bibliography of Laysan Island by PSG 
members Roger B. Clapp, Miklos D.F. 
Udvardy and Angela Kay Kelper rounds 
out what is known and reported about this 
unique island. Even my most obscure pa- 
pers that I have forgotten about (for good 
reason) were included. This team of 
authors, including Storrs Olson and editor 
Ian G. Macintyre have done a great serv- 
ice in saving from obsurity, valuable jour- 
nals useful to todays conservationists in 
Hawaii and anywhere historical biological 
accounts is appreciated. Mahalo to them, 

Mark J. Rauzon 


Global Biogeography 


Global Biogeography by John C. Briggs, 
1995. 472 pages. Volume 14 of Devel- 

opments in Paleontology and Stratigraphy, 
Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam - 
New York. ISBN: 444-88297-9, US$ 
203. 

Dr. Briggs is an ichthyologically ori- 
ented zoogeographer who is well known 
as author of the only marine zoogeogra- 
phy (1974) published since Ekman’s clas- 
sic monographs. He further contributed 
three more books which became more and 


more oriented toward the now topical, and 
controversial, field of historical bio- 
geography. The present book seems to be 
the culmination of his comprehensive 
studies: it encompasses both historical and 
recent biogeography, of animals and 
plants, marine, freshwater, and terrestrial 
organisms. 

The book is divided into two main 
parts. Historical biogeography brings us 
the latest stand of knowledge about the 
vicissitudes of land and oceans through 
time, as well as the evolution of every 
major taxon of plants and animals. The 
second part treats the present, i.e., con- 
temporary distribution. The eighty-odd 
pages of marine distribution patterns is 
well worth reading by anyone dealing with 
marine organisms. Here we find several 
of the author’s previously launched ideas, 
e.g. about distribution centers. The de- 
scriptive chapters on terrestrial patterns 
are understandingly shorter, more concise. 

Two final chapters are significant. 
One, culminating in Briggs' hypothesis 
about antitropical distributions (missing in 
the tropics, but extant at higher latitudes) 
revives an older hypothesis claiming 
step-by-step extinctions of once continu- 
ous distribution from tropical centers of 
origin. The chapter on species diversity is 
an excellent summary of the subject for 
both marine and terrestrial biologists. We 
learn not only about latitudinal, but also 
longitudinal diversity gradients. While 
E.O. Wilson (1992, The diversity of Life) 
lists three reasons: more solar energy, 
more stable climate, and larger area of a 
taxon to display higher diversity, Briggs 
now adds a fourth factor: the longer the 
evolutionary time (of the taxon) the 
greater is its diversity. This sounds logi- 
cal. A final emphasis is on the present, 
anthropogene loss of diversity, that is 
more and more evident and menacing 
(threatening?) the future of our biosphere. 

Our readers who specialize in seabird 
studies ought to be well versed in marine 
zoogeography. It is just therefore that 
Briggs’ new book needs to have our spe- 
cial attention. The author writes: "In the 
twenty years period, between 1974 and 
1994 a vast amount of literature, contain- 
ing significant information about the dis- 
tribution of various marine species, has 
appeared. There is, in fact, so much that 
one could no longer do justice to it within 
the covers of one book." (p.208). Yet, 
shame on us, there was not one paper 
about seabirds, let alone a book, that 
would have caught the Interest of Briggs 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 37 


BOOK REVIEWS 

to include into his monumental work, 
apart of an almost casual mentioning of 
the known early ancestry of Procellarli- 
formes and Sphenisciformes. 1 hope that 
some of us would rectify this hiatus in the 
near future. 

M.D.F.Udvardy, California State Univer- 
sity, Sacramento. 


Seafood Industry 


1996 Annual Report Of The United 
States Seafood Industry by Howard M. 
Johnson. 1996. 99 Pages. H. H. Johnson 
& Associates, P.O. Box 53146, Bellevue, 
WA 98015. E-mail: 

<hjonsol9@mail.nwlink.com>; Tele- 
phone: (425)747-2757. 

This is certainly among the most docu- 
mented reports that this reader has en- 
countered, with 95 graphs and 12 tables in 
the main text, that quantify all aspects of 
seafood catches and consumption by 
country and species. This is followed by 
an appendix of 23 pages of tables sup- 
porting all graphic data points. 

We learn from the preface this is the 
fourth in a series of reports "...designed to 
provide convient access to informa- 
tion. ..regarding seafood supply and de- 
mand." The report is certainly a broad 
overview of the industry, focused on in- 
ternational and environmental issues that 
have or will impact the U.S. seafood in- 
dustry. The emerging conflict between 
increasing demand on existing ocean 
stocks and the expectation of continued 
harvest and culture of fish and shellfish 
without negatively affecting sustainable 
resources or coastal eco-systems help de- 
fine the scope of this information filled 
report. 

This report is divided into two major 
sections, global seafood trends affecting 
the U.S. seafood industry and major 


commodity trends. These are proceeded 
by the short section, 1995 highlights. 
There, among the interesting facts, we 
learn that in 1994 world commercial fish 
and shellfish supplies total 109.6 mmt 
(million metric ton), a record, and that 
aquaculture production represented near 
25 percent of that, about 1 8.6 mmt. The 
U.S. per capita consumption of seafood in 
1995 was about 15.0 pounds. U.S. aquac- 
ulture production for 1995 was: catfish - 
447 million pounds (mp); tilapia - 15 mp; 
hybrid striped bass - 9 mp; and farm 
salmon - 34 mp. U.S. edible fish product 
exports topped 2 billion pounds in 1995, 
with salmon the leading export ($729 mil- 
lion). In 1995 the U.S. imported 3.1 bil- 
lion pounds of seafood products, for $6.8 
billion, including shrimp - 590 mp, and 
fish block - 210 mp, including 102 mp of 
pollock. The 1995 wholesale value of 
seafood was $18.2 billion, and the retail 
near $38.2 billion. 

World fishery data indicate that in 
1994 catches increased for 48 of the 68 
top species. We learn that there has been 
a shift in the species that are caught in 
many areas, where high value species such 
as cod, haddock and flatfish being re- 
placed by low value species such as her- 
ring, pilchards and mackerel. Overall, 
69% of world fish stocks are classified as 
depleted, recovering, overfished or fully 
utilized. A quarter of all fisheries are de- 
pleted, overexploited or recovering. The 
report notes that "..any potential increases 
in production appear limited to small pe- 
lagic stocks." 

This sampling of the data contained 
within the report reflects the enormous 
scale of the seafood industry and portends 
the potential difficulties in continuing to 
harvest seafood stocks while maintaining 
the biological integrity of the ecosystem 
wherein they occur. The seafood industry 
is sensitive to environmental concerns, 
especially the bycatch of non-target fish, 
mammals, birds and other marine organ- 
isms. The fishing industry has responded 
to concerns and modifications to gear 


have occurred, and more are likely to oc- 
cur, as reflected in the lUCN resolution on 
longline bycatch reported in this issue of 
Pacific Seabirds. 

To this writer greatly reducing or 
eliminating bycatch is a relative simple 
matter compared to that of maintaining 
healthy fisheries that can be harvested 
indefinitely into the future. The report 
notes the emergence of China as a major 
consumer of fish products, a country that 
will at least equal the consumption of Ja- 
pan. The demand for fish products will 
certainly continue to increase. How much 
of the current and future demand can be 
satisfied by aquaculture is unknown: note 
that fish feed is often fish meal although 
alternatives are being developed, and 
there are environmental concerns specific 
to aquaculture. 

The concern of marine ornithologists 
is, of course, what impacts, if any, the 
continued and especially the increased 
harvesting of marine fisheries will have on 
marine bird populations. Harvesting large 
and perhaps biologically significant por- 
tions of lower levels of food chains is po- 
tentially biologically disruptive and lim- 
iting. Do we really understand the conse- 
quences of these actions? How long will 
it take depleted fisheries and their de- 
pendent marine bird and mammal popula- 
tions to recover? Do we have the techni- 
cal information to recognize biologically 
significant impacts? If not, what type of 
effort is required to do so? 

To be sure, marine fisheries will con- 
tinue and the pressure to increase harvest 
levels, the areas harvested, and the species 
harvested will increase. Our challenge is 
learning how to manage these harvested 
fisheries at biologically meaningful levels. 
To do so requires technical information of 
populations, food chains, and their bio- 
logical and physical interactions: much 
remains to be done. 

Steven M. Speich 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 38 


BULLETIN BOARD 


IN MEMORIAM 
ROGER TORY 
PETERSON, R.I.P. 


Roger Tory Peterson died in his home 
at Old Lyme, Connecticut, in July 1996, 
just short of his 88th birthday. In addition 
to being one of the great conservationists 
of the 20th century, he was an author, il- 
lustrator and naturalist. He touched the 
personal and professional life of virtually 
every member of the Pacific Seabird 
Group (PSG). Many like myself and 
Steve Speich cherish our battered and 
worn copies of our Peterson western field 
guides. I was introduced to him by the 
late Ralph Schreiber at the International 
Council for Bird preservation meeting in 
Cambridge, England, in 1982, and found 
him to be shy and modest regarding his 
accomplishments. Roger Tory Peterson 
was a member of PSG during most of 
PSG’s existence. He was the founding 
president of the International Council of 
Bird Preservation’s U.S. Section in 1964, 
the predecessor of the American Bird 
Conservancy. 

He invented the modern field guide, 
and over seven million copies of his bird 
guides were sold in North America. The 
guides expanded birding far beyond an 
academic and museum-oriented elite, and 
converted it into a hobby for millions of 
ordinary people. By learning the names of 
birds and other creatures from Peterson’s 
guides, the public began to notice changes 
in their own natural surroundings. Thus, 
Peterson fostered the creation of the envi- 
ronmental movement of the 1960s and 
1970s. The Peterson Field Guide Series 
includes at least 46 titles and covers virtu- 
ally every realm of natural history . 

Houghton-Mifflin published Peterson’s 
original Field Guide to the Birds of the 
Eastern United States in 1934, after re- 
jections by four publishers. This was 
during the depths of the depression, and 
the publisher cautiously printed only 
2,000 copies, and asked Peterson to forgo 
royalties on the first thousand. A Field 
Guide to the Birds of the Western United 
States followed in 1941. 

These revolutionary field guides were 
small enough to fit into a birder’s pocket. 


and were among the first books to include 
the word "field" in the title. Roger Tory 
Peterson devised what remains the easiest 
to use method of bird identification. His 
schematic and two-dimensional paintings 
grouped birds that might look similar 
(regardless of taxonomic relationships), 
and therefore might be mistaken for each 
other. To ease comparisons, the birds 
were usually painted in identical bodily 
positions. Peterson invented the use of 
little arrows to point out the field marks 
that are the cues needed to identify a bird. 
He greatly simplified written species de- 
scriptions to ruthlessly eliminate every- 
thing nonessential. Fork-tailed storm- 
petrels, for example, are "gray; paler be- 
low; unlike all other storm-petrels which 
are blackish." 

Roger Tory Peterson was born in 1908 
in Jamestown, New York. He joined the 
Junior Audubon Club at age 11, and par- 
ticipated in five Christmas counts as a 
teenager. A teacher encouraged him to 
draw birds, and after graduating high 
school he went to New York City to study 
painting. In the early 1930s Peterson was 
named the artist of the Bronx County 
Birding Club. This position became the 
vehicle for his first field guide. 

In Peterson’s youth, serious ornitholo- 
gists usually carried small shotguns to 
verify their identifications and obtain ac- 
ceptable locality records by collecting 
specimens. Identification guides were 
typically long-winded, much too large and 
heavy to be taken into the field, and writ- 
ten in academic jargon. Peterson had 
been exasperated by the descriptions in 
Frank M. Chapman’s Handbook of Birds 
of Eastern North America which began 
with the bill and trudged systematically 
back to the tail. The obscure anatomical 
differences used to differentiate similar 
species were most useful with a dead bird 
in hand so that the specimen could be 
matched to an excruciatingly detailed de- 
scription or compared with stuffed speci- 
mens in a museum drawer. Peterson was 
among the first to grasp the potential for a 
book that would help people identify live 
birds. He improved upon Chester Reed’s 
1909 Guide to the Land Birds East of the 
Rockies which classified by color and 
size. Peterson took the vantage point of 
the birder who may have only a few sec- 


onds, often in poor light, to identify a bird 
correctly through binoculars. 

Among the many remarkable aspects 
of Peterson’s work is that he painted each 
bird, wrote the text, and edited the entire 
field guide. By contrast, the National 
Geographic guide of the 1980s was the 
work of 16 artists and 30 writers. 

In the twilight of his life, Peterson 
become a legend. He was recognized by 
naturalists most anywhere in the world, 
and was treated as an Audubon or a Dar- 
win. He assisted the careers of younger 
biologists, and in my case graciously said 
some kind words about my Seabirds of 
Hawaii: Natural History and Conserva- 
tion in the galley proof stage, enabling the 
publisher to include his comments on the 
cover. An equally famous French ocean- 
ographer never answered my letter. Roger 
Tory Peterson retains a special place 
within my own family: every household 
has a least one of his guides. My 91 year 
old grandmother still had her 1941 edition 
of A Field Guide to the Birds of the West- 
ern States in her Nebraska home when she 
passed away this summer, and my aunt is 
the lucky recipient of this family heir- 
loom. 


Craig Harrison 


MIDWAY ATOLL 
NATIONAL WILDLIFE 
REFUGE CREATED 


THE WHITE HOUSE 

Office of the Press Secretary, November 
1, 1996, For Immediate Release 

EXECUTIVE ORDER 

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MIDWAY 
ISLANDS 

By the authority vested in me as President 
by the Constitution and the laws of the 
United States of America, including sec- 
tion 48 of the Hawaii Omnibus Act, Pub- 
lic Law 86-624, and section 301 of title 3, 
United States Code, it is hereby ordered as 
follows: 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 39 


BULLETIN BOARD 


Section 1. The Midway Islands, Hawaiian 
group and their territorial seas, located 
approximately between the parallels of 28 
degrees 5 minutes and 28 degrees 25 min- 
utes North latitude and between the me- 
ridians of 177 degrees 10 minutes and 177 
degrees 30 minutes West longitude, were 
placed under the jurisdiction and control 
of the Department of the Navy by the pro- 
visions of Executive Order 199-A of 
January 20, 1903, and Part II of Executive 
Order 11048 of September 4, 1962, and 
are hereby transferred to the jurisdiction 
and control of the Department of the Inte- 
rior. The provisions of Executive Order 
199-A of January 20, 1903, and the provi- 
sions of Executive Order 11048 of Sep- 
tember 4, 1962, that pertain to the Mid- 
way Islands are hereby superseded. 

Section 2. The Midway Islands Naval 
Defensive Sea Area and the Midway Is- 
lands Naval Airspace Reservation are 
hereby dissolved. The provisions of Ex- 
ecutive Order 8682 of February 14, 1941, 
as amended by Executive Order 8729 of 
April 2, 1941, are hereby superseded. 

Section 3. (a) The Secretary of the Inte- 
rior, through the United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service, shall administer the 
Midway Islands as the Midway Atoll Na- 
tional Wildlife Refuge in a manner con- 
sistent with Executive Order 12996 of 
March 25, 1996, for the following pur- 
poses: 

(1) maintaining and restoring natural bio- 

logical diversity within the refuges; 

(2) providing for the conservation and 
management of fish and wildlife and their 
habitats within the refuge; 

(3) fulfilling the international treaty obli- 
gations of the United States with respect 
to fish and wildlife; 

(4) providing opportunities for scientific 
research, environmental education, and 
compatible wildlife dependent recrea- 
tional activities; and 

(5) in a manner compatible with refuge 
purposes, shall recognize and maintain the 
historic significance of the Midway Is- 
lands consistent with the policy stated in 
Executive Order 1 1593 of May 13, 1971. 

Section 3. (b) The Secretary of the Inte- 
rior shall be responsible for the civil ad- 


ministration of the Midway Islands and all 
executive and legislative authority neces- 
sary for that administration, and all judi- 
cial authority respecting the Midway Is- 
lands other than the authority contained in 
48 U.S.C. 644a. 

Section 4, Any civil or criminal proceed- 
ing that is pending under the Midway Is- 
lands Cods, 32 CFA part 762, upon the 
date of this order, shall remain under the 
jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Navy. 
Actions arising after the date of this order 
are the responsibility of the Secretary of 
the interior and shall be administered pur- 
suant to regulations promulgated by the 
Secretary of the Interior. 

Section 5. To the extent that any prior 
Executive order or proclamation is incon- 
sistent with the provisions of this order, 
this order shall control. 

Section 6. Nothing in this order shall be 
deemed to reduce, limit, or otherwise 
modify the authority or responsibility of 
the Attorney General of the United States 
to represent the legal interests of the 
United States in civil or criminal cases 
arising under the provisions of 48 U.S.C. 
644a. 

William J. Clinton, THE WHITE 
HOUSE, October 31 , 1996. 


MEDMARAVIS NEWS 


From MEDMARAVIS News we learn, 
among other things, that the group can be 
accessed on the web: 

<http://www.mmsoft.fr/monoweb/medmar 
axm>. The Second Forum of the Alghero 
Convention on Coastal and Marine Bio- 
diversity in the Mediterranean will take 
place at the Alghero, 27-30 March 1997. 
The 5th Pan-Mediterranean Seabird 
Symposium will be held in Malta during 
September 1998. Upon the request of the 
Sardinian Autonomous Region and the 
City Council of Porto Torres, MED- 
MARAVIS is organizing a 3-day special- 
ized International Symposium on Man- 
agement of Protected Island Ecosystems 
in the Mediterranean, to be held 6-8 Sep- 
tember 1996. In March 1996 MED- 
MARAVIS published the Coastal and 
Marine Biodiversity of the Mediterranean, 
For further information visit their web site 


or contact the secretary, e-mail; 
<medmaraxm @pacwan.mm-soft.li>. 


lUCN URGES GREATER 
PROTECTION FOR SEA- 
BIRDS IN LONGLINE 
FISHERIES 


(23 October 1996 — Montreal) Two lead- 
ing US environmental groups, the Envi- 
ronmental Defense Fund (EDF) and De- 
fenders of Wildlife, praised the Interna- 
tional Union of the Conservation of Na- 
ture (lUCN) for adopting today a resolu- 
tion that calls for the widespread use of 
measures that would prevent seabirds 
from getting hooked and drowned on 
commercial fishing lines. EDF and De- 
fenders of Wildlife authored the resolu- 
tion, which was cosponsored by 17 con- 
servation groups and is strongly supported 
by the United States, Australia, New Zea- 
land and other governments. 

Scientists agree that longline fishing 
severely impacts at least 13 species, three 
of which are globally threatened vrith ex- 
tinction. A longline can be up to 80 miles 
long, carrying several thousand baited 
hooks. Worldwide, an estimated 180,000 
birds die on hooks each year in tuna, 
swordfish, sablefish, and other longline 
fisheries. One of the birds most at risk is 
the Wandering Albatross, among the 
world's most magnificent birds. It has a 
1 0-foot wingspan and can glide over thou- 
sands of miles of ocean in a month. 
"Tragically, about 10 percent of the 
world's Wandering Albatross population 
is killed each year by longlines," said Jim 
Wyerman, Defenders of Wildlife Vice 
President. 

Dr. Rod Fujita, an EDF scientist, noted 
that, "Some fishermen are already trying 
hard to avoid killing seabirds. 

For example, fishermen of the North Pa- 
cific are adapting techniques that have 
worked elsewhere and are developing new 
methods to reduce seabird mortality." He 
went on to say that, "The North Pacific 
Longline Association (NPLA) has even 
proposed new regulations that incorporate 
many of the measures described in the 
lUCN resolution." 

Dr. Charles Wurster, an ornithologist 
and EDF trustee, emphasizes that, "These 
great oceanic birds are a visible signal of 
the health of the oceans — and many are in 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 40 


BULLETIN BOARD 


decline. Fortunately, practical solutions 
exist. By preventing birds from going 
after bait, more fish can be caught.” 

Fishermen can minimize conflicts with 
seabirds by putting extra weight on lines 
to make bait sink faster, by setting hooks 
at night, and by using streamer lines that 
scare birds away. 

Seabird bycatch and other international 
conservation problems have been consid- 
ered at the lUCN assembly convened at 
Montreal's Palais Des Congres from Oc- 
tober 14-23. The largest gathering of 
conservationists since the 1992 Earth 
Summit in Rio, this lUCN meeting has 
attracted approximately 2,500 representa- 
tives from 144 nations. 

Defenders VP Jim Wyerman concluded 
that, "Measures to avoid hooking seabirds 
need to become widespread throughout 
the global longlining fleet. The lUCN 
resolution is a positive first step." 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 41 


REPORT OF THE TREASURER - 1996 

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OCTOBER 1, 1995 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1996 


Income and Expenses 

The gross income for the year was 
$48,696.84 of which $30,349.11 (62%) 
was from grants for special projects. This 
included $18,049.11 for the EVOS work- 
shop and subsequent publication, $12,000 
for the Seabird Monitoring Database proj- 
ect, and $300 to publish a brochure about 
Marbled Murrelets. Income from the 
Victoria annual meeting was $2,945.32, 
although $2,303.48 of this was repayment 
of PSG’s loan to the meeting committee. 
Membership dues accounted for 
$8,435.23 (17%), and interest and divi- 
dend income provided $4,410.68 (9%). 
Income from publication sales was 
$1,656.50, this includes sales of 69 copies 
of the Marbled Murrelet symposium. 
$600 was given for the PSG endowment. 
Expenses totaled $43,530.58 with the 
EVOS workshop being our largest ex- 


pense at $29,049.16 (67%). The produc- 
tion of two issues of Pacific Seabirds cost 
$5,311.61 (12%), officer and committee 
expenses were $2,604.78 (6%), and ex- 
penses for publications were $2,532.81 
(6%), which included the purchase of 500 
copies of the Marbled Murrelet sympo- 
sium volume for resale. 

Endowment Accounts 

On September 30, 1996 the PSG en- 
dowment was worth $55,069.53. On July 
15, 1996, in response to the change in the 
bylaws that allows the endowment funds 
to be placed in a mutual fund, the endow- 
ment committee (Malcolm Coulter, Craig 
Harrison and Jan Hodder, treasurer) sold 
1,376.147 shares of Dean Witter U.S. 
Government Securities Trusts at $8.72 per 
share resulting in $12,000. This amount 
was then invested in 513.04 shares of 


Neuberger & Berman Management Inc.’s 
Guardian Fund. 

Membership 

As of September 30, 1996 PSG mem- 
bership totaled 410, of which 55 are life 
members, 30 are family members and 20 
are student members. Forty-five new 
members have joined PSG this year. A 
total of 1 1 0 members did not renew this 
year. Of the 65 members whose registra- 
tion fees for the San Diego meeting in- 
cluded a 1995 PSG membership only 16 
renewed for 1996. Twenty-six libraries 
have paying subscriptions to Pacific Sea- 
birds. 

Jan Hodder, 

Treasurer 


Table 1. Pacific Seabird Group Balance Sheet, September 30, 1996 

Account Balance 


September 30, 1996 

October 1, 1995 

Annual Meeting - Portland 

$1,500.00 

_ 

^Endowment Accounts 

Dean Witter US Gov. Securities 

$45,106.94 

$53,599.13 

Neuberger and Berman Guardian Fund 

$12,626.93 


Publications Accounts 

Bulletin Account (M. Springer ed.) 
Pacific Seabirds Account (S. Speich ed.) 

$168.20 

$2,985.77 

^Savings Account - Dean Witter 

$32,416.77 

$16,884.03 

Special Projects Accounts 

EVOS Workshop and Publication 

$17,619.43 

$28,619.48 

Treasurer’s Checking Account 

$1,713.97 

$2,454.56 

^United Kingdom Membership Account 

$225.29 

$722.17 

Total Assets 

$111,377.53 

$105,265.14 

Liabilities and Equity 

Liabilities 

$29,619.43 

$32,319.48 

Equity 

$81,758.10 

$72,945.66 


Total Liabilities and Equity $11 1,377.53 $105,265.14 


Footnotes 

* Total reflects actual amount deposited or interest earned. Deposits are made by purchasing shares, the dollar amount of which fluctuates with the market. On Sep- 
tember 30, 1996 we had 4,734.643 shares of Dean Witter U.S. Government Securities trust valued at $8.81 per share (value $41,712.20), and 539.69 shares of 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 42 


S103 305 42 and $70,985.94 respectively. . u ■ t 


^^7^ 9.43 for the EVOS publication and $ 12,000 for the Seabird Monitoring Database project. 

Table 2. Pacific Seabird Group Cash Flow Report, 1 October 1995 

- 30 September 1996 

Income 

$2,945.32 

Annual meeting - Victoria 

$18,049.11 

’EVOS ^ ^ 

Grant from the USFWS for the Seabird Monitoring Database project 

$12,000.00 

$300.00 

Grant from USFWS for marbled murrelet brochure 

$600.00 

^Gifts for the PSG endowment 

$1,185.79 

Income dividend (Savings account Dean Witter) 

$3,147.81 

Income dividend (Endowment account Dean Witter) 

$26.93 

Income dividend (Endowment account Neuberger & Berman) 

$50.15 

Interest earned on checking accounts 

$360.00 

Life membership dues 

$8,075.23 

^Membership dues 

$300.00 

Page charges for marbled murrelet symposium 

$1,656.50 

Publication sales 


$48,596.84 

Total Income 


Expenses 

$1,500.00 

Annual meeting - Portland 

$82.50 

Bank charges 

$650.00 

'^Dues 

$29,049.16 

EVOS Workshop 

$2,604.78 

Officer and Committee expenses 

$5,311.61 

Pacific Seabirds 

$1,450.00 

Page charges for marbled murrelet symposium 

$2,532.81 

Publications 

$339.72 

Student wages 

$10.00 

Taxes 


Total Expenses 

Total Income over Expenses 


.4 ki;.k nn the 1995 seabird restoration workshop sponsored by the EVOS mis- 

grant from the.US Fish and Wildlife Service to write and publish a book on the 1 seaoira 


Footnotes 

' Includes a $15,000 

Hm from Schuessler Knitting Mills, $100 from Dennis Michaels 
^ includes $584 transferred from the U.K. account for dues for 1996 and previous years. 
^ Ornithological Council $500, Bird Conservation Alliance $150. 


$43,530.58 


$5,066.26 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 


Fall 1996 • Page 43 


PUBLICATIONS 


A SYMPOSIUM OF THE PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 

BIOLOGY OF MARBLED MURRELETS: INLAND AND AT SEA 

S. KIM NELSON AND SPENCER G. SEALY (editors) 

in NORTHWESTERN NATURALIST, Volume 76, Number 1 , 1 995 


CONTENTS 

Introduction by S. K. Nelson and S. G. Sealy 
Inland 

Marbled murrelet activity relative to forest characteristics in the Naked Island Area, Prince William Sound, Alaska by K. J. Kuletz, D. 
K. Marks, N. L. Naslund and M. B. Cody 

Tree and habitat characteristics and reproductive success at marbled murrelet tree nests in Alaska by N. L. Naslund, K. J. Kuletz, M. B. 
Cody and D. K. Marks 

Description of two marbled murrelet tree nests in the Walbran Valley, British Columbia by I. A. Manley and J. D. Kelson 
Characteristics of three marbled murrelet tree nests, Vancouver Island, British Columbia by K. M. Jordan and S. K. Hughes 
Marbled murrelet distribution in the Siskiyou National Forest of southwestern Oregon by C. P. Dillingham, R. C. Miller and L. O. 
Webb 

Two marbled murrelet nest sites on private commercial forest lands in northern California S. J. Kerns and R. A. Miller 
Behavior of marbled murrelets at nine nest sites in Oregon by S.K. Nelson and R. W. Peck 

Fledging behavior, flight patterns, and forest characteristics of marbled murrelet tree nests in California by S. W. Singer, D. L. 

Suddjian and S. A. Singer 

Use of boat-based surveys to determine coastal inland habitat associations of marbled murrelets in Prince William Sound, Alaska by D. 
K. Marks, K. J. Kuletz and N. L. Naslund 

Use of radar to study the movements of marbled murrelets at inland sites by T. E. Hamer, B. A. Cooper and C. J. Ralph 
At Sea 

Preliminary observations on juvenile:adult ratios of marbled murrelets in Auke Bay, southeast Alaska by H. L. Anderson and S. R. 
Beissinger 

At-sea activity patterns of marbled murrelets adjacent to probable inland nesting areas in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Colum- 
bia by M. S. Rodway, J.-P. L. Savard, D. C. Gamer and M. J. F. Lemon 
Decline of marbled murrelets in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia: 1982-1993 by J. D. Kelson, I. A. Manley and H. R. Carter 
Distribution of marbled murrelets along the Oregon Coast in 1992 by C. S. Strong 
Use of mist nets to capture murrelets over the water by R. A. Burns, G. W, Kaiser and L. M. Prestash. 

To Order: send $20.00 USD (postage and handling included), check or money order, made payable to the Pacific Seabird Group, to 
Jan Hodder, Treasurer, Pacific Seabird Group, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, Charleston, OR 97420 USA. 
Government and institution purchase orders accepted. 

Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 44 


PUBLICATIONS 


Published Proceedings Of Symposia Of The Pacific Seabird Group 


Al inegular intervals the Pacific Seabird Group holds symposia at its annual meetings. The PuWished symposia are listed ^ 
AlXble symposia may be purchased by sending a check or money order (in US Dollars) to Jan Hodder Treasurer Pa ific Seabirf 
Group (made payable to PSG), Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, Charleston, Oregon 97 2 . r 

induL postage (surface rates) and handling. See the following membership application/pubhcation order form, to order symposia. 


SHOREBIRDS IN MARINE ENVIRONMENTS. Frank A. Pitelka (Editor). Proceedings of an International Symposium 
Se Sdfic Seabird Group. Asilomar. California. January 1977. Published June 1979 in Studies in Avian B.ology, Number 2, Out of 

print. * 

tropical SEABIRD BIOLOGY. Ralph W. Schreiber (Editor). Proceedings of an InternaUonal Symposium ome Pacific 
Seabird Group, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 1982. Published February 1984 in Studies in Avian Biology, Number 8. $12.00. 

marine BIRDS: THEIR FEEDING ECOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL FISHERIES RELATION- 
SHIPS David N Nettleship. Gerald A. Sanger, and Paul F. Springer (Editors). Proceedings of an International Sympostum of the 
Pacific Seabird Group, Seattle. Washington, January 1982. Published 1984 as Canadian Wildlife Service, Special Publication. Out of 

print. 

Frm OGY AND BEHAVIOR OF GULLS. Judith L. Hand, William E. Southern, and Kees Vermeer (Editors). Proceed- 
ing of an Internationa! Symposium of the Colonial Waterbird Society and the Pacific Seabird Group. San Francisco, California, De- 
cember 1985. Published June 1987 in Studies in Avian Biology, Number 10. $18.50. 


AUKS AT SEA. Spencer G. Sealy (Editor). Proceedings of an International Symposium of the Pacific Seabird Group, Pacific 
Grove, California, December 1987. Published December 1990 in Studies in Avian Biology, Number 14. $16.00. 


STATUS AND CONSERVATION OF THE MARBLED MURRELET IN NORTH AMERICA^ Harry C. 

Carter and Michael L. Morrison (Editors). Proceedings of a Symposium of the Pacific Seabird Group, Pacific Grove, Californi^ e- 
cembe’r 1987. Published October 1992 in Proceedings of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Volume 5. Number 1. 

$ 20 . 00 . 

THE STATUS ECOLOGY, AND CONSERVATION OF MARINE BIRDS OF THE NORTH PACmC. 

KeTvLeer Kenneth T. Briggs. Ken H. Morgan, and Douglas Siegel-Causey (Editors), Proceedings of a Symposium of die Pacific 
Seabird Group Canadian Wildlife Service, and the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victona, Bnteh Co- 
lumbia February 1990. Published 1993 as Canadian Wildlife Service, Special Publication, Ministry of Supply and Services. Can^a, 
Catalog Number CW66-124-1993E. Free. Write; Publications Division, Canadian Wildlife Service, Ottawa, Ontano, KIA O 3, an- 

ada. 


mm nrv OF MARBLED MURRELETS - INLAND AND AT SEA. S. Kim Nelson and Spencer G. Sealy 

western Naturalist, Volume 76, Number 1. $20.00. 


pacific seabird GronpSymposia^ 

rWs“umT*e plcffi^ Group. Individuals interested in promoting future symposia must first contact the Coordinator of 

the Publications Committee, and the for obtaim 

members of the Pacific Seabird Group. 

Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 45 


PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP COMMITTEE 
COORDINATORS 

Contact committee coordinators for information and activities of committees and how you can participate. 


Conservation Committee 

Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North 9th Street, Arlington, VA 22203 USA. Tele- 
phone (202) 778-2240, Facsimile; (202) 778-2201, e-mail: charri- 
son@hunton.com 

Election Committee 

Pat Baird, Department of Biology, California State University, Long Beach, CA 
90840 USA. Telephone: (310) 985-1780, Facsimile: (310) 985-2315, e-mail: 
patbaird @ csulb.edu 

Japanese Seabird Conservation 
Committee 

Koji Ono, Marine Biology Laboratory, Toho University 2-1, Miyama 2, Fun- 
abashi, Chiba 274, Japan. Telephone; 011-81-474-72-5235 and Telephone and 
Facsimile: 01 1-81-3-3685-6463 (Hasegawa Laboratory), e-mail: 
kojiono@bio.sci.toho~u.ac.jp or kojiono@gol.com and John Fries, Laboratory 
for Marine Biology, Faculty of Science, Toho University, 2-2-1 Miyama, Fun- 
abashi, Chiba 274, Japan. Telephone (office): 011-81-474-72-5235, Facsimile 
(office): 011-81-0474-72-5236 (ATTN: John Fries), e-mail: 


jnfries@bio.sci. toho-u.ac.jp 

Marbled Murrelet Technical Committee Thomas E. Hamer, Hamer Environmental, 2001 Highway 9, Mt. Yemon, WA 


98274 USA. Telephone: (360) 422-6510, Facsimile (360) 422-6510, e-mail: 
hamert@aol.com 

Mexico Committee 

Mauricio Cervantes A., ITESM- Campus Guaymas, Bahia Bacochibampo s/n, 
Col. Lomas de Cortes, A.P. 484 Guaymas, Sonora 85400 MEXICO, e-mail: 
mcervant@itesmvfl.rzs.itesm.mex cnJ William Everett, Endangered Species 
Recovery Council, P.O. Office Box 1085, La Jolla, CA 92038 USA. Telephone: 
(619) 589-0870, Facsimile: (619) 589-6983, e-mail: esrc@cts.com 

Publications Committee 

Steven M. Speich, 4720 N. Oeste Place, Tucson, AZ 86749 USA. Telephone- 
(520) 760-2110, Facsimile: (520) 760-0228 (call ahead), e- mail: 
sspeich@azstarnet.com 

Restoration Committee 

Ken Warheit, P.O. Box 178, Tenino, WA 98589 USA. Telephone (360) 
902-2595, Facsimile; (360) 902-2946, e-mail: warheit@u.washington.edu 

Seabird Monitoring Committee 

Scott Hatch, Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska 
Sceince Center, 101 1 E. Tudor Rd., Anchorage, AK 99503 USA. Telephone: 
(907) 786-3529, Facsimile: (907) 786-3636, e-mail: scott_hatch@nbs.gov 

Xantus' Murrelet Technical Committee 

William Everett, Endangered Species Recovery Council, P. 0. Box 1085, La 
Jolla, CA 92038 USA. Telephone; (619) 589-0870, Facsimile: (619) 589-6983, 
e-mail: esrc@cts.com 

PSG Delegates to the American 
Bird Conservancy 

Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North 9th Street, Arlington, VA 22203 USA. Tele- 
phone (202) 778-2240, Facsimile: (202) 778-2201, e-mail: 
charrson@hunton.com, and Malcolm Coulter, P.O. Box 48, Chocorua, NH 
03817 USA. Telephone: (603) 323-9342, e-mail: coultermc@aol.com 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 46 


PSG LIFE MEMBERS 1996 


David G. Ainley 
Daniel W. Anderson 
Pat H. Baird 

Robert Boekelheide 

Kenneth T. Briggs 
Joanna Burger 
Ellen W. Chu 
Roger B. Clapp 
Cheryl Conel 
Malcolm Coulter 
Theodore L. Cross 
Robert H. Day 
Tony DeGange 
Jan Dierks 
George J. Divoky 
Stewart Fefer 
Lloyd C. Fitzpatrick 
Elizabeth Flint 


Douglas J. Forsell 
Michael Fry 
Lisa Haggblom 
Judith L. Hand 
Craig Harrison 
Scott A. Hatch 
Monica H. Ziircher 
Joel D. Hubbard 
David B. Irons 
Karl W. Kenyon 
James G. King 
Lora Leschner 
David B. Lewis 
Peter Major 
Eugene Y. Makishima 
Vivian Mendenhall 
Godfrey Merlen 
Pat Mock 


Edward C. Murphy 
David R. Nysewander 
Harou Ogi 
Koji Ono 
C. John Ralph 
Chad Roberts 
Palmer C. Sekora 
Kouzi Shiomi 
Douglas Siegel-Causey 
William E. Southern 
Arthur L. Sowls 
Jeffrey A. Spendelow 
Takaki Terasawa 
Christopher W. Thom 
Breck Tyler 
Enriquetta Velarde 
Kees Vermeer 
John S. Warriner 
Yutaka Watanuki 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 1 • Spring 1996 • Page 47 


Pacific Seabird Group 

Membership Application/Publication Order Form 

(Please Copy) 

Membership (includes subscription to Pacific Seabirds) 

Individual and Family 
Student (undergraduate and graduate) 

Life Membership* (optional payment plan, six $100 installments ) 

Sponsored Membership 
Contributions^ 

To the Endowment Fund^ 

Other (please specify) 

Back issues of Pacific Seabirds 

Vols. L8 (1974-1981)@ $2.50/issue (two issues/year) 

Specify VoK and No. 

Vols. 9-present @ $5. OOfissue (two issues/year) 

Specify Vol. and No. 

PSG Symposia 

Tropical Seabird Ecology 
Ecology and Behavior of Gulls 
Auks at Sea 

Status and Distribution of the Marbled Murrelet in North America 

Biology of Marbled Murrelets: Inland and at Sea 

Send check or money order (in U.S. dollars) to Jan Hodder, treasurer, 

Made payable to the Pacific Seabird Group 
Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, 

Charleston, OR 97420, e-mailjhodder@oimb.uoregon.edu 

Prices include postage (surface rate) and handling. Total enclosed $ 

* See front cover Tax Donations Status 

^ Proceeds from life Memberships and contributions go to the Endowment Fund, a fund to support the publications of the Pacific 
Seabird Group. 

Order/Sponsor Deliver/Ship to (if different) 

Name Name 

Address Address 


Telephone 

FAX 

e-mail 


Telephone 

FAX 

e-mail 


$ 20.00 $. 
$13.00 $. 
$600.00 $. 
$ 20.00 $. 

$. 

$„ 


_x$2.50 $. 

_x$5.00 $. 

X $17.00 $. 
X $18.50 $. 

X $16.00 $. 
X $20.00 $. 

X $20.00 $_ 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 23, Number 2 • Fall 1996 • Page 48 


PSG EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 1996 


Chair 

Officers 

William T. Everett, Endangered Species Recovery Council, P.O. Box 1085, La Jolla, CA 92038 
USA- Telephone: (619) 589-0870, Facsimile: (619) 589-6983, e-mail: esrc@ cts.com 

Chair Elect 

S. Kim Nelson, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 104 Nash, Oregon State University, Cor- 
vallis, OR 97331-3803 USA. Telephone: (541) 737-1962, Facsimile: (541) 737-1980, e-mail: 
neIonsk@ccmail.orst.edu 

Vice-Chair for Conservation 

Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North 9th Street, Arlington, VA 22203 USA. Telephone: (202) 778-2240, 
Facsimile: (202) 778-2201, e-mail: charrison@hunton.com 

Treasurer 

Jan Hodder, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, Charleston, OR 97420 
USA. Telephone (541) 888-2581 ext 215, Facsimile (541) 888-3250, e-mail; jhod- 

der@oimb.uoregon.edu 

Secretary 

Vivian Mendenhal!, USFWS, 101 1 E. Tudor Road, Anchorage, AK 99503 USA. Telephone: 
(907) 786-3517, Facsimile: (907) 786-3641, e-mail: vivian_mendenhall@mail.fws.gov or acar- 
said@alaska.net 

Editor 

Steven M. Spekh, 4720 N. Oeste Place, Tucson, AZ 85749 USA. Telephone: (520) 760-21 10; 
Facsimile: (520) 760-0228 (call first), e-mail: sspeich@azstarnel.com 

Past Chair 

Mark Raozon, P. 0. Box 4423, Berkeley, CA 94704-4423 USA. Telephone; (510) 531-3887, 

facsimile: (510) 451-3208, e-mail: mjrauz@aol.com 

Alaska and Russia 

Regional Representatives 

David C. Duffy, Alaska Natural Heritage Program, University of Alaska, 707 A Street, Anchor- 
age, AK 99501 USA. Telephone; (907) 257-2784, Facsimile: (907) 257-2789, e-mail: 
afdedl @ uaa.alaska.edu 

Canada 

Tony Gaston, 11-174 Dufferin Road, Ottawa, Ontario, KIM 2A6, CANADA. Telephone; (819) 
997-6121, Facsimile; (819) 953-6612, e-mail: gastont@msmls6.sid.ncr.doe.ca 

.Washington and Oregon 

Eoy Lowe, USFWS, 2127 SE OSU Dr., Newport, OR 97365-5258 USA. Telephone: (541) 
867-4550, Facsimile: (541) 867-4551, e-mail; lowero@ccmail.orst.edu 

Northern California 

Elizabeth McLaren, USEAVS, San Francisco Bay NWR, P.O. Box 524, Newark, CA 94560 USA. 
Telephone: (510) 792-0222, Facsimile: (510) 792-5828, e-mail; ebmclaren@aol.com 

Southern California 

Pat Baird, Department of Biology, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840 USA. 
Telephone: (310) 985-1780, Facsimilie: (310) 985-2315, e-mail: patbaird@csulb.edu 

Non-Pacific United States 

Jim Lovvorn, Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyo ming, Laramie, WY 
82071 USA. Telephone: (307) 766-6100, Facsimilie: (307) 766-5625, e-mail: lowom@uwyo.edu 

Pacific Rim 

Scott M. Johnston, USFWS, P.O. Box 50088, Honolulu, HI 96850 USA. Telephone: (808) 541- 
3441, Facsimile: (808) 541-3470, e-mail: scottJohnston@mail.fws.gov 

Old World 

Mark Tasker, JNCC, Dunnet House, 7 Thistle Place, Aberdeen ABIO lUZ, Scotland, UK. Tele- 
phone: 01 1-44-1224-642863, Facsimile: 011-44-1224-6214-88, e-mail: tasker_m@jncc.gov.uk or 
mltasker@aol.com