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PACIFIC 

SEABIRDS 



A Publication of the Pacific Seabird Group 

EaraaBg CTa g is &Ha agBSB fcttMaagaa ^ ^ 

Volume 24 Number 2 


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 Ocean seabirds and the marine environment. Group meetings are held annually and the PSG 
publication, Pacific Seabirds (formerly the PSG Bulletin), is issued biannually. Current activities include involvement in seabird 
sanctuaries, coastal surveys, seabird/fisheries interactions, and legislation. Policy statements are issued on conservation issues of 
critical importance. Although PSG's primary area of interest is the westcoast 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 should be submitted to the Editor, except that technical manuscripts should 
be submitted to the Associate Editor for Technical Manuscripts and conservation-related material should be submitted to the 
Associated Editor 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 details and order form). 

World Wide Web Site 

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET/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) 760-2110; Facsimile: (520) 760-0228 (call first) 
e-mail: sspeich@azstarnet.com 


Associate Editor For Technical Manuscripts 

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 Submissions should consist of an original and two copies. 

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 
Pacific 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 or Associate Editors 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 24 


1997 


Number 2 


Forum 

by Craig S . Harrison. 


49 


49 


Lifetime Achievement Awards 


PSG Honors Its Founders: Lifetime Achievement Awards for Bourne, King and Bartonek 51 


54 

57 

58 


by Craig S. Harrison and George J. Divoky 

Seabird Groups by William R.P . Bourne 

The Origins of the Pacific Seabird Group by Jim King * 

“'Tel^Relation To Ecosystem Management of Fisheries by Vivian M. MenOenHa,, and Craig S. Harrison 

for the Long-Billed Murrelet on Hokkaido Island, Japan 62 

Searching ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ £ Hfl||wr »»».»»-•••» * 

The Appearance of Ticks Among Nestling Ancient Murrelets At Reef Island, Bntish Columbia 69 

bv Anthony J . Gaston and Christine Adkins ""'**'”* V*V • 

Fir,t Breeding Records of Slaty-Backed Gull (Lams Schistisagus) For North America 70 

hv 7 Mccaffery, Christopher M. Harwood , and J. if. Morgart 

Moribund 1 Minres^An Apparent Outbreak of Sickness Among Thick-Biiled Murres A, Coats Island, 71 

Northwest Territories by Anthony J. Gaston ***"“ "*”V*”"‘" 

First Nests Of Caspian Terns (Sterna Caspia) For Alaska and The Bering Se 71 

by Brian J. Mccaffery , Christopher M. Harwood, and John if. Morgart..... ?4 

Conservation News * *11111111 83 

PSG News , 86 

1998 Annual Meeting * 87 

Regional Reports * * 101 

Bulletin Board * 103 


Obituary 

Report Of The Treasurer - 1997 by Janet Hodder. 

Publications 

Book Reviews * * 

Pacific Seabird Group Committee Coordinators * ” 

Ofe Members, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and Special Ach.evement Award. 

Membership Application/Publications Order Form 

Executive Council 


: In Memoriam - Daniel D. Moriarty by Craig S.Harrison J04 


107 

111 

113 

114 

115 


Inside Back Cover 


FORUM 


MORTALITY OF SEABIRD BIOLOGISTS 

Mark J. Rauzon 


Josh Nove, age 23, disappeared into 
Mother Goose Lake, on the Alaska Penin- 
sula, on July 3, 1997. He was attempting 
to capture Mew Gull chicks in shallow 
water when he apparently stepped into a 
deep hole and never surfaced. He was 
wearing rolled down hip boots that proba- 
bly filled with 42 degree, silt-laden water. 
To date, searchers have not found his 
body. Josh Nove was a lifelong birder 
who volunteered for the USFWS. He was 
having the experience of a lifetime, his 
first field work in Alaska, fresh from col- 
lege, and just beginning his career in sea- 
birds. Our deepest sympathies go out to 
his spirit in Mother Goose Lake and to his 
family in Ipswich, Massachusetts. 

In a Twilight Zone manner, when I 
saw the headline “Volunteer bird biologist 
vanishes,” I quickly scanned the facts to 
see if it were me - not Josh - who van- 
ished. This summer, I was also a volun- 
teer biologist, twice the age of Josh, and 
having the time of my life in the Bering 
Sea. However I had started the field sea- 
son with apprehension. With only a two- 
minute survival time in the cold water 
with no local Coast Guard to respond, I 
resigned myself to knowing a boating 
accident is a one-way ticket. 

So, having created a psycho-drama in 
my mind, I got the chance to manifest it in 
reality and I fared poorly. In mid-June, I 


spent several uncomfortable hours sitting 
in an aluminum boat. The engine had 
died and landfall at St. Lawrence Island 
was far off in the fog. Luckily, seas were 
calm so Bert Oozevaseuk and Caleb Pun- 
gowiyi could attempt to restart the engine. 
It was midnight and though the sun had 
not set, a gray gloom surrounded us. El 
Nino not withstanding, the ocean chill 
crept into the metal boat and into my feet 
and butt. I got into this situation after a 
previous long night of boating. I was 
exhausted, dehydrated and cold; it was 
impossible to fit on any more clothes. In 
a poor frame of mind, I contemplated my 
mortality. I could see hypothermia on the 
horizon, an hour or two away. I felt a 
seed of panic, not unlike experiencing 
heavy air turbulence and fear . . . “so this 
is how I’m going to go.” To combat the 
mind chatter, I chanted a mantra - Om 
Mani Padmu Hum. Oh, mama, papa help 
me! 

It worked, and after many fits and 
starts, so did the engine. We made to 
shore. My Yupik colleagues evidently 
had a different experience, for they knew 
they would make it back. I was the dis- 
believer. 

In subsequent contemplation on the 
long days on the ancient island of St. 
Lawrence, surrounded by bones of marine 
mammals and, not infrequently, the bones 


of humans, I appreciated just how crazy 
our profession really is. We put ourselves 
in some of the riskiest situations in to or- 
der to get close to seabirds, creatures so 
alien from our land mammal world. To 
study them, we mimic their modes of 
transport, we fly in low level aircraft, at 
slow speeds, over icy oceans, far from 
land. We power out on boats, small and 
large, tossed by the sea, throwing up and 
expose our skins to ultraviolet-laden light, 
dehydrating and salting away like pemmi- 
can. We cling to cliffs of rotten rock and 
muddy soils, or stand in the darkest hours 
under a towering redwood craning our 
necks. The risks are real and it is fortu- 
nate that Poseidon, Neptune, Kane, Mater 
Cara, Queen of the Ocean, protects us 
most of the time. 

That’s why the passing of Josh Nove 
is so poignant. It could have been any of 
us at many different points in our careers. 
I choose to believe that Josh’s last name, 
Nove, suggests his special fate. Nove, or 
Nova, is a passing star whose brightness 
is intense and sudden, then quickly fades 
away. Josh’s lesson to us is to redouble 
our efforts to save seabirds, and to have 
the experience of a lifetime every time we 
are in the field. 

By Mark J. Rauzon , Post Office Box 
4423, Berkeley, California 94704, USA 


WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? 

Sierra Club Frightens A Recalcitrant Department of Interior 
Craig S, Harrison 


The Pacific Seabird Group has long 
advocated enforcing the Migratory Bird 
Treaty Act in the USA's entire 200-mile 
Exclusive Economic Zone. The U.S. De- 
partment of Interior has refused to enforce 
the Act in USA waters beyond the 12- 
mile territorial sea because of a poorly 
reasoned legal opinion authored by Don- 
ald J. Barry, Interior's Solicitors' Office, 
during President Carter's administration. 
The Barry opinion essentially rescinded 
the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for a 188- 
mile band of waters offshore of the At- 


lantic and Pacific coasts, the Hawaiian 
Islands and Puerto Rico. As reported in 
Pacific Seabirds 23(2): 14, FWS enforce- 
ment officers found their hands were tied 
when they learned of intentional and 
wanton destruction of seabirds by U.S. 
fishermen in Alaska that took place more 
than 12 miles offshore. 

In recent years PSG, assisted by the 
National Audubon Society and the 
American Bird Conservancy, seemed to 
be making progress on this issue. FWS 
officials indicated that the Solicitors' Of- 


fice now concedes that the Barry opinion 
is wrong. PSG had drawn Interior's at- 
tention to the negotiation report for the 
1973 USA-Russia Migratory Bird Treaty 
in which the USA delegation stated the 
treaty should protect birds 200 miles off- 
shore. 

In spring 1996, PSG wrote to Secre- 
tary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Attor- 
ney General Janet Reno and Under Sec- 
retary of State Timothy Wirth to request 
that Interior reverse the Barry opinion and 
enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 * Fall 1997 • Page 49 


throughout the Exclusive Economic Zone. 
Secretary Wirth immediately responded 
that Interior would make a decision soon, 
while the Department of Justice declined 
to render any opinion while Interior was 
considering the matter. Then during 
summer 1996 PSG was quietly informed 
that the Clinton administration did not 
want any pesky environmental issues to 
interfere with the on-going national elec- 
tions. It seemed to be saying "we haven't 
done anything on this issue for four years, 
but if we get four more we’ll do some- 
thing - trust us." 

Another year has now passed without 
action. Interior's current excuse for inertia 
is two law suits filed by the Sierra Club. 
Those suits invoked the Migratory Bird 
Treaty Act and essentially asked the 
courts to shut down logging in the Chatta- 
hoochee and Oconee National Forests, 
Georgia, and in the Ozark National For- 
est, Arkansas, because some birds die 
during logging activities. The Sierra 


Club’s national policy opposes allowing a 
single tree to be taken from a national 
forest. These suits, understandably, en- 
gendered fierce resistance from a U.S. 
Forest Service that the Sierra Club threat- 
ened to put out of business. Cornered by 
the fact that at least one bird will be 
"taken" by any forestry operation, Attor- 
ney Genera] Reno’s Justice Department 
fashioned a creative defense. It argued 
that the Act does not apply to federal 
agencies. This argument has won in both 
circuit courts, and exempts the federal 
government from protecting birds as re- 
quired by its treaties with Canada, Mex- 
ico, Japan and Russia. 

The Sierra Club has succeeded in the 
following. Its attempted end run around 
the legislative process to establish 
sweeping new forest policies by court 
order has reversed decades of conserva- 
tion policy under the Migratory Bird 
Treaty Act. Federal agencies no longer 
apply for permits when they take birds. 


Not only did the Sierra Club worsen bird 
conservation, Interior is so terrified by the 
Sierra Club’s litigation that years of work 
on extending the Migratory Bird Treaty 
Act to the Exclusive Economic Zone is 
compromised. The infamous Donald J. 
Barry, whose legal opinions created the 
problems for seabirds in the Exclusive 
Economic Zone 15 years ago, is now the 
Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish 
and Wildlife and Parks. Some conserva- 
tionists think Barry will finally deliver for 
bird conservation in his lofty position. 
Just don’t bet PSG’s endowment on it - 
countless officials in federal natural re- 
source agencies come to their jobs to do 
good but ultimately only do well for 
themselves. 

By Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North Ninth 
Street, Apartment 1801, Arlington, Vir- 
ginia 22203 USA 



Drawings courtesy of Mr. Yoshitaka Minowa, Japan 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 50 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


PSG HONORS ITS FOUNDERS: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS FOR 
BOURNE, KING AND BARTONEK 

Craig S. Harrison and George J. Divoky 



The Pacific Seabird Group (PSG) pre- 
sented Lifetime Achievement Awards to 
its founders William R.P. Bourne, James 
G. King and James C. Bartonek at its an- 
nual banquet in Portland, Oregon, on 
January 11, 1997. Thanks to the vision 
and wisdom of these three gentlemen, 
combined with a good dose of luck, the 
Pacific seabird research community was 
spared from becoming a mere committee 
of the American Ornithological Union. 
PSG presented these awards to help us 
remember PSG's early institutional his- 
tory, and to honor those individuals who 
made it possible. 

Major events during the period 1965- 
1975 created conditions that called for in- 
creased communication among seabird 
biologists and elevated efforts by those 
concerned with seabird conservation and 
management. In 1965, 
the British founded The 
Seabird Group. Their 
relatively early realiza- 
tion of a need for a dedi- 
cated seabird group can 
be traced to the high in- 
terest of the British pub- 
lic in birds generally, and 
the many colonies on the 
British coast that are 
readily accessible to sci- 
entists and birders. The 
following year the Inter- 
national Ornithological 
Congress formed the 
International Seabird 
Committee at its meeting 
in Oxford. That same 
year The Seabird Group 
held its first meeting (see 
Bourne, "Seabird 

Groups," p. 54). 

Soon oil spills and 
exploration began to 
provide a major impetus 
for increased cooperation 
among seabird biologists. 

In 1967, the seabird 
mortality associated with 
the Torrey Canyon spill 
in the approaches to the 


English Channel brought international at- 
tention to the deadly impacts of oil on sea- 
birds. In 1968, a spill at Santa Barbara, 
California, and scenes on television of 
grebes covered with oil focused public at- 
tention on Pacific seabirds. The discovery 
of vast oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay that 
same year became a major concern to the 
North American community of scientists 
and conservationists. Prudhoe Bay oil 
could be transported by tanker either 
through the Northwest Passage to east coast 
ports or along the Pacific coast. Either 
route potentially threatened seabird popula- 
tions that had not even been censused. In 
1969, the difficulties encountered in the 
Arctic pack ice by an empty supertanker 
travelling from the east coast to Prudhoe 
Bay showed that Alaskan oil would likely 
be transported along the Pacific marine 


Craig Harrison observes as W.R.P. Bourne admires the Lifetime Achieve- 
ment Award plaque presented to him at the Pacific Seabird Group annual 
meeting in Portland, Oregon, 1997. 


corridor. 

In 1970, Congress enacted the National 
Environmental Policy Act, which required 
federal agencies for the first time to con- 
sider the environmental consequences of 
their proposed actions. This legislation 
required the preparation of environmental 
impact statements for leasing the federal 
outer continental shelf lands for oil explo- 
ration and development, and led to exten- 
sive studies of seabirds. That year Presi- 
dent Nixon established by executive order 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
and reorganized the federal government's 
natural agencies to form the National Oce- 
anic and Atmospheric Administration and 
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (previ- 
ously the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and 
Wildlife). 

Beginning in 1971, the three people that 
PSG has honored with 
Lifetime Achievement 
Awards initiated activi- 
ties that would lead to the 
founding of PSG. Jim 
King went to Scotland 
for a waterfowl meeting 
and ended up spending 
much time with Bill 
Bourne who had been 
instrumental in forming 
The Seabird Group six 
years earlier (see the 
accompanying article by 
King, p. 57). King re- 
turned to Alaska and in 
1972 discussed forming a 
west coast seabird group 
with Jim Bartonek, who 
was then completing the 
environmental impact 
statement for the Trans- 
Alaska Pipeline. Bar- 
tonek detailed what was 
known (and not known) 
about seabird popula- 
tions between Valdez, 
Alaska, and ports in 
Washington, Oregon and 
California. In late 1972, 
at a Western Society of 
Naturalists meeting in 




Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 51 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


Areata, California, Michael Scott held a 
seabird symposium at which Bartonek sug- 
gested the forming of PSG and received 
enthusiastic support from the symposium 
attendees.While the success of PSG is due 
in large part to the vision of these three men 
it also was assisted by a number of political 
events in the early 1970s. Congress en- 
acted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement 
Act late In 1971, and in 1972 Bartonek and 
King spent much time determining which 
parts of the Alaska coast, especially seabird 
colonies, should be designated national 
wildlife refuges. In 1973, the Arab oil em- 
bargo encouraged the United States to de- 
velop domestic sources of oil. The follow- 
ing year President Nixon ordered that the 
outer continental shelf be opened to oil 
development, which began a massive re- 
search program in 1975 on the biota of all 
Alaskan waters. This program brought to 
Alaska (and to seabird biology) many of the 
dramatis personae in PSG's early years. 

While the formation and early activities 
of PSG were driven largely by political 
events and management needs, the aca- 
demic environment of the early 1970s also 
contributed to the success of PSG. The 
group of people finishing their doctorates 
on seabirds near the time of PSG’s forma- 
tion was impressive in number and quality. 
It included David Ainley, Dan Anderson, 
Pat Baird, Dee Boersma, Pat Gould, George 
Hunt, Dave Manuwal, Mike Scott and 
Spencer Sealy. This cohort was important 
not only for their own contributions to early 
(and in many cases later) PSG meetings, 
but also for the people they trained, in- 
spired, mentored and employed. 

Since the early 1970s PSG has func- 
tioned as a catalyst for advancements in 
seabird science and conservation. Few of 
us believe that as much would have been 
accomplished without an independent or- 
ganization devoted exclusively to these 
pursuits, nor would so many of us have 
enjoyed our collective friendship and colle- 
giality in these endeavors. PSG hopes that 
drawing attention to the giants of our past 
will inspire today's future giants to walk in 
their footsteps and contribute to PSG. Get- 
ting outside of the day-to-day work in an 
agency or department and helping to shape 
the development of science and conserva- 
tion policy in a larger landscape can be 
among the most rewarding tasks of any 
career. 

William R.P. Bourne 

Bill is one of the most interesting peo- 
ple you can meet. An enigma to many, his 
acid tongue and barbed pen are legendary. 


In a review of his career in British Birds 
71:123-125 (1978), David Jenkins and 
George Dunnet said that "Stories of his 
energy, knowledge, eccentricity and unpre- 
dictability are probably mostly true." They 
describe Bourne as "frequently irascible 
and verbose;" and observed that he "contin- 
ues to be a thorn in the flesh of the Estab- 
lishment." Craig Harrison experienced 
being on the receiving end of such corre- 
spondence, which he now acknowledges 
was probably deserved. Yet Bill has inter- 
national circle of true friends, and a genuine 
interest in the young and newcomers in the 
field. 

Perhaps Bill exemplifies the maxim that 
sometimes your best friend is the one who 
tells you something that you do not want to 
hear. There is no doubt that when Bill has 
pontificated publicly about an issue his 
motivation is to advance science or conser- 
vation and, unlike all too many, not his 
career. Indeed, most of Bourne’s work on 
seabirds has been self-funded or voluntary - 
his vocation has been a medical doctor 
since Oxford University refused to accept 
his doctoral dissertation because it was in 
the wrong form. 

One of Bourne's rare qualities is a talent 
for founding organizations (see Bourne, 
"Seabird Groups," p. 55 for further infor- 
mation). As an undergraduate student in 
the early 1950s, he helped stimulate the 
resurgence of Cambridge Bird Club. He 
founded the Cyprus Ornithological Society 
(1957-58). He proposed founding The 
Seabird Group in 1961, launched it in 1965, 
and served as its Secretary until 1978. Bill 
also served as the first secretary of Interna- 
tional Ornithological Congress' Seabird 
Committee. 

Bourne's scientific accomplishments are 
legion. He has been involved in the recog- 
nition of three new seabird species; the 
description of three new races; and the re- 
discovery of several lost species. He has 
written voluminously in the scientific lit- 
erature - iterally hundreds of articles. His 
report on the birds killed by oil from the 
Torrey Canyon in the Irish Sea in 1969 was 
a seminal work in this area. His publica- 
tions on the Chagos Archipelago, Indian 
Ocean, were among the first to recognize 
that the biggest threat to many tropical spe- 
cies is the seemingly mundane problem of 
introduced species, such as rats in breeding 
colonies. When Craig Harrison first met 
Bill at the 1982 International Council for 
Bird Preservation World Conference in 
Cambridge, England, Bourne expressed a 
frustration known by most biologists when 
he suggested self- publishing a volume of 


his work entitled "Unpublished on Five 
Continents." "It will be a rather thin vol- 
ume,” he hastened to add. 

Besides advancing an understanding of 
oil and seabirds, Bourne has been instru- 
mental in many conservation projects. 
Hisefforts helped to save Aldabra Atoll, 
Indian Ocean, from development as a mili- 
tary base; the Loch of Strathbeg (now a 
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 
reserve) from becoming the largest North 
Sea gas terminal; and Henderson Island 
(now a World Heritage Site) from becom- 
ing a private estate. 

Bill now lives with wife Sheila in Aber- 
deen, Scotland where he can keep an eye on 
seabirds and the oil developments in the 
North Sea. When asked if he was now re- 
tired, he replied, 'Tve never been properly 
employed, so I can't really describe myself 
as retired." We concur with Jenkins and 
Dunnet that this remarkable man is an 
"original and commanding character in an 
era when it is fashionable to conform." 

James G. King 

Jim describes himself as a waterfowl 
biologist and pilot. In his "retirement," he 
maintains the waterfowl propagation and 
bird rehabilitation facility next to his home 
on Branta Road, Juneau, that he and his 
wife Mary Lou have operated since 1965. 
When his three children and innumerable 
grandchildren aren't keeping him busy, he 
flies waterfowl surveys and functions as 
PSG's elder statesman on the Public Advi- 
sory Group to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 
Trustee Council. Jim’s direct and practical 
approach has gained confidence of the en- 
tire Public Advisory Group, especially na- 
tives. 

Born and raised in Maine, Jim has lived 
Alaska since 1949. He attended Washing- 
ton State College, earning a degree in wild- 
life management. King joined FWS as a 
game management agent in 1951, holding 
that position until 1962 when he became 
the refuge manager in Yukon Delta and the 
Bering Sea Islands. As Jim describes 
(King, p. 57), seeing the seabird colonies at 
Cape Newenham, Chukchi Sea, opened his 
eyes to the tremendous seabird resources in 
Alaska. From 1964 until his retirement in 
1983, Jim was Supervisor of the Alaska 
Waterfowl Investigations. He flew 500,000 
miles of aerial surveys, including many 
with Jim Bartonek. 

Jim regards his inspiration with Bill 
Bourne and Jim Bartonek to found PSG as 
a detour in his career in the biology and 
management of waterfowl, swans, and bald 
eagles. He was very active in PSG’s early 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 52 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 



James G. King receives the Lifetime Achievement Award 
plaque from Craig Harrison at the Pacific Seabird Group 
annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, 1997. 


days, giving a paper at the first PSG 
Conference and serving as editor for 
volumes 5 and 6 of the PSG Bulletin 
(1978-1979). He has published 
numerous papers, including (with 
Gerry Sanger) his oil vulnerability 
index for marine birds in 1979. 

In addition to PSG's Lifetime 
Achievement award, Jim has re- 
ceived conservation awards from the 
National Audubon Society, New 
Hampshire Wildlife Federation, and 
the Chevron Conservation Award. 

To all who have had the privilege, 

Jim is a delight to work with, and 
greatly encouraged PSG's greater 
involvement in conservation issues 
during the past several years. We 
are all very grateful to him for tak- 
ing Bill Bourne's inspiration and 
working with Jim Bartonek to make 
PSG a reality. 

James C. Bartonek 

Jim is a Westerner - born in Utah 
and received his Ph.D. at University 
of Wisconsin under Joe Hickey. 
Studying under Hickey, who was a 
prominent conservationist, likely 
influenced Jim greatly regarding 
how he would apply his serious 
interests in science. Jim’s primary 
interest has always been waterfowl biology 
and management. Soon after receiving his 
doctorate, Jim joined the U.S. Fish & 
Wildlife Service's Northern Prairie Wildlife 
Research Center in North Dakota where he 
studied waterfowl in prairie potholes. 

In the late 1960s, Jim began summer 
bird surveys in Alaska, which lead to his 
move to Fairbanks in 1970. He did aerial 
surveys with Jim King, and met and hired 
George Divoky as a U.S. Fish & Wildlife 
Service biologist in 1972. Jim’s job de- 
scription did not include seabirds, but the 
looming oil development and vulnerability 
of seabirds were issues that he knew needed 
to be addressed by the federal government. 
Jim King has written (see King, p. 57) of 


his fateful trip to Scotland in December 
1971 where he met Bill Bourne. In spring 
1972, King suggested to Bartonek that an 
analogous organization to The Seabird 
Group - the Pacific Seabird Group - be 
formed in the western United States. Jim 
immediately saw the wisdom of King’s 
suggestion, and recruited George Divoky to 
begin the organizational work. George 
immediately cribbed by-laws from the 
Wildlife Society, using the British term 
"Executive Council" as the name of PSG’s 
board of directors. 

In 1972, Bartonek and Leroy Sowls 
presented "Seabirds: Alaska’s Most Ne- 
glected Resource" at the North American 
Wildlife Conference. This paper provided 


a much-needed vision of seabird 
research in Alaska that garnered 
attention from those who make 
funding decisions in the federal 
government. In, early 1975, 
FWS asked Bartonek and David 
Cline to write four proposals for 
the Outer Continental Shelf En- 
vironmental Assessment Pro- 
gram over a long weekend. 
These proposals were funded by 
the FWS’ Office of Biological 
Services beginning July 1, 1975, 
and allowed Bartonek and Cline 
to built a tremendous team of 
young seabird biologists. Bar- 
tonek sought bright, energetic, 
independent biologists who 
could carry the ball with a 
minimum of parenting. He 
urged each to join PSG. Bar- 
tonek also urged his biologists to 
publish the results of their stud- 
ies in peer-reviewed journals, 
and to be wary of the elements 
of FWS that he described as 
"one of the great spawning 
grounds of mediocrity in the 
federal government." During 
the heady days of 1975-78, the 
Office of Biological Services 
had its own office in Anchorage, 
and an unmatched esprit-de- corps. 

Jim was part of the team of FWS biolo- 
gists who represented the United States in 
the negotiations for the USA-Japan Migra- 
tory Bird Treaty in 1977, which includes 
important provisions for the protection of 
seabirds in both nations. In late 1977, Jim 
left Alaska to take a job as the Flyway Bi- 
ologist in Portland, Oregon, where he could 
return to his beloved waterfowl. Jim retired 
from FWS in 1996. 

PSG wishes its founders every success. 
We thank them for all that they have done 
for PSG and seabirds, and for the inspira- 
tion they have provided for us to deal with 
current and future issues facing Pacific sea- 
birds. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 53 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


SEABIRD GROUPS 

William R.P. Bourne 


When the current seabird groups were 
founded they were pioneer bodies, which 
by definition had no past history, while 
most of the things that they did were new. 
Now that they have become established it 
seems time to consider their development, 
if only to work out what to do next. 

It has been found that at most of the 
good seabird sites in the world there are 
piles of bird remains left by past sea- 
birders. In the largest of these, in the 
caves of the limestone Rock of Gibraltar 
projecting into the entrance to the Medi- 
terranean, human remains were found 
alongside those of the Great Auk in the 
last century, which subsequently proved 
to belong to the first example of Nean- 
derthal Man. It seems questionable 
whether he was one of the cooks or a sib- 
ling species who formed part of the meal, 
but examination of our colleagues sug- 
gests that there may still be primitive 
types amongst us. If so, seabird groups 
must have tens or hundreds of thousands 
of years’ priority over ail other recorded 
ornithological activities. Modern men do 
not appear to have added much at first, 
apart from including Great Auks among 
their characteristic graffiti in caves, and it 
seems debatable whether their behavior is 
an improvement. 

Eventually the Classical Greeks in- 
vented Civilization, a way of life where 
the men indulge in athletic pursuits such 
as fowling all day, and drinking at "sym- 
posia” all night, while the women and 
slaves do the work. The head of the first 
university, Aristotle, recorded much in- 
formation probably overheard at these 
symposia, some relating to birds. Unfor- 
tunately, as usual with academics, his 
informants appear to have spent little time 
in the field themselves, and only supplied 
garbled accounts of what they heard, 
which they cannot have checked with the 
observers. Following over two millennia 
of transcription and amendment most of 
the birds reported are unidentifiable, 
though this has not prevented modern 
academics from trying to identify them, 
and perpetuate their names in the scien- 
tific nomenclature. For example, Lin- 
naeus used the name Diomedea, first ap- 
plied to Cory’s Shearwater, for another 
genus including the Wandering Albatross 
and Jackass Penguin. 

Once properly organized by Alexan- 


der, the Greeks soon conquered most of 
the known world. They were enslaved in 
their turn by the Romans, crude people 
only interested in birds for sport and food, 
who made the Greeks do their bookwork 
while they watched Christians being fed 
to lions. Eventually they ran out of lions, 
and the Christians took over just as bar- 
barians from the east arrived at the gates. 
While some southern Christians survived, 
the northern ones had to take refuge on 
rocks off the west coast of Ireland. As a 
result of the experience gained in supply- 
ing such strongholds they soon became 
great seamen in their little boats (which 
they still use) called ’’Curraghs," and also 
occupied the Faroe and Westmann islands 
(named after them) until the arrival of the 
Northmen. In the first half of the sixth 
century the greatest of them, B randan (or 
Brendan) the Navigator, also sailed on 
past a miraculous "Isle of Birds," (possi- 
bly Funk Island?) to locate a new land to 
the west, long known on maps as "St. 
Brandan’s Isle" until it was renamed in 
honor of the first person to write it up 
properly - an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. 
This demonstrates that if you wish to re- 
ceive credit for your discoveries you must 
make sure you publish them first. 

A further literary problem arose when 
the Iberians then persuaded the Pope to 
divide the new lands that were now being 
discovered between them, the Portuguese 
taking the eastern and the Spaniards the 
western hemispheres. They then imposed 
a blackout on news about them, so the 
English, Dutch and French who also 
wished to get in on the act responded by 
publishing everything they could find out 
about them. These narratives, especially 
Richard Hakluyt's collected Principal 
Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of 
the English Nation of 1589, make wonder- 
ful reading, and contain important early 
information about seabirds (including 
once more much of what we know about 
the Great Auk), either as sources of food 
or guides to navigation. Much of this 
information (and anything else concealed 
in the Spanish archives in Seville) still 
requires reappraisal in the light of modern 
knowledge. 

Eventually the British were so im- 
pressed by an account of a piratical trip 
round the world at the end of the seven- 
teenth century by William Dampier that 


he was sent to discover and survey the 
east coast of Australia. Unfortunately 
having little influence, he was only given 
a poor vessel and crew, and had to turn 
back after finding New Britain. His Roe- 
buck sank off Ascension Island on the 
way home, possibly introducing rats. 
Subsequent voyages did little better, until 
the Royal Society demanded observations 
of the transit of Venus from Tahiti in • 
1769. A simple sailor named James Cook, 
who had made surveys of the Gulf of the 
St. Lawrence permitting the conquest of 
Canada, was put in charge. He took the 
leading young amateur scientist of the 
day, Sir Joseph Banks, with an array of 
other talent. They went on to discover 
New South Wales, and returned with so 
many results that they are still being 
written up. He was then sent on two more 
voyages notable among other things for 
the possible collection of Murphy’s Petrel 
off western North America some two 
centuries before noticed by the natives 
(Bourne 1995). Finally Cook got careless 
and was killed in Hawaii, so know when 
to retire. 

One of the unpublicized results of 
Cook's voyages was the conversion of the 
misnamed Silent Service into naturalists. 
Many of the specimens and drawings 
Cook brought home were actually assem- 
bled by his crews, whose journals are full 
of references to birds. This explains why 
in the following century, by which time 
the Royal Navy was regularly surveying 
all the oceans, young scientists accompa- 
nying subsequent expeditions such as 
Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and 
Joseph Hooker found a congenial envi- 
ronment which provided a wonderful 
training for their subsequently distin- 
guished lives. Members of the Royal 
Navy also collected many new birds, such 
as Ross’ and Sabine's gulls, not to mention 
McCormick’s (South Polar) Skua. Similar 
activities were taken up by the rest of 
Europe. It is sad that their American 
counterpart, the Marine Audubon, Titian 
Ramsay Peale, received such a raw deal 
with Wilkes’ grim United States Exploring 
Expedition (Poesch 1961). Since he was 
their greatest precursor perhaps the Pa- 
cific Seabird Group might try to restore 
his unjustly damaged reputation? 

The American contribution to marine 
ornithology became increasingly impor- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 54 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


tant with the work of Robert Cushman 
Murphy following his youthful voyage in 
the sealer Daisy to South Georgia, de- 
scribed in Logbook for Grace. In addition 
to explaining the ornithological implica- 
tions of the Discovery and other new 
oceanographic investigations in The Oce- 
anic Birds of South America (1936), he 
also supervised the American Museum of 
Natural History’s Whitney South Sea Ex- 
pedition led by Rollo Beck which visited 
much of the South Pacific between the 
wars. Its records provide a fascinating 
insight into not only a great expedition but 
human conduct in exceptional circum- 
stances. It seems a pity that, as with the 
Smithsonian Pacific Program further 
north in the 1960s, while it resulted in 
many observations, large collections and 
numerous valuable papers, possibly owing 
to political considerations, no general 
account of its important achievements has 
ever been published. 

Ornithology in the Royal Navy, which 
originally consisted mainly of observa- 
tions over the sights of a gun, declined 
following the cuts after World War I. It 
was revived during World War II by an 
influx of young conscripts more interested 
in the birds while they were still alive, and 
the Royal Naval Bird- watching Society 
was founded to maintain this work in 
1946. When I became interested in their 
world-wide reports while collecting West 
African seabird records in the 1950s I was 
asked by their long-serving Chairman, 
Captain Gerald Tuck, to summarize them 
annually in their report Sea Swallow. 
This compelled the adoption of a broad 
perspective, whereupon it became clear 
that although many individuals were now 
studying seabirds throughout the world, 
there were still only informal contacts 
between them, while in most areas the 
natives were (and are!) abysmally igno- 
rant of marine ornithology. To make 
further progress we needed much better 
liaison. 

The first problem was to persuade the 
growing number of frankly often under- 
employed British and Irish birders to take 
more interest in their magnificent seabird 
population. In 1960-61 I circulated a sug- 
gestion to the academics interested in sea- 
birds that it was time for more coopera- 
tion, and received patronizing replies that 
they were already ail much too busy with 
their own important work. The proposal 
therefore languished until it emerged in 
1965. Meanwhile the amateurs visiting 
the growing number of coastal bird obser- 
vatories in search of the landbird mi- 


grants, that appear there with offshore 
winds, had started watching the seabirds 
that were the only thing to look at when 
onshore winds brought them inshore in- 
stead. They proved not only keen to see 
more liaisons, but even ready to help or- 
ganize it. This led to the explosive devel- 
opment of the first Seabird Group, which 
immediately set up committees to collate 
observations from the shore and at sea and 
organize breeding censuses and surveys of 
bodies on beaches. 

The main British and Irish ornitho- 
logical societies, which at that time had 
just completed their post-war reorganiza- 
tion and were still in an unusually enlight- 
ened state, supported the Seabird Group 
on the general grounds that since they 
could not stop it they might as well join it. 
It was just reaching the climax of its ini- 
tial enthusiasm when it became Britain’s 
turn to act as host to the International Or- 
nithological Congress in the summer of 
1966. First George and Irene Waterston of 
the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club organ- 
ized a cruise around Scottish outlying 
islands that attracted much of the seabird 
world and developed into a floating semi- 
nar. Then when it adjourned to the Con- 
gress in Oxford a Seabird Committee was 
set up over the heads of the management 
(who had just thrown out my thesis) to 
maintain international liaison. This has 
been followed by the foundation of more 
seabird groups of widely varying charac- 
ter all round the world than I can keep 
track of. 

It may be useful to summarize our ex- 
perience since we were then in the lead. 
The group was founded by young ama- 
teurs whose main experience lay in sea- 
watching (meaning looking out to sea 
from the shore), and it made a point at 
first of keeping its operations simple and 
economical for their benefit and in the 
hope of recruiting a wider membership. It 
soon became clear, however, that while 
intensified sea-watching revealed many 
interesting birds, their movements were so 
complex both in the short term with the 
time of day, the tide and the weather, and 
with longer term seasonal, climatic and 
oceanic fluctuations, that it would require 
inordinate effort to make sense of them. 
Consequently, they are now engaged 
mainly in search of rare birds (which ter- 
restrial observers everywhere still often 
remain strangely reluctant to accept). 
Since I do not remember many other in- 
vestigations of this type, perhaps this ap- 
proach might also be found of interest 
elsewhere? 


Secondly, the Royal Society for the 
Protection of Birds was persuaded to re- 
vive its long-established but previously 
intermittent and disorganized beach sur- 
veys for oiled birds. Participants were 
asked where possible to retain a wing 
from each body which was simply hung 
up to dry for subsequent identification of 
the species and (along with banding re- 
coveries) origin of the birds. This was 
carried out continuously at first, and was 
just getting under way when the wreck of 
the oil-tanker Torrey Canyon in the ap- 
proaches to the English Channel in the 
spring of 1967 provided a test of its effi- 
cacy, demonstrated by the production 
within four months of the definitive report 
of the bird mortality in Nature. Later the 
surveys were carried out on specific dates 
several times each winter, when most 
mortality takes place, one coinciding with 
an international survey during a school 
holiday in late February throughout 
northwest Europe, in the hope of obtain- 
ing more systematic results, which now 
show a quite marked decline in chronic oil 
pollution. 

Other often dramatic local bird kills 
which would otherwise have been over- 
looked have also been found at intervals 
of years. These appear to be due to a 
wide variety of other causes, ranging from 
infection and poisoning by toxic micro- 
organisms and chemicals through bad 
weather to starvation, perhaps sometimes 
due to overcrowding after a series of good 
breeding seasons, although it has become 
fashionable to attribute it to over-fishing. 
Indeed, the overall mortality due to natu- 
ral causes still seems to exceed anything 
achieved by man by at least an order of 
magnitude. Unfortunately, the bodies 
only come ashore with onshore winds, 
and large numbers only occur erratically 
at long intervals, so it is difficult to sus- 
tain regular surveys to form a consistent 
baseline when there is little to be found 
for much of the time. Personally I still try 
to visit our coast to check for bird mortal- 
ity at intervals, but only extend the survey 
when bird bodies start to appear. 

Another problem demonstrated by the 
Torrey Canyon disaster was the need to 
treat the oiled birds. Few of some ten 
thousand that came ashore in front of 
television cameras were returned to the 
sea, and out of 71 large auks that were 
banded before release 22 (27%) were re- 
covered dead within a month. This led to 
crash programs at Newcastle University to 
improve the methods used, and by the 
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cru- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 55 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


elty to Animals to put them into practice. 
In consequence after the recent Sea Em- 
press oil-spill in South Wales over 2,000 
out of 3,155 birds (63.5%, mainly Com- 
mon Scoter) taken into care were cleaned 
and released. Even the story of the Torrey 
Canyon murres looked better when some 
laid eggs in captivity and two banded 
birds were recovered in their presumed 
area of origin after the bird kill in the Irish 
Sea two years later. Fifteen out of 824 
rehabilitated and banded murres released 
between 1985-90 (1.8%, near the normal 
rate) have now been recovered between 
two and the maximum possible ten years 
later, and the results of releasing 2,500 
banded murres over the last decade are 
currently being analyzed, with similar 
results. The Torrey Canyon disaster also 
revealed that knowledge of our seabird 
numbers and distribution was still inade- 
quate. The Seabird Group was given a 
grant from the superfluous funds sub- 
scribed by the public too late to help the 
oiled birds to develop past censuses of 
breeding gannets, fulmars and kittiwakes 
into a comprehensive survey of all British 
and Irish breeding seabirds, named by the 
original chairman of the organizing com- 
mittee, James Fisher, 'Operation Seafarer.' 
No sooner was this under way than a fur- 
ther mass mortality of molting auks in the 
Irish Sea in the autumn of 1969 probably 
due to bad weather, although the birds 
were also found to be loaded with toxic 
chemicals, led to a further grant for stud- 
ies at sea based at Aberdeen University. 
This finally overloaded the organization 
(and especially me!), so that such investi- 
gations had to be taken over by other 
bodies, while the organization has now 
become a pressure group for raising 
funds. 

Personally I am not entirely happy 
with this story (Bourne 1989). The first 
Seabird Group was originally a light- 
hearted, open-minded, largely young and 
amateur body designed to promote liaison 
and social intercourse between a variety 
of people interested in seabird research 
and conservation, and run informally on a 
shoestring, so that it would be accessible 
to everybody. It was then swept away by 
the tide of events following the Torrey 
Canyon disaster and bird kill in the Irish 
Sea, and began to undertake increasingly 


large enterprises with inadequate re- 
sources and without considering what 
strings might be attached. This has led to 
its domination by a new, competitive, 
pretentious, conformist and often 
blinkered professional elite mainly inter- 
ested in raising grants to perpetuate in- 
creasingly stale activities, regardless of 
any continuing need for or appropriate- 
ness of such research, or the development 
of new work and a balanced array of sea- 
bird research and conservation as a whole 
(Bourne 1989). 

Thus if we consider the present state 
of seabird studies, while the recent prolif- 
eration of maps of both breeding colonies 
and distribution at sea and regular moni- 
toring of productivity and mortality seem 
of absolutely basic importance, it seems 
unfortunate that less attention has usually 
been paid to the ways in which seabird 
numbers and distribution may fluctuate, 
especially when some of the largest dis- 
asters, dwarfing anything achieved by 
man away from the breeding places, ap- 
pear to be due to climatic and oceanic 
fluctuations. Seabirds live exposed to the 
weather, so surely it deserves much more 
consideration? There is also a need to pay 
much more attention to the time factor in 
their lives, since seabirds commonly have 
long life-cycles, and may only breed suc- 
cessfully or die in numbers at intervals 
running into decades. The current prac- 
tice of trying to complete all research 
within five years without reading anything 
more than ten years old is quite inade- 
quate to elucidate their biology. 

The nature of the funds available has 
also led to a distortion of research because 
it leads to concentration on two subjects, 
hypothetical threats to seabirds, and 
problems that they may cause. In the case 
of threats to the birds, the only serious one 
in recent times (with the possible excep- 
tions of Steller’s Cormorant and the Lab- 
rador Duck, where there may have been 
excessive hunting in the last century?) 
seems to be predation by man and intro- 
duced animals at the breeding places. The 
problems presented by birds (notably 
gulls) also often appear to be mainly due 
to defective hygiene. The vast expendi- 
ture of effort investigating pollution 
seems rather unnecessary, because the 
remedy is already obvious - do not spill 


these substances, as it is with over-fishing 
- aim for the maximum sustainable yield. 

In most such cases what is needed is not 
more research but more action, but few 
current career structures appear designed 
to promote such an embarrassing object. 

Certain morals can be drawn from this 
story. If you wish to choose what you do, 
find some independent means of support. 
Then if you feel insufficiently employed, 
agree to organize liaison in a neglected 
field, preferably one where any estab- 
lished figures are friendly and can be 
coopted, but do not be put off if they are 
not, find some way around them. 

Then be wary of premature expansion 
on a trial basis in a new field where sup- 
port may have strings attached, and there 
are other more complaisant people ready 
to run the activity in a more acceptable 
manner once its feasibility has been dem- 
onstrated. If you let them take over (why 
bother to do anything if someone else is 
available?), do not walk away, because 
there may be a need for informed ap- 
praisal of their progress, but keep a eye on 
the situation. Thus seabird studies now 
seem cluttered up with entrenched and 
dogmatic bureaucracies endlessly refining 
stale and increasingly irrelevant issues 
instead of doing something new, like riv- 
ers blocked by ice-floes in the spring. It 
seems time for a thaw to start the stream 
of progress flowing again. 

References Cited 

Bourne, W.R.P. 1989. Viewpoint - 
The organization of Seabird Research. 
Marine Pollution Bulletin 20: 158-163. 

Bourne, W.R.P. 1995. Could the 
Black-toed Petrel Procellaria melanopus 
have been Murphy’s Petrel Pterodroma 
ultima? Notornis 42: 48-49. 

Poesch, J. 1961. Titian Ramsay Peale 
and his journals of the Wilkes expedition. 
Mem. Am. Phil. Soc. 52. 

By W.R.P. Bourne, Department of Zool- 
ogy, Aberdeen University, Tillydrone 
Avenue, Aberdeen AB9 2TN, Scotland, 
UK. 

[Remarks given at the Pacific Seabird 
Group annual meeting January 1997.] 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 56 


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 


THE ORIGINS OF THE PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 

Jim King 


It is a pleasure, as we age, to be asked 
to indulge in nostalgia. So here are my 
memories of the origin of PSG. 

My role with seabirds has been mostly 
as an advocate. In 33 years with the U.S. 
Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska sea- 
birds were never mentioned in my job 
description. 

When I moved to the shores of Bering 
Sea in 1962 as refuge manager on the 
Yukon Delta, I was amazed at the huge 
bird colonies at Cape Newenham. My 
fly-by estimate of more than a million 
birds was confirmed by later studies. I 
could find no description of this bird 
wealth in either the scientific or the 
popular literature. How could we deny 
future generations a true picture for how it 
was, before some man caused tragedy 
changed it? I found myself thrust into 
what seemed an ornithological vacuum. 

About that time I was able to join a 
wonderful sea otter counting trip with 
Karl Kenyon, also with the U.S. Fish & 
Wildlife Service. In three weeks we flew 
around every one of the Aleutian Islands. 
In the evenings we talked about the dev- 
astation of the island birds caused by in- 
troduced foxes and rats. We flew over 
various remains from World War II, some 
still leaking oil. We could see elements of 
the vast North Pacific fishing fleet that 
often housed more people on Alaskan 
waters than were housed on the Alaskan 
mainland. We saw a full size freight ship 
recently crushed in the rocks where noth- 
ing could be salvaged. 

With these things in mind I wrote a 
crude description of the Cape Newenham 
birds suggesting that they should be pro- 
tected in a National Wildlife Refuge. 
Much to my surprise it was so dedicated 
by Interior Secretary Stewart Udall in 
1968. In 1980 the Cape Newenham Na- 
tional Wildlife Refuge was folded into the 
Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. 


As I dabbled in the seabird realm I 
soon found myself in correspondence with 
one Bill Bourne, in Scotland, who seemed 
to be light years ahead of anyone in 
America on seabird conservation matters. 

A few years later when I was invited 
to give a paper at the first international 
swan conference in England I saw a 
chance to visit Dr. Bourne and get some 
ideas about what we might do in North 
America for seabirds. 

Just before Christmas 1971, my wife 
and I spent five wonderful days as guests 
of the Bourne family in our first visit to 
Scotland. Bill toured us to the Highlands 
as well as the coastlines and escorted us to 
some wonderful Christmas parties. We 
did manage to talk about the Seabird 
Group that Bill had helped found. 

That spring I recounted these adven- 
tures to Jim Bartonek, Alaskan FWS re- 
search biologist. We discussed the need 
for a Pacific Seabird Group and decided 
to found it right there in Fairbanks. And 
so it was that 100 percent of the initial 
PSG membership was composed of water- 
fowl biologists - the two of us. 

Jim and I agreed that for PSG seabirds 
would mean any bird dependent on any 
marine environment. A major objective 
would be to extend the same sort of pro- 
duction and population monitoring used 
for waterfowl to the other species. 

That fall (1972) Jim introduced the 
PSG concept at a meeting of the Western 
Society of Naturalists in Areata, Califor- 
nia. Finding substantial interest he put his 
assistant, a young fellow named George 
Divoky, to work building a mailing list, 
doing a bulletin and setting up an initial 
annual meeting. 

That first PSG meeting in December 
1974, much to the amazement of our more 
earthy members, occurred at the Provi- 
dence Heights Education and Conference 
Center, Issaquah, Washington, which was 
a nunnery in rural Washington that was 


designed for religious gatherings. It 
turned out to be a too quiet place for a 
meeting with the exception of one even- 
ing when the dinner wine lasted on and on 
into the wee hours of the next day. 

Stories from that session survive. I 
remember Pete Isleib, fearless boatman of 
the North Pacific, showing up in the mid- 
dle of the night in a state of moderate 
shock. He had decided to get a little fresh 
air thereby discovering that nunneries 
lock all their doors at night. Suffering the 
early stages of hypothermia, he deter- 
mined there was no possibility for build- 
ing a survival fire in the immaculate gar- 
dens surround him. He finally found a 
window he could climb through. He 
wouldn’t say whether he had aroused any 
of the sleeping church ladies. 

It has all been up and up for PSG since 
then. 

Here at this meeting a quick demo- 
graphic review suggests the age ratio of 
PSG members is very favorable to the 
increasing prosperity of the organization 
on into the 21 st century. 

I know some young people listening to 
stories of the past think they have missed 
the best of times. I did some of that 
thinking myself. As I see it now we have 
a sound base, increasing popular support 
and wonderful new technologies. The 
prospects ahead for exciting and reward- 
ing careers in seabird ornithology have 
never been brighter. Who can guess at the 
amazing things that will be disclosed at 
future PSG meetings by people that are 
here now. 

Good luck and thanks. 

By James G. King, 1700 Branta Road, 
Juneau, Alaska 99801 USA. 

[Remarks given at the Pacific Seabird 
Group annual meeting banquet, January 
1997, after receiving PSG’s Lifetime 
Achievement Award.] 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 * Page 57 


REVIEW ARTICLES 


SEABIRDS IN RELATION TO ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT OF FISHERIES 

Testimony to the Ecosystem Advisory Panel, 10 September 1997 
Vivian M. Mendenhall and Craig S. Harrison 


The Pacific Seabird Group is an inter- 
national professional society of ecologists 
and other specialists in seabird ecology. 
Many of our members do research on the 
relationships! between seabirds, fish 
populations, and fisheries. The informa- 
tion we are presenting here was compiled 
with the help of colleagues in North 
America and other parts of the world. 
The authors are seabird biologists with 
many years of experience in Alaska and 
Hawaii. 

The application of ecosystem princi- 
ples to the management of commercial 
fisheries will require that managers con- 
sider all biotic components of the ecosys- 
tem in their decisions. We recognize that 
ecosystems are very complex and that 
managers cannot include everything in 
their models. New species must be se- 
lected for consideration in fisheries man- 
agement either because (a) they have an 
influence on fish stocks, or (b) they are 
vulnerable to being influenced by changes 
in fish stocks. Seabirds are a major part 
of the marine environment, and they can 
interact with fisheries in both directions. 

In this presentation we would like to 
summarize the relevance of seabirds to 
ecosystem management of fisheries, the 
principal ways in which birds interact 
with fisheries (and vice versa), current 
research on bird-fishery relationships (in- 
cluding multispecies modelling), and re- 
search that is needed in order to include 
birds ecosystem management of fisheries. 

Relevance Of Seabirds To Fisheries 

Seabirds should be included in eco- 
system management of fisheries both in 
order to manage effects of fisheries on 
seabirds, and because seabird studies can 
contribute useful data to fisheries man- 
agement. We will return to some of these 
points again below. 

• Seabirds are a conspicuous and 
highly-valued part of the marine ecosys- 
tem. The public enjoys seabirds, as at- 
tested by the vigorous tourist industry for 
viewing birds. Seabirds also form a small 
but important part of the legal subsistence 
harvest by Alaska Natives (Wohl et al. 


1995). 

• Congress has made seabirds a 
trust responsibility of the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service, which is required to 
maintain healthy seabird populations. To 
this end, Fish and Wildlife coordinates 
closely with the National Marine Fisheries 
Service and several Fisheries Manage- 
ment Councils in both research and man- 
agement. 

• Seabirds are strongly dependent 
on small fish for food, and therefore the 
birds are vulnerable to changes in fish 
stocks caused by fisheries or other factors. 
Major declines in seabird populations 
have been associated with fisheries in 
some cases. Management of seabirds will 
improve when fisheries management is 
based on ecosystem considerations (dis- 
cussed further below). 

• Birds can consume significant 
fractions of the annual fish production in 
some areas. Fishery management may 
benefit from including this mortality fac- 
tor in models (discussed further below). 

• Studies of bird/forage fish rela- 
tionships are producing data on distribu- 
tions and dynamics of forage fish stocks. 
Several multispecies models are being 
developed to explore relationships be- 
tween birds, fish, and primary production. 
These data can contribute to the multispe- 
cies management of fisheries (discussed 
further below). 

• Birds can serve as indicators of 
fish stocks and their environment. Birds 
’’sample" small forage fish more easily 
than do research trawls; monitoring diets 
of some seabird species can contribute to 
the assessment of juvenile fish stocks 
(Hatch and Sanger 1992). Monitoring of 
trends in seabird productivity and popula- 
tions is easier than it is for other top 
predators. Environmental conditions 
throughout the marine ecosystem are re- 
flected in seabird trends, which can sug- 
gest the need for studies of other compo- 
nents (Montevecchi 1993). 

• Birds recycle large amounts of 
nutrients from offshore feeding areas into 
nearshore waters by means of their excre- 
tion at breeding colonies. This enrich- 


ment may influence nearshore productiv- 
ity. 

Seabird Fisheries Interactions 

Many seabird species depend on small 
fish for food (Ainley and Boekelheide 
1990, Harrison 1990, Vermeer et al. 
1993). This dependence is especially 
strong when birds are feeding their young, 
since fish are the most nutritious and easi- 
est to carry to nestlings of all potential 
prey species. A relatively small number 
of fish species provide essential seabird 
forage on the Pacific coast and Hawaii, 
including capelin, sand lance, juvenile 
walleye pollock. Pacific saury, anchovy, 
rockfishes, lanternfish, and mackerel scad. 
In many areas only one or two forage fish 
species are suitable for breeding seabirds 
(Anderson and Gress 1984, Ainley and 
Boekelheide 1990, Springer 1991). Birds 
compete for forage fish with each other 
and with other groups of predators. A few 
fish species are the targets of large com- 
mercial fisheries, and most are important 
forage species of marine mammals and 
other fish. 

Seabird populations are primarily lim- 
ited by forage fish availability (Birkhead 
and Furness 1985). If the primary fish 
prey of seabirds is scarce, breeding suc- 
cess is poor. In extreme cases, adult birds 
may starve. Forage fish stocks and the 
availability of fish to the birds fluctuate 
naturally with oceanographic conditions. 
Birds are adapted to recover from occa- 
sional poor years, but long-term scarcity 
of the birds' preferred forage fish leads to 
declines in their populations (Ainley and 
Boekelheide 1990, Francis et al. 1996, 
Duffy 1997). In cases where population 
declines had other causes (such as hunting 
or oil pollution), the ability of bird popu- 
lations to recover is sometimes limited by 
food supply (Furness 1982, Ainley and 
Boekelheide 1990, Duffy 1997). 

Changes in seabird food resources 
have been studied in many parts of the 
world. The roles of climate and fisheries 
in these changes are hard to differentiate 
(Duffy and Schneider 1994). Climatic 
fluctuations undoubtedly contribute to 
fluctuations in seabird food resources 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 58 


(Wooster 1993), but fisheries also may do 
so (Duffy 1983, Steele 1991, Mendenhall 
and Anker-Nilssen 1996). It has been 
suggested that the Alaskan pollock fishery 
may have reduced forage stocks of birds 
in local areas near their breeding colonies, 
or over larger areas though indirect eco- 
system effects (Francis et al. 1996, Piatt 
and Anderson 1996). 

The North Pacific Fisheries Manage- 
ment Council is considering a measure 
that would prohibit fisheries on most for- 
age fish species in Alaska (existing fish- 
eries on pollock and herring would con- 
tinue). This would benefit predatory fish, 
marine mammals, and seabirds. 

Consumption Of Fish Stocks By Sea- 
birds 

Estimation of the food consumed by 
seabirds is a complex matter. Data are a 
combination of elusive field measure- 
ments (such as diets of birds scattered 
over the open sea during winter), labora- 
tory studies, and modelling. Estimates are 
therefore few and approximate. How- 
ever, a tentative conclusion is that seabird 
impacts on fish stocks can be high in local 
areas but may be insignificant for stocks 
as a whole. Seabird populations are 
highly concentrated in summer, when 
birds are packed into dense nesting colo- 
nies on isolated cliffs and islands. 
Breeding seabirds have a limited foraging 
range of 5 to 100 miles (depending on 
species). At such times seabirds may 
consume 10% to 80% of annual fish pro- 
duction within foraging range of the colo- 
nies (Furness 1978, Springer et al. 1986). 
The majority of the stock beyond foraging 
range of the colony often receives little 
predation pressure during summer. Dur- 
ing the rest of the year, seabird popula- 
tions are concentrated elsewhere or are 
spread thinly over the sea. Overall pres- 
sure on large fish stocks from bird preda- 
tion may be 5% to 12% (Springer et al. 
1986, Furness and Tasker 1997). During 
the breeding season, fishing close to sea- 
bird colonies potentially can affect local 
prey of the birds, and birds conceivably 
could affect the fishery in turn. For the 
stock as a whole, fisheries are more likely 
to reduce stocks for birds than the other 
way around. 

Seabirds That Depend On Fish To 
Drive Prey Within Reach 

Many tropical seabirds forage on fish 
schools that are driven to the surface by 
large predatory fish, in particular the 
skipjack tuna (Harrison 1990). Several 


REVIEW ARTICLES 

Hawaiian seabird species can obtain their 
prey only in association with tuna; such 
bird species would be unable to survive in 
the absence of their fish commensals. 
Tuna are fished commercially, and man- 
agement does not include consideration of 
seabird requirements. 

Consumption Of Fishery Discards By 
Birds 

Some species of seabirds are attracted 
to fishing vessels (as is well known by 
fishermen) because they feed on offal 
from on-board processing or other dis- 
cards. In some parts of the world this 
garbage has been responsible for popula- 
tion increases in seabirds (Furness 1982, 
Camphuysen et al. 1995). Artificial food 
is a mixed blessing for birds; some spe- 
cies can be forced out of their habitats or 
killed as a result of the increase in other 
species. No information is available on 
how American fishery discards affect bird 
populations. 

Incidental Take Of Seabirds In Fishing 
Gear 

Although "bycatch" of seabirds in 
fishing gear is not an ecosystem issue in 
the usual sense, we will mention it be- 
cause it is of concern to fishers, seabird 
managers, and the public. Some fishing 
gear catches large numbers of seabirds, 
particularly gillnets and longlines. At 
present longline fisheries are the principal 
problem in the Pacific Exclusive Eco- 
nomic Zone (EEZ). They are estimated to 
catch approximately 9,000 seabirds annu- 
ally in Alaska and 4,000 in Hawaii. Two 
albatrosses are of the greatest concern: 
the Short-tailed Albatross, which is highly 
endangered (its world population is just 
800 individuals), and the Black-footed 
Albatross, whose population is 60,000 but 
which is declining. Some measures to 
reduce seabird bycatch are now required 
in the Alaskan longline fishery, but no 
action has been taken in Hawaii. 

Current Research On Seabird-Fish 
Relationships 

Several current research projects 
throughout the world are exploring the 
relationships of seabirds to marine eco- 
systems, and to fish stocks in particular. 
Pat Livingston is providing a list of Alas- 
kan projects in her presentation. We will 
summarize fishery-related results from a 
few of these. We will also describe ad- 
vances in a couple of other parts of the 
world. 


The Alaska Predator Ecosystem Ex- 
periment (APEX) 

This is a large five-year study that be- 
gan in 1995. Its goal is to describe how 
the marine ecosystem of Prince William 
Sound and the northern Gulf of Alaska 
limits seabird populations. It is adminis- 
tered by the University of Alaska Anchor- 
age and is funded by the Exxon Valdez Oil 
Spill Trustees Council. The overall goal 
is to determine whether some species of 
birds are failing to recover from the oil 
spill because of lingering pollution or 
environmental limitations (Duffy 1997). 
APEX includes 15 separate projects, and 
it is part of a larger project which includes 
fish and marine mammals. 

The dynamics of forage fish in the 
study area under various marine condi- 
tions are becoming better known as a re- 
sult of this project. For instance, a large- 
scale shift in the Gulf of Alaska marine 
system which began in the mid 1970’s led 
to an increase in pollock and a decrease in 
capelin, both in the Gulf of Alaska and 
Prince William Sound (Piatt and Ander- 
son 1996, Duffy 1997). In contrast, sand 
lance stocks increased during this period 
in some coastal areas. The responses of 
various seabird species to forage fish den- 
sities and distributions are being better 
quantified. For instance, some bird spe- 
cies need higher densities of prey than 
others, and large birds may be better than 
small species at raising their young in 
spite of scarce food resources. The APEX 
project is quantifying new details of bird- 
fish interactions. 

Two multi-species models will use 
data from APEX studies. 

• One model will evaluate whether 
changes in bird populations are being 
driven by changes in fish stocks or distri- 
bution. It will also estimate the impacts 
of seabirds on forage fish stocks. Inputs 
from fish data will include fish species, 
school size, nutritive value, and distance 
of schools from bird colonies. Inputs 
from bird data will include responses of 
each bird species to foraging conditions, 
such as frequency of feeding, length of 
foraging trips, and reproductive success. 
This model may advance analysis of bird- 
fish relationships considerably. 

• A food web model will incorpo- 
rate data from the APEX, fish, and marine 
mammal projects. It will simulate inter- 
actions throughout the food web, from 
phytoplankton to top predators. This 
model will use an existing framework, 
ECOPATH. Inputs for each species will 
include biomass, production, fisheries 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 59 


REVIEW ARTICLES 


catch rate (where relevant), and mortality 
caused by each predator on the species. 
The goal will be to analyze how changes 
in any variable are likely to be reflected in 
shifts throughout the ecosystem, and how 
long the system takes to recover. 

Seabird, Marine Mammal, And Ocean- 
ography Coordinated Investigations 

(SMMOCI) 

This project is investigating how sea- 
bird populations at Alaskan breeding 
colonies are limited by forage fish dy- 
namics (Byrd et al. 1997). The project is 
a cooperative effort of NMFS, the ITS. 
Fish and Wildlife Service, the Biological 
Resource Division of USGS, and the Uni- 
versity of Alaska Fairbanks. Fish loca- 
tions and densities near six colonies 
throughout Alaska will be correlated with 
bird feeding distributions and breeding 
populations. Fish ecology and marine 
mammals also are being studied at the 
same sites. Unlike most research, this 
project is planned for repeat observations 
at each colony for a number of years. It 
will be possible to compare interactions of 
forage fish and bird populations for areas 
with various oceanographic characteris- 
tics. At the colony studied in 1996 in the 
eastern Aleutian Islands, the major forage 
species were 0-class juvenile pollock and 
zooplankton. 

Ecosystem Relationships Of Foraging 
Seabirds In The Bering Sea 

This project is a continuation of over 
20 years of studies of seabird feeding 
ecology throughout the Bering Sea shelf 
(Decker et al. 1995). Cooperators include 
the University of California at Irvine, 
NMFS (as part of the FOCI investigation), 
and PISCES/GLOBEC. Birds in this area 
feed on fish (juvenile pollock, lanternfish 
at the shelf edge, zooplankton) where 
these prey are concentrated by local cur- 
rents, water masses, and sea-floor topog- 
raphy. Part of the project in 1997 exam- 
ined marine productivity and bird forag- 
ing near the Alaska Peninsula, and found 
that unusually warm and stratified water 
had reduced food for both seabirds and 
commercial fish species (sockeye 
salmon). 

Multispecies Modelling Of Seabird- 
Fishery Relationships In The North Sea 

The North Sea between Britain and 
Norway has a large commercial harvest of 
sandeel {Ammodytes marinus , a close 
relative of the sand lance). British sea- 
birds depend on the sandeel in some areas 


and therefore are vulnerable to impacts 
from the fishery (Furness 1982). A model 
has been developed to examine relation- 
ships between the sandeel fishery on sea- 
birds (Furness and Tasker 1997). Inputs 
include bird populations at sea and in 
colonies and diets and energy require- 
ments of the birds. The majority of bird 
consumption occurred inshore, where 
seabird colonies are located, whereas 
most fishery harvest was in offshore ar- 
eas. 

The authors also evaluated the existing 
multi-species virtual population analysis 
(MSVPA) for sandeels. They concluded 
that the MSVPA for sandeels underesti- 
mates predation by seabirds in areas near 
seabird colonies. 

Another model evaluated the effect 
on seabird populations of offal discarded 
by trawlers. Population sizes and species 
ratios of seabirds are influenced by this 
food source in the North Sea (Camphuy- 
sen et al. 1995). 

Bird-Fishery Interactions On The 
Coast Of Norway 

Seabirds breeding on the Norwegian 
coast depend on capelin, sandeel, and 
juvenile herring, all of which are fished 
commercially. Populations of some spe- 
cies have declined severely during the 
past two decades because of fish popula- 
tion changes. Bird trends have been cor- 
related with both climatic changes and 
fishery harvests (Mendenhall and Anker- 
Nilssen 1996). Birds may be useful for 
monitoring Norwegian fishery stocks. 

Bird-Fishery Interactions On The 
Coast Of Eastern Canada 

Seabirds breeding on the coast of 
Newfoundland rely primarily on capelin, 
which are fished commercially. Species 
of birds respond in various ways to forage 
limitations. Climatic changes have 
caused scarcity of forage fish near the 
coast; however, the principal impacts of 
fisheries may be on other stocks (Men- 
denhall and Anker-Nilssen 1996). 

Research Needed 

Many aspects of relationships between 
seabirds and fisheries still require re- 
search. We will summarize a few that are 
relevant to fisheries management. 

Estimating ecosystem relationships of 
seabirds and fisheries requires reliable 
data on the distribution and diets of sea- 
birds during each season of the year. Data 
for large parts of the eastern Pacific and 
Alaskan waters are reliable only for the 


breeding season. Much more pelagic bird 
research is needed between September 
and May. 

* The relationships of seabird 
population trends to the dynamics of for- 
age fish near seabird colonies are being 
studied in detail for the first time. Infor- 
mation is lacking, however, on how local 
fish dynamics are determined by the dy- 
namics of entire stocks. This information 
is needed before impacts of fishery man- 
agement on seabirds can be predicted. 

* Multispecies and ecosystem 
models are needed that allow prediction 
of the impacts of seabirds and fisheries on 
each other. 

* Predictions of all ecosystem 
trends, including those in fisheries and 
seabirds, are subject to uncertainty. This 
will be true even when models have be- 
come more sophisticated. Managers 
should be prepared to view model results 
as guidelines, not the gospel truth. Man- 
agement decisions should be conservative 
whenever trends in a fishery's ecosystem 
seem to be at odds with the predictions of 
a model, whether or not the components 
in question are included in the model 
(Parsons 1993). 

Conclusions 

Seabirds are a major component of 
marine ecosystems. Ecosystem manage- 
ment of fisheries should take birds into 
account. Much more information is being 
made available now than in the past. 
These advances have been possible be- 
cause of temporary increases in funding 
(in particular for the Exxon Valdez resto- 
ration studies) and because of new coop- 
erative studies by fishery biologists and 
bird biologists. Ecosystem modelling and 
multispecies fishery management will 
benefit from these advances. We look 
forward to working with fishery managers 
on developing the management of marine 
ecosystems. 

References Cited 

(Note: This presentation is supported by 
selected references. Additional literature 
citations for some topics are available on 
request.) 

Ainley, D.G. and R.J. Boekelheide, 
eds. 1990. Seabirds of the Farailon Is- 
lands: ecology, dynamics, and structure 
of an upwelling-system community. 
Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 

Anderson, D.W., and F. Gress. 1984. 
Brown pelicans and the anchovy fishery 
off southern California. Pp. 128-135 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 60 


REVIEW ARTICLES 


in D.N. Nettleship, G.A. Sanger, and P.F. 
Springer (eds.). Marine birds: their 

feeding ecology and commercial fisheries 
relationships. Canadian Wildlife Service 
Publication Number. CW66-65/1984. 
(Available from the Pacific Seabird 
Group, c/o Jan Hodder, Oregon Institute 
of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, 
Charleston, Oregon, USA) 

Birkhead, T.R., and R.W. Furness. 
1985. Regulation of seabird populations. 
British Ecological Society Symposium 
21:145-167. 

Byrd, G.V., R.L. Merrick, J.F. Piatt, 
and B.L.Norcross. 1997. Seabird, marine 
mammals, and oceanographny coordi- 
nated investigations (SMMOCI) near 
Unimak Pass, Alaska. In Role of Forage 
Fishes in Marine Ecosystems. Proc. 17 l 
Lowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposium, 
13-16 November 199 6, Anchorage, 
Alaska. In press. 

Camphuysen, C.J., B. Calvo, J. 
Durinck, K. Ensor, A. Follestad, R.W. 
Furness, S. Garthe, G. Reaper, H. Skov, 
M.L. Tasker, and C.J.N. Winter. 1995. 
Consumption of discards by seabirds in 
the North Sea. Final report, EC DG XIV 
Research Contract BI0EC0/93/10. NIOZ 
Rapport 1995-5 edition. Netherlands In- 
stitute for Sea Research, Texel, Nether- 
lands. 

Decker, M.B., G.L. Hunt, Jr., and 
G.V.Byrd, Jr. 1995. The relationships 
among sea surface temperature, the abun- 
dance of juvenile walleye pollock ( Thera - 
gra chalcogramma), and the reproductive 
performance and diets of seabirds at the 
Pribilof Islands, southeastern Bering Sea. 
Pp. 425-437 in R.J. Beamish, (ed.). Cli- 
mate change and northern fish popula- 
tions. Canada Special Publication in Fish- 
eries and Aquatic Science 121. 

Duffy, D.C. 3983. Environmental un- 
certainty and commercial fishing: Effects 
on Peruvian guano birds. Biological Con- 
servation 26:227-238. 

Duffy, D.C., and D.C. Schneider. 
1994. Seabird-fishery interactions: a man- 
ager's guide. Pp. 26-38 in D.N. Nettleship, 

J. Burger, and M. Gochfeld (eds.). Sea- 
birds on islands: threats, case studies and 
action plans. BirdLife Conservation, Ser. 

I. BirdLife International, London. 

Duffy, D.C. 1997. APEX Project: 


Alaska Predator Ecosystem Experiment in 
Prince William Sound and the Gulf of 
Alaska. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restora- 
tion Project, Annual Report (Restoration 
Project 96163 A-Q). Alaska Natural 
Heritage Program and Department of Bi- 
ology, University of Alaska Anchorage, 
Anchorage, AK. 

Francis, R.C., O.G. Anderson, W.D. 
Bowen, S.K. Davis, J.M. Grebmeier, L.F. 
Lowry, I. Merculieff, N.S. Mirovitskaya, 
C.H. Peterson, C. Pungowiyi, T.C. Royer, 
A.M. Springer, and W.S. Wooster. 1996. 
The Bering Sea ecosystem: report of the 
Committee on the Bering Sea Ecosystem, 
National Research Council. National 
Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 

Furness, R.W. 1978. Energy require- 
ments of seabird communities: a bioener- 
getics model. Journal of Animal Ecology 
47:39-53. 

Furness, R.W. 1982. Competition 
between fisheries and seabird communi- 
ties. Advances in Marine Biology 30:225- 
307. 

Furness, R.W and M.L. Tasker. 1997. 
Seabird consumption in sand lance 
MSVPA models for the North Sea, and 
the impact of industrial fishing on seabird 
population dynamics. In B. Baxter (ed.). 
Proceedings: Forage fishes in marine eco- 
systems. Alaska Sea Grant College Pro- 
gram, publication AK-SG-97-01. In press. 

Harrison, C.S. 1990. Seabirds of Ha- 
waii: natural history and conservation. 
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. 

Hatch, S.A., and G.A. Sanger. 1992. 
Puffins as samplers of juvenile pollock 
and other forage fish in the Gulf of 
Alaska. Marine Ecology Progress Series 
80:1-14. 

Mendenhall, V.M., and T. Anker- 
Nilssen. 1996. Seabird populations and 
commercial fisheries in the circumpolar 
region: Do we need to worry? Circumpo- 
lar Seabird Bulletin no. 2:1-7. (Available 
from Nongame Migratory Bird Project, 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1011 E. 
Tudor Rd., Anchorage, AK 99503.) 

Montevecchi, W.A. 1993. Birds as in- 
dicators of change in marine prey stocks. 
Pp. 217-266 in R.W. Furness and J.J.D. 
Greenwood (eds.). Birds as monitors of 
environmental change. Chapman & Hall, 
London. 


Parsons, L.S. 1993. Management of 
marine fisheries in Canada. National Re- 
search Council of Canada, Ottawa, On- 
tario. 

Piatt, J.F., and P. Anderson. 1996. Re- 
sponse of Common Murres to the Exxon 
Valdez oil spill and long-term changes in 
the Gulf of Alaska marine ecosystem. 
American Fisheries Society Symposium 
18:759-769. 

Springer, A.M. 1991. Seabird distri- 
bution as related to food webs and the 
environment: examples from the North 
Pacific Ocean. Pp. 39-48 in W.A. Monte- 
vecchi and A.J. Gaston (eds.). Studies of 
high-latitude seabirds. 1. Behavioural, 
energetic, and oceanographic aspects of 
seabird feeding ecology. Canadian Wild- 
life Service, Occassional Paper 68. 

Springer, A.L., D.G. Roseneau, D.S. 
Lloyd, C.P. McRoy, and E.C. Murphy. 
1986. Seabird responses to fluctuating 
prey availability in the eastern Bering Sea. 
Marine Ecology Progress Series 32:1-12. 

Steele, J.H. 1991. Marine functional 
diversity. BioScience 41:470-474. 

Vermeer, K., K.T. Briggs, K.H. 
Morgan, and D. Siegel-Causey (eds.). 
1993. The status, ecology, and conserva- 
tion of marine birds of the North Pacific. 
Canadian Wildlife Service, Ottawa. Spe- 
cial Publication. 

Wohl, K.D., T.L. Nelson, and C. 
Wentworth. 1995. Subsistence harvest of 
seabirds in Alaska. Unpublished report; 
available from U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, Nongame Migratory Bird Proj- 
ect, 101 1 East Tudor Rd., Anchorage, AK 
99053. 

Wooster, W.S. 1993. Is it food? An 
overview. Pp. 1-3 in Is it food?: Ad- 
dressing marine mammal and seabird de- 
clines; workshop summary. University of 
Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK. Alaska 
Sea Grant Report 93-01. 

By Vivian M. Mendenhall , U.S. Fish & 
Wildlife Service, 1011 East Tudor Road, 
Anchorage, Alaska 99503 USA and Craig 
S. Harrison , 4001 North Ninth Street, 
Apartment 1801, Arlington, Virginia 
22203 USA. 

[This is a peer reviewed article.] 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 61 


ARTICLES 


SEARCHING FOR THE LONG-BILLED MURRELET ON HOKKAIDO ISLAND, JAPAN 

S. Kim Nelson, Koji Ono, John N. Fries , and Thomas E. Hamer 


The Long-billed Murrelet ( Brachy - 
ramphus perdix), a small alcid of the 
northwestern Pacific, and its former con- 
specific, the Marbled Murrelet ( Brachy - 
ramphus marmoratus ; American Orni- 
thologists’ Union 1997), have long been 
recognized as “enigma(s) of the Pacific” 
(Guiguet 1956) because details about their 
breeding biology remained a mystery for 
more than a century. While extensive 
research has been conducted on the biol- 
ogy of B. marmoratus during the last 10 
years (see Ralph et al. 1995, Nelson 
1997), only limited opportunistic infor- 
mation is available on the distribution, 
abundance and habitat associations of B. 
perdix. Because of a variety of potential 
threats to the Long-billed Murrelet in Ja- 
pan, including 

habitat loss and oil 
spills ( e.g ., Helm et 
al. 1997), 

determining its 
breeding status and 
habitat use will be 
important for future 
management and 
conservation of this 
species. Herein we 
describe our recent 
efforts to learn more 
about the inland 
habitat use of this 
elusive species in 
northern Japan. 

At present, the 
general breeding 
distribution of the 
Long-billed 
Murrelet is de- 
scribed as extending 
from the Kamchatka 
Peninsula and Ko- 
mandorski Islands 
(Russia) in the 
north, southward 
through the Kuril 
Islands, along the north and west coasts of 
the Sea of Okhotsk (Magadan to Sakhalin 
Island, Russia), south to Hokkaido Island, 
Japan, and south and east along the coast 
of the Primorye Region (Primorski Krai) 
and the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok, Rus- 
sia (Konyukhov and Kitaysky 1995, Nel- 


son 1997). Available information sug- 
gests that its breeding range is primarily 
determined by the distribution of taiga 
forest in coastal areas of the region (Kist- 
chinski 1968). In Russia, five nests are 
known in coniferous and mixed forest 
within 30 km of the coast. One ground 
nest was found on an open scree slope in 
mixed coniferous/broad-leaved forest at 
700 m in elevation and 30 km inland in 
the mountains above SheJikhova Bay, 
near Magadan (A. Kistchinski unpub- 
lished data). Four tree nests were found 
in Larix gmelini (Dahurian larch) trees in 
taiga forests up to 12 km inland near the 
cities of Magadan and Okhotsk, on Sak- 
halin Island, and at Olga Bay on the Pri- 
morye coast, 274 km north of Vladivostok 


(Kuzyakin 1963, Nechaev 1986, Labzyuk 
1987, Kondratyev and Nechaev 1989). In 
addition to these nests, two females were 
collected with eggs in their oviducts in the 
Sea of Okhotsk and off the Kamchatka 
Peninsula, and sightings of murrelets have 
occurred as far as 60 km inland along the 


Amur River (flows into Tatarski Strait 
near Sakhalin Island). 

There are only a few observations that 
suggest breeding by Long-billed Mur- 
relets in Japan. A ground nest with three 
eggs was reported from Mt. Mokoto 
(Mokoto-yama) in 1961, 24 km inland on 
Hokkaido Island (Brazil 1991, Ko- 
nyukhov and Kitaysky 1995), but it was 
later discovered that the eggs had been 
misidentified. Interestingly, an adult mur- 
relet, supposedly attending this nest, was 
shot and collected in 1961 and later con- 
firmed to be a Long-billed Murrelet. Re- 
cent (1980’s and 1990’s) sightings of 
hatch-year birds in the Sea of Okhotsk 
just north of Mt. Mokoto (Brazil 1991) 
and along the northwest coast of the 
Shiretoko Peninsula 
(M. Matsuda, Y. Fu- 
kuda pers. comm.) 
have also been 
reported. 

After discussions 
between Japanese 
and American 

Pacific Seabird 
Group biologists in 
1993 (see Carter and 
de Forest 1993), it 
was decided that a 
concerted effort 
should be 

undertaken to 

determine the 

breeding states of 
the Long-billed 
Murrelet in northern 
Japan. The effort 
began on 19 and 20 
July 1993, when in- 
land surveys were 
initiated in north- 
eastern Hokkaido in 
an attempt to locate 
potential breeding 
sites (J. Minton, H. 
Nakagama, and M. Matsuda, unpublished 
data). Four survey stations were estab- 
lished: (1) two on Mt. Mokoto, one in a 
valley of large Picea jezoensis (Yezo 
spruce) trees (Site 1) and one at the site 
where an adult was collected in 1961 (Site 
2); and (2), two in Shiretoko National 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 62 



Figure 1. Map of Hokkaido Island, Japan, showing the location of Mt. Mokoto and 
the Shiretoko Peninsula. 


ARTICLES 


Park, one on the pass road in mixed Abies 
sachalinensis (Saghalin fir) and Betula 
ermanii (birch) forest (Site 3) and one 
along the Iwaobetsu River (Iwaobetsu- 
kawa; Site 4) (Figures 1 - 4). Surveys 
from shore, to detect birds on nearshore 
waters, were also conducted at 1 1 stations 
on 19 July. Despite these efforts, no mur- 
relets were detected during these surveys, 
although fog many have prevented obser- 
vations on the water. 

At the PSG meeting in Victoria, Brit- 
ish Columbia in 1995, discussions be- 
tween Japanese and American biologists 
(ourselves and H. Carter) resulted in the 
decision to follow up on the 1993 surveys 
and continue efforts to determine the 
breeding status of the Long-billed Mur- 
relet in Japan. Therefore, we initiated the 
surveys described herein to locate poten- 
tial breeding sites of this species in north- 
eastern Hokkaido. Specific objectives of 
these surveys were to: (1) locate potential 
inland breeding sites on the Shiretoko 
Peninsula and Mt. Mokoto; (2) identify 
areas of suitable nesting habitat; and (3) 
train surveyors for future inland surveys. 


Study Area 

We focused all but one of our surveys 
on the Shiretoko Peninsula and in Shire- 
toko National Park on the northeast coast 
of Hokkaido Island (Figures 1 and 3 - 6). 
This peninsula, especially Shiretoko Na- 
tional Park, includes the largest undis- 
turbed forest in close proximity to exist- 
ing records of murrelets (adults and young 
of the year) in the Sea of Okhotsk and at 
Mt. Mokoto (Brazil 1991, M. Matsuda 
pers. comm.). Shiretoko is a long, narrow 
peninsula (70 
km long and 25 
km wide) that 
juts into the Sea 
of Okhotsk. 

The National 
Park extends 
from the middle 
of the peninsula 
to the cape. 

The interior of 
the peninsula is 
lined with vol- 
canic mountains 
that range to 


sis (Saghalin fir), and Picea jezoensis 
(Yezo spruce). Above 600 m the vegeta- 
tion is dominated by Betula ermanii 
(birch) and Pinus pumila (pine; Ohtaishi 
and Nakagawa 1988). In summer, the 
climate on the Utoro side (northwest) of 
the peninsula is mild and relatively dry 
(average precipitation 91.7 mm, tem- 
perature 15° C), while the Rausu side 
(southeast) is often foggy, cool and damp 
(average precipitation 145 mm, tempera- 


1993 Site 1 




1993 Site 4 


! Shiretoko i 


Nature Center 



Figure 3. Map of the 1993 and 1996 Long-billed Murrelet sur- 
vey stations located along the northwest side of Shiretoko Na- 
tional Park, Hokkaido, Japan. 


Summit of 
Mt. Mokoto 


Figure 2. Map of Mt. Mokoto, northeastern Hokkaido, 
Japan, showing the locations of the 1993 and 1996 
Long-billed Murrelet survey stations. 


1661 m in elevation. 
Parts of the coastal areas 
on both sides of the 
peninsula (but especially 
on the west side) are 
lined with steep volcanic 
cliffs. The vegetation up 
to 600 m is primarily 
mixed deciduous and 
coniferous forest in- 
cluding Quercus mon~ 
golica (Mongolian oak), 
Acer mono (painted ma- 
ple), Ulmus davidiana 
(Japanese Elm), Taxus 
cuspidata (Japanese 
yew), Abies sachalinen- 


ture 13° C), influenced by ocean currents 
within Nemuro Strait (separates Japan 
from Russia). In winter, average tem- 
peratures range from -2° C to -2.8° C and 
precipitation levels range from 102.5 mm 
to 76.3 mm on the Rausu and Utoro 
coasts, respectively (Ohtaishi and Naka- 
gawa 1988). During the winter months, 
precipitation falls primarily in the form of 
snow, and ice floes in the Sea of Okhotsk 
and Nemuro Strait surround the peninsula. 

One survey was conducted at Mt. 
Mokoto (elevation 999 m), an old volcano 
adjacent to Kussharo Lake (Kussharo-ko), 
located 24 km inland in northeastern 
Hokkaido (Figures 1 and 2). Weather and 
vegetation on Mt. Mokoto are similar to 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 * Fall 1997 • Page 63 


ARTICLES 


the Shiretoko Peninsula. At our survey 
stations (>700 in), the forest consisted 
primarily of Abies sachalinensis (Saghalin 
fir) and Betuia ermanii (birch). 


Methods 

On the Shiretoko Peninsula, locations 
for inland survey stations were selected 
by reviewing available information on 
habitat types and using our knowledge of 
Marbled Murrelet habitat associations in 
North America (Hamer and Nelson 1995). 
We explored forested areas in the park for 
the presence of potential nest platforms 
(>10 cm in diameter). We attempted to 
minimize biases in our searches by con- 
sidering both coniferous and deciduous 
trees as potential nest sites. Potential nest 
platforms were uncommon on the penin- 
sula, therefore survey stations were placed 
(1) in mixed species forests with the larg- 
est potential platforms available, and (2) 
in major drainages that murrelets might 
use as flight corridors to inland nesting 
sites. In addition, because murrelets are 
known to nest on the ground, we surveyed 
alpine and rock talus areas. Our survey 
stations were located near the 1993 sta- 
tions but not in the same location (Figures 
2-4). 

Twenty-two survey stations were es- 
tablished on the Shiretoko Peninsula, 15 
on the Utoro side and 7 on the Rausu side 
of the peninsula (Table 1, Figures 3 - 6). 


Surveys were never conducted on the 
Rausu side, however, because of highway 
construction, time constraints, and mar- 
ginal habitat (limited trees with plat- 


forms). Therefore, 15 stations were sur- 
veyed. These stations were located in 
forests (n = 4), along rivers adjacent to 
forests (n = 7), in a meadow adjacent to 
forest and with a view of alpine (n = 1), or 
near rock talus slopes in alpine areas (n = 
3). All stations were placed in openings 
in the forests or along ridges to maximize 
the chances of hearing and seeing mur- 
relets. Due to the abundance of brown 
bears ( Ursus arctos yesoensis) in the park 
in 1996, hiking trails and the back-country 
were closed within Shiretoko National 
Park. Survey stations were therefore es- 
tablished along existing paved or gravel 
roads. 

At Mt. Mokoto, surveys were con- 
ducted near the top of the mountain in one 
of the only remaining areas of potential 
habitat areas (the forested area where an 
adult was collected in 1961 was logged 
and, therefore, is no longer suitable). 
Three survey stations were established, 
two along the Mt. Mokoto Pass Road that 
provided views into adjacent conifer for- 
est and one in the Mt. Mokoto camp- 
ground, an area surrounded by large coni- 
fer trees (Table 2, Figure 2). 

Intensive surveys for murrelets were 
conducted between 1 and 6 July 1996 (1 


July on Mt. Mokoto and 3-6 July on the 
Shiretoko Peninsula) (Tables 1 and 2, 
Appendix). Surveys followed the Pacific 
Seabird Group (PSG) survey protocol 
(Ralph et al. 1994) with a few modifica- 
tions. Surveys began 120 minutes (in- 
stead of 45 minutes) before, and contin- 
ued until 90 minutes after, official sunrise. 
Our survey crew consisted of 14 biolo- 
gists familiar with the biology and vocali- 
zations of murrelets. These biologists 
were stationed in groups of 2 - 5 to maxi- 
mize the chances of detecting birds flying 
silently up drainages or over ridges. 

Results 

A total of 60 observer days of surveys 
(9 at Mt. Mokoto and 50 on the Shiretoko 
Peninsula) were conducted between 1 and 
6 July (Tables 1 and 2, Appendix). No 
Long-billed Murrelets were detected dur- 
ing these surveys, although there were 
several potential vocalizations heard 
along the Coast Road on 4 and 5 July. An 
additional survey was conducted at this 
site on 6 July, but no detections were re- 
corded. 

Discussion 

Sixty observer days of surveys were 
not enough to locate Long-billed Mur- 
relets in, or conclude they are absent 
from, northeastern Hokkaido. According 
to the Pacific Seabird Group survey pro- 
tocol (Ralph et al. 1994), at least four sur- 
veys at each survey site should be con- 
ducted per year for two consecutive years 
to determine presence and absence. 
Therefore, additional effort will be re- 
quired to determine the status of Long- 
billed Murrelets on Mt. Mokoto and the 
Shiretoko Peninsula. 

Hokkaido is located in the southern 
portion of the breeding range of B. perdu r 
and much of the native forest on the is- 
land has been logged or modified, there- 
fore this species probably occurs in low 
numbers on the island. Despite a poten- 
tially small population size, we believe 
the limited observations of juveniles on 
the water and the discovery of an adult at 
an inland location, combined with the 
presence of suitable nesting habitat in 
forested and alpine areas, indicate that 
Long-billed Murrelets have a high likeli- 
hood of nesting in northeastern Hokkaido. 
Additional inland observations of this 
species during the breeding season just 
north of Hokkaido, on Sakhalin Island 
(known nest site) and on the southern 
Kuril Islands (Shikotan, Iturup, Urup and 
Kunashir; Nechaev 1986, Konyukhov and 



Figure 4. Map of the 1993 and 1996 Long-billed Murrelet survey stations located 
on the Shiretoko Oudan Douro pass road in Shiretoko National Park, Hokkaido, 
Japan. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 64 


ARTICLES 



Figure 5. Map of the Long-billed Murrelet survey stations located 
along the Coast Road, south of Utoro on the Shiretoko Peninsula, 
Hokkaido, Japan. 


Kitaysky 1995), support the 
high probability of Long- 
billed Murrelets nesting on 
Hokkaido. 

In the future, additional 
inland surveys need to be 
conducted on Mt. Mokoto, 
the Shiretoko Peninsula, 
and other areas of suitable 
habitat in Japan. However, 
we suggest that surveys for 
birds on the water in the 
Sea of Okhotsk and Ne- 
muro Strait be completed 
first to determine the distri- 
bution of murrelets off 
northeastern Hokkaido in 
summer, as there appears to 
be a correlation between at- 
sea distribution and the 
distribution of murrelets at 
inland nesting sites (Nelson 
et al. 1992, Ralph et al. 

1995). During these sur- 
veys, particular attention 
should be paid to the pres- 
ence of hatch-year birds. 

Once the at-sea distribution 
of Long-billed Murrelets is 
known, specific areas can be identified for 
conducting inland surveys. 

Acknowledgments 

This project was funded by a grant 
from the Nature Conservation Society of 
Japan (NCS-J) to the Japan Seabird Con- 
servation Committee of the Pacific Sea- 
bird Group and the Japan Alcid Society, 
who sponsored this research. We thank 
Takeo Akama, Yoshihiro Fukuda, Tony 
Gaston, Stefan Hotes, Yasuhiro Kawa- 
saki, Lora Leschner, Kuniko Otsuki, Mi- 
hoko Sato, Will Wright, and Osa Yuichi 
for helping with surveys. Special thanks 
to Mitsuki Matsuda and Michihiro Ta- 
zawa. Rangers at Shiretoko National Park, 
for helping with logistics and selection of 
survey locations. Thanks also to Harry 
Carter for helping to initiate these surveys 
and providing details on the 1993 surveys, 
Yuri and Yutaka Watanuki for helping 
with logistics, and Amanda Wilson for 
helping design the maps. Harry Carter, 
Dan Roby and Steve Speich provided 
comments on early drafts of this manu- 
script. 

Literature Cited 

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birds, 41st supplement. Auk 114:542- 
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Brazil, M.A. 1991. The birds of Ja- 
pan. Smithsonian Institution Press, 
Washington, D.C. 466 pp. 

Carter, H.R., and L. de Forest. 1993. 
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Guiguet, C.J. 1956. Enigma of the 
Pacific. Audubon 58:164-167, 174. 

Hamer, T.E., and S.K. Nelson. 1995. 
Characteristics of Marbled Murrelet nest 
trees and nesting stand, pp. 69-82. In 
Ecology and conservation of the Marbled 
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Helm, R.C., H.R. Carter, S.H. New- 
man, J.N. Fries, K. Ono, and M. Sato. 
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during the 1997 Nakhodka oil spill in the 
Sea of Japan: observations and recom- 
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and Japanese seabird researchers. Un- 
published report, U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
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OR; U.S. Geological Survey, Biological 
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California, Wildlife Health Center, Davis, 
CA. 


Kistchinski, A.A. 1968. 
Birds of the Kolymskogo 
Nagoria. Nauka Publishing 
House, Moscow, USSR. 

Kondratyev, A.Y., and 
V.A. Nechaev. 1989. Mar- 
bled Murrelet, pp. 142-143. 
In Rare vertebrates of the 
Soviet Far East and their 
protection. (Kostenko, 
V.A., P.A. Ler, V.A. 
Nechaev, and Y.V. Shibaev, 
eds.) (In Russian). 

Konyukhov, N.B., and 
A.S. Kitaysky. 1995. The 
Asian race of the Marbled 
Murrelet, pp. 23-29. In 
Ecology and conservation 
of the Marbled Murrelet. 
(Ralph, C.J., G.L. Hunt, Jr\ 
J.F. Piatt, and M.G. Raph- 
ael, eds.) U.S. Department 
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Service General Technical 
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Albany, CA. 

Kuzyakin, A.P. 1963. 
On the biology of the Mar- 
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6:315-320. (In Russian; English transla- 
tion in Van Tyne Memorial Library, Univ. 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI). 

Labzyuk, V.I. 1987. A sudden occur- 
rence of the nest of Brachyramphus mar- 
moratus in Southern Primorye, pp. 85-86. 
In Distribution and biology of seabirds of 
the Far East. Litvinenko, N.M. (ed.). 
Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Vladivostok, 
USSR. (In Russian; English translation by 
P. T. Gilbert). 

Nechaev, V.A. 1986. New data on 
the seabirds of Sakhalin Island, pp. 71-81. 
In Seabirds of the Far East. (Litvinenko, 
N.M., ed.) Akademia Nauk SSSR, Vladi- 
vostok, USSR. (In Russian: English 
translation by D. Siegel-Causey). 

Nelson, S.K. 1997. Marbled Murrelet 
(Brachyramphus marmoratus ). In The 
Birds of North America, No. 276. (Poole, 

A. and F. Gill, eds.) The Academy of 
Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and 
The American Ornithologists’ Union, 
Washington, D.C. 

Nelson, S.K., M.L.C. McAllister, 
M.A. Stern, D.H. Varoujean, and J.M. 
Scott. 1992. The Marbled Murrelet in 
Oregon, 1899-1987, pp. 61-91. In Status 
and Conservation of the Marbled Murrelet 
in North America. (Carter, H.R. and M. 
Morrison, eds.) Proceedings of the West- 
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Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 65 


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Ohtaishi, N., and 
N. Nakagawa. 1988, 
Animals of Shire- 
toko: vertebrate 

fauna in their natural 
state and their con- 
servation on the 
Shiretoko Peninsula, 
Hokkaido, Japan. 
Hokkaido University 
Press, Sapporo, Ja- 
pan. 

Ralph, C.J., S.K. 
Nelson, M.M. 

Shaughnessy, S.L. 
Miller, and T.E. Ha- 
mer. 1994. Methods 
for surveying Mar- 
bled Murrelets in 
forests: a protocol 

for land management 
and research. Pacific 
Seabird Group, U.S. 
Forest Service, Red- 
wood Sciences Lab, 
1700 Bayview Drive, 
Areata, CA. 


Ralph, C.J., G.L. Hunt, Jr., J.F. Piatt, 
and M.G. Raphael. 1995. Ecology and 
conservation of the Marbled Murrelet in 
North America: Overview, pp. 3-22. In 
Ecology and conservation of the Marbled 
Murrelet. (Ralph, C.J., G.L. Hunt, Jr., J.F. 
Piatt, and M.G. Raphael, eds.) U.S. De- 
partment of Agriculture, Forest Service 
General Technical Report PSW-GTR- 
152, Albany, CA. 

By S. Kim Nelson, Oregon Cooperative 
Wildlife Research Unit, Oregon State 
University, Department of Fisheries and 
Wildlife, 104 Nash Hall, Corvallis, OR 
97331-3803 USA, 

nelsonsk@ccmail.orst.edu, Koji Ono, 
Hokkaido Seabird Center, Kita 6-1, 
Haboro, Tomamae 078-41, Japan, John 
N, Fries, Laboratory of Wildlife Biology, 
University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bun- 
kyo-ku, 113 Tokyo, Japan, and Thomas 
E. Hamer, Hamer Environmental, 2001 
Highway 9, Mt. Vernon, WA 98274 USA 

[This is a peer reviewed article.] 


Figure 6. Map of the Shiretoko Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan, 
showing the location of Utoro and Rausu, and the 1996 Long- 
billed Murrelet survey stations. Numbers correspond to the 
survey site numbers listed in Table 1 . 



Some of the Long-billed Murrelet survey team members, top, left to right, Takeo Akama and John 
Fries, bottom, rieht to left. Mihoko Sato. Koii Ono. and Yasuhiro Kawasaki. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 66 


ARTICLES 


Table 1. Site names and locations of Long-billed Murrelet survey stations, and dates of surveys on the Shiretoko Peninsula, Hokkaido 
Island, Japan, 1996. Numbers (#) correspond to the survey station locations in Figure 6. The Site Names are listed with the station 
locations in Figures 3-5. 

# 

Site 

Name 

Location 

Side of 
Peninsula 1 

Latitude/ Lon- 
gitude 

No. Sta- 
tions 2 

Dates of 
Surveys 

Habitat Type 

1 

Coast Road 

Gravel road above 
Hwy 334 

NW 

N44° 02.084' 
El 44° 56.996' 

4 

4,5,6 

July 

Mixed forest 

2 

Canyon 

Road above Ewao- 
beisukawa 3,4 

NW 

N44° 06.306' 
El 45 02.666’ 

3 

3, 6 July 

River drainage, mixed forest 

3 

Overlook 

Road above Idashi- 
betsugawa 3,4 

NW 

N44° 06.175’ 
El 45° 03.792’ 

2 

3 July 

River drainage, mixed forest 

4 

Upper Valley 
Overlook 

Road above Idashi- 
betsugawa 3,4 

NW 

N44° 07.823' 
El 45° 06.147’ 

1 

5 July 

River drainage, mixed forest 

5 

Meadow 

Junction 

Gravel road along 
meadow 4 

NW 

N44° 07.145’ 
El 45° 04.644' 

1 

4 July 

Meadow, mixed forest, alpine 

6 

Onsen 

Road along Iwao- 
betsukawa 3 

NW 

N44° 08.271' 
E145° 06.653' 

1 

6 July 

River drainage, mixed forest 

7 

Alpl 

Along pass road from 
Utoro to Rausu 5 

NW 

N44° 04.102' 
El 45° 04.702' 

2 

3,4 July 

Birch forest, alpine 

8 

Alp 2 

Along pass road from 
Utoro to Rausu 5 

NW 

N44° 03 .664- 
El 45° 05.486’ 

1 

5 July 

Birch forest, alpine 

9 

Rausu Alp 1 

Along pass road from 
Utoro to Rausu 5 

SE 

N44° 02.396' 
El 45° 06.236' 

1 

n/a 

Birch forest, alpine 

10 

Rausu Alp 2 

Along pass road from 
Utoro to Rausu 5 

SE 

N44° 02.032' 
El 45° 06.418' 

1 

n/a 

Birch forest, alpine 

11 

Bridge 

Along pass road over 
Shunrobashikawa 3,5 

SE 

N44° 01.841' 
E145 0 08.392’ 

1 

n/a 

River drainage, mixed forest 

12 

Valley 

Gravel road along 
unknown river 

SE 

N43° 56.715' 
El 45° 04.224’ 

1 

n/a 

River drainage, mixed forest 

13 

View 

Gravel road along 
unknown river 

SE 

N43° 56.529' 
El 45° 04.196’ 

1 

n/a 

River drainage, mixed forest 

14 

Fork 

Gravel road along 
unknown river 

SE 

N43° 56.333’ 
El 45° 04.182’ 

1 

n/a 

River drainage, mixed forest 

15 

John 

Gravel road along 
unknown river 

SE 

N43° 56.495’ 
El 45° 05.094’ 

1 

n/a 

River drainage, mixed forest 


1 NW = northwest (Utoro side), SE = southeast (Rausu side). 

2 Not all stations surveyed on each date. 

3 River name. 

4 Along Shiretoko Kooen-sen road. 

5 Along Shiretoko Oudan Douro pass road or Hwy 334. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 67 


ARTICLES 

Table 2. Name and location of Long-billed Murfelet survey stations and date of survey at 
The Site Names are listed with the station locations in Figure 2. 


Mt. Mokoto, Hokkaido Island, Japan, 1996. 


# 

Site Name 

Location 

Latitude/ 

Longitude 

No. Stations 

Date of Surveys 

Habitat Type 

1 

Mt. Mokoto Campground 

gravel parking area 

N43° 42.506' 
£144° 21.057' 

1 

1 July 

mixed forest 

2 

Mt. Mokoto Pass Road 

pass road 

N43° 42.568’ 
El 44° 20.959’ 

2 

1 July 

mixed forest 


Appendix. 

Itinerary of our trip to search for Long- 
billed Murrelets on Hokkaido Island, Ja- 
pan, 1996. See Tables 1 and 2 for names 
of the survey stations and dates of sur- 
veys. See acknowledgments for full 
names of scientists and surveyors. 

26 June 

North American contingent (Nelson, 
Hamer, Wright, Leschner, Gaston, Ste- 
phen Kress) leaves the U.S and Canada. 
Some of the Japanese contingent (Ono, 
Fries, Otsuki, Akama, Sato) board Blue 
Highway Line ferry from Tokyo to To- 
makomai, Hokkaido. 

27 June 

Arrive in Tokyo, then fly to Sapporo, 
Hokkaido. Nelson, Hamer, Wright, 
Leschner, Gaston and Kress meet with 
Yuri and Yataka Watanuki in Sapporo. 
Stay in hotels. 

28 June 

Meet with Ono, Fries, Otsuki, Akama, 
Sato in Sapporo. Drive to Haboro-cho on 
the west coast of Hokkaido. Stay at Gyo- 
son Kankyo Hozen Sogo Center (youth 
hostel), others at Hotel Haboro. 

29 June 

Attend International Seabird Forum, 
Symposium on Ecological and Conserva- 
tion Studies of the Alcidae, hosted by the 
town of Haboro. Leschner, Gaston and 
Kress, along with Japanese scientists (Ha- 
ruo Ogi, Yutaka Watanuki, Nariko Oka, 
and Takaki Terasawa), present data on 
alcid research. In late afternoon take ferry 
to Teuri Island. At dusk, visit the largest 
Rhinocerous Auklet colony in the world. 


Stay at Teuri Island Research Center, oth- 
ers in hotel. 

30 June 

Take bus and boat tour of Teuri Is- 
land. International Seabird Forum con- 
tinues; Leschner, Gaston, Kress, and 
Otsuki stay at meetings. Ono, Fries, Nel- 
son, Hamer, Wright, Fukuda, Akama, and 
Sato take ferry back to Haboro-cho, meet 
with Kawasaki, and drive to Mt. Mokoto 
in northcentral Hokkaido. Camp in 
campground at top of mountain. 

1 July 

Conduct Long-billed Murrelet surveys 
at 3 stations (9 people) on Mt. Mokoto. 
No detections. Drive to Shiretoko Penin- 
sula in northeastern Hokkaido. Meet with 
Park Ranger, Matsuda, to get information 
on vegetation and possible places to lo- 
cate survey stations. Leschner, Gaston, 
and Otsuki meet up with us; Kress returns 
to U.S. Set up camp at Utoro Camp- 
ground. 

2 July 

Establish survey stations in Shiretoko 
National Park (Utoro and Rausu sides) 
and along the Coast Road. Meet with 
Matsuda again about vegetation and lo- 
cating survey stations. Gaston and 
Leschner take boat ride along Utoro side 
of peninsula to look for murrelets on the 
water. None are sighted. Camp at Utoro 
Campground. 

3 July 

Conduct surveys; 12 people at 6 sta- 
tions. No detections. Flag more stations 
on Rausu side of peninsula. Camp at 
Utoro Campground. 


4 July 

Conduct surveys; 12 people at 5 sta- 
tions. Possible detections on Coast Road. 
Holes and Yuichi arrive. Meet with Park 
Ranger Tazawa about vegetation on 
Rausu side of peninsula. Camp at Utoro 
Campground. 

5 July 

Conduct surveys; 13 people at 5 sta- 
tions. Possible detections on Coast Road. 
Gaston leaves for touring Japan. Camp at 
Utoro Campground. 

6 July 

Conduct surveys; 13 people at 5 sta- 
tions. No detections. Camp at Utoro 
Campground. 

7 July 

Hamer and Leschner fly back to U.S. 
Hotes and Yuichi leave for home. The 
rest of us drive to the town of Nakashi- 
betsu and the Kushiro Shitsugen Refuge 
to see Japanese Cranes, then on to Kirri- 
tapu. Stay in government cabins. 

8 July 

Birdwatch and explore Kirritapu. Stay 
in government cabins. 

9 July 

Drive to Kushiro. Ono, Fries, Akama, 
and Sato return to Tokyo via ferry or 
plane. Kawasaki leaves for home. Nel- 
son, Wright, Fukuda, and Otsuki drive to 
Sapporo. 

10 July 

Fukuda returns to Teuri Island. Nel- 
son, Wright, and Otsuki fly to Toky 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 68 


ARTICLES 


THE APPEARANCE OF TICKS AMONG NESTLING ANCIENT MURRELETS AT REEF ISLAND, 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 

Anthony J. Gaston and Christine Adkins 


The occurrence of ticks (. Ixodes spp.) 
on colonial seabirds and their nestlings is 
well documented (King et al. 1977, Duffey 
1980) and may cause significant harm to 
nestlings under some circumstances (Mor- 
bey 1995). During intensive studies of An- 
cient Murrelet (. Synthliboramphus an- 
tique) chicks at Reef Island, British Co- 
lumbia during 1984-89 and in 1995, we 
noticed no sign of ticks, either on chicks or 
adults. However, in 1997, ticks were de- 
tected on the webs or toes of 19% (186 of 
985) chicks captured while departing from 
the colony. 

The number of ticks counted per indi- 
vidual varied up to 11, with most chicks 
affected by only one or two (76%). The 
proportion of chicks parasitized declined 
over the season (Figure 1) from 22% 
among the first 30% of chicks departing 


(<23 May) to 9% among the last 10% (>31 
May). In addition, there appeared to be 
some correlation with the time of departure 
during the night, the proportion of chicks 
parasitized being highest in the middle of 
the departure window, between 01.00- 
02.00 h PDT (Figure 2). 

Chicks departing late in the season may 
be the offspring of first-time breeders, 
many of which use newly-excavated bur- 
rows (Gaston 1992). As most Ancient 
Murrelet burrows are more than 1 m from 
one another, ticks could be spread from 
burrow to burrow by prospecting birds that 
enter several burrows in a single night: 


deer mice ( Peromyscus maniculatus) are 
another possible vector. Newly-excavated 
burrows may be less likely to be infested 
than those that have been in use for several 
years. The time of night effect may also be 
related to the timing of departure of experi- 
enced and inexperienced 
birds, with the more expe- 
rienced, presumably those 
using older burrows, being 
more likely to depart be- 
tween 01.00-02.00 PST: 
the darkest period of the 
night at Reef Island. 

This appears to be the 
first record of ticks on An- 
cient Murrelets (Gaston 

1994) . The rapidity with 
which the infestation ap- 
pears to have spread is 

remark- 
able. From 
a total ab- 
sence 

within our 
study area 
(about 15% 

of the colony area) in 
1995, a minimum of 19 % 
of burrows appear to have 
been affected by 1997. In 
addition to about 7000 
pairs of Ancient Murrelets, 
the island also supports 
about 2000 pairs of Cas- 
sin’s Auklets (. Ptychoram - 
phus aleuticus) (Rodway 
1991), the nestlings of 
which are heavily parasi- 
tized by ticks at some colo- 
nies in British Columbia 
(Morbey 1995, R. Kelly, pers. comm.). 
Although we have not recorded ticks on 
Cassin’s Auklet chicks at Reef Island, it 
seems that contact with auklets, whose 
burrows are interspersed among Ancient 
Murrelet burrows in some areas, is a possi- 
ble means by which ticks began to parasi- 
tize the murrelets. 

We saw no sign of any damage to the 
chicks resulting from tick parasitism: all 
webs appeared intact. This is in contrast to 
Cassin’s Auklet chicks which show fre- 
quent signs of web damage and grow more 
slowly when heavily parasitized (Morbey 

1995) . Because Ancient Murrelet chicks 


spend only 2 days in the burrow, the ticks 
presumably have insufficient time to cause 
tissue damage. Reduced effects of parasit- 
ism may be an additional benefit accruing 
to Ancient Murrelets as a result of their 
precocial departure strategy. 


References Cited 

Duffy, D.C. 1980. Comparative repro- 
ductive behaviour and population regula- 
tion of seabirds of the Peruvian coastal 
current. Ph. D. Thesis, Princeton Univer- 
sity. 

Gaston, A.J. 1992. The Ancient Mur- 
relet. T. And A.D. Poyser, London. 

Gaston, A.J. 1994. Ancient Murrelet 
(, Synthliboramphus antiquus). In The Birds 
of North America, No. 132 (A. Poole and 
F. Gill, Eds.) Philadelphia: The Academy 
of Natural Sciences; Washington, DC: The 
American Ornithologists’ Union. 

King, K.A., D.R. Blankinship, R.T. 
Paul, and R.C. Rice. 1977. Ticks as a factor 
in the 1975 nesting failure of Texas Brown 
Pelicans. Wilson Bulletin 89: 157-158, 
Morbey, Y.E. 1995. Fledging vari- 
ability and the application of fledging 
models to the behaviour of Cassin’s Auklet 
(Ptychoramphus aleuticus) at Triangle 
Island, British Columbia. M.S. thesis, 
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC. 

Rodway, M.S. 1991. Status and con- 
servation of breeding seabirds in British 
Columbia. In Seabird status and conserva- 
tion: a supplement (J. P. Croxall, ed.), pp- 


Proportion of chicks with ticks (%) 
Reef., 1997 



Date (1 May = 1) 


Figure 1. Proportion of Ancient Murrelet chicks with 
ticks over time. 


Proportion of chicks with ticks 
in relation to time of departure 



<00.30 <01.00 <01.30 <02.00 >02.00 
Time (PST) 


Figure 2. Proportion of Ancient Murrelet chicks with 
ticks at time of departure. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 69 



ARTICLES 


3-102. International Council for Bird Pres- 
ervation: Cambridge, UK. 

By Anthony J. Gaston , Canadian Wildlife 
Service, National Wildlife Research Cen- 


tre, 100 Gamelin Boulevard., Hull, Quebec 
K1A OH, Canada and Christine Adkins , 
Department of Zoology, University of 
British Columbia, Vancouver, British Co- 
lumbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. 


[This is a peer reviewed article.] 


FIRST BREEDING RECORDS OF SLATY-BACKED GULL ( LARUS SCH1STISAGUS) 

FOR NORTH AMERICA 

Brian J. McCaffery , Christopher M. Harwood , and J. R. Morgart 


As a breeding species, the Slaty- 
backed Gull ( Larus schistisagus) is lim- 
ited to the Asiatic coasts of the North Pa- 
cific and the Bering Sea, primarily around 
the Sea of Okhotsk and along the east 
coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula 
(American Ornithologists’ Union 1983, 
Harrison 1983). The only previous 
breeding record in North America, in 
northwestern Mackenzie, has been seri- 
ously questioned (American Ornitholo- 
gists’ Union 1983). In Alaska, the species 
is a rare spring migrant and summer and 
fall visitant along the coasts of the Bering 
and Chukchi seas (Kessel and Gibson 
1978). Evidence for breeding in Alaska is 
limited to a territorial bird at Shaiak Is- 
land in northern Bristol Bay on 12 July 
1990 (Petersen et al. 1991). We report 
here the first confirmed breeding records 
of Slaty-backed Gulls in North America 
near Cape Romanzof, Alaska. 

Cape Romanzof projects into the 
Bering Sea at the western end of the 
Askinuk Mountains (61°49’N, 166°5W) 
on Yukon Delta National Wildlife Ref- 
uge. Beginning 3 km south-southwest of 
the cape, Aniktun Island runs south for 
5.5 km across the mouth of Kokechik 
Bay. Aniktun is a low, sandy, barrier 
island averaging about 400 m in width. In 
1996 and 1997, the island supported a 
Glaucous Gull (L. hyperboreus ) breeding 
colony. 

On July 3, 1996, BJM and JRM vis- 
ited Aniktun Island. As they approached 
the island, they saw a Slaty-backed Gull 
sitting upon a nesting mound near the 
eastern shoreline, about 2 km south of the 
island’ s north end. The bird s mantle 
color was near the dark extreme described 
by Gustafson and Peterjohn (1994). The 
gull flushed from the nest when BJM ap- 
proached to within 500 m. As BJM ap- 
proached, and after he arrived at the nest, 
the adult circled overhead and gave alarm 
calls. 


The nest mound was 0.25-0.5 m high, 
and consisted primarily of dead vegeta- 
tion. The nest was built in an expanse of 
unvegetated sand, and was located >10 m 
from the nearest Glaucous Gull nest. The 
nest bowl contained a single egg, and was 
very similar in both size and construction 
to the most well-developed Glaucous Gull 
nests found elsewhere on the island. BJM 
photographed both the nest and the adult 
circling overhead (copies of photographs 
are on file at the University of Alaska 
Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska). While cen- 
susing the rest of the island, BJM saw 
both an adult and a third summer Slaty- 
backed Gull near the south end. Although 
138 other gull nests were located on the 
island (primarily Glaucous Gulls, but also 
a few Glaucous-winged [ L . glaucescens ] 
and Glaucous x Glaucous-winged hy- 
brids), no additional Slaty-backed Gull 
nests were found. 

While BJM censused elsewhere on the 
island, JRM noticed the incubating bird 
returning to and settling on its nest. Later, 
JRM observed a second Slaty-backed 
Gull, as dark-mantled as the first, landing 
5-10 m from the incubating bird. Al- 
though we could not confirm their rela- 
tionship, it is likely that the second Slaty- 
backed Gull was the incubating bird’s 
mate. 

On July 3, 1997, CMH, JRM, and an 
assistant returned to Aniktun Island to 
census seabirds. We once again found a 
pair of nesting Slaty-backed Gulls, with a 
3-egg clutch. As in 1996, both members 
of the pair had extremely dark mantles. 
The nest was 2 m from a Glaucous Gull 
nest, within a group of about 10 Glaucous 
Gull nests which comprised the eastern- 
most nesting cluster on the island. The 
Slaty-backed Gull nests found on Aniktun 
Island in 1996 and 1997 represent the first 
confirmed breeding records of the species 
in North America. 


Acknowledgments 

The observations reported here were 
made during the course of an ornithologi- 
cal inventory of Cape Romanzof Long 
Range Radar Site and surrounding Yukon 
Delta National Wildlife Refuge lands. 
We thank Gene Augustine of the United 
States Air Force for his support of this 
cooperative project between the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service and the U. S. Air 
Force. We also thank the staff of Cape 
Romanzof Long Range Radar Site for 
logistical support, and Heather Moore for 
assistance in the field in 1997. 

References Cited 

American Ornithologists’ Union. 
1983. Check-list of North American birds, 
6th edition. American Ornithologists’ 
Union, Washington, D.C. 

Gustafson, M. E., and B. G. Peteijohn. 
1994. Adult Slaty-backed Gulls: variabil- 
ity in mantle color and comments on 
identification. Birding 26: 243-249. 

Harrison, P. 1983. Seabirds, an identi- 
fication guide. Houghton Mifflin Com- 
pany, Boston, MA. 448 pp. 

Kessel, B., and D. D. Gibson. 1978. 
Status and distribution of Alaska birds. 
Studies in Avian Biology 1. 100 pp. 

Kessel, B.1989. Birds of the Seward 
Peninsula, Alaska. University of Alaska 
Press. 330 pp. 

Petersen, M. R., D. N. Weir, and M. 
H. Dick. 1991. Birds of the Kilbuck and 
Ahklun Mountain Region, Alaska. North 
American Fauna 76. 158 pp. 

By Brian J. McCaffery , Christopher M. 
Harwood , and J. R. Morgart , U.S. Fish & 
Wildlife Service, Yukon Delta National 
Wildlife Refuge, Post Office Box 346, 
Bethel, Alaska 99559 USA 


[This is a peer reviewed article.] 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 70 


ARTICLES 


MORIBUND MURRES: AN APPARENT OUTBREAK OF SICKNESS AMONG THICK-BILLED 
MURRES AT COATS ISLAND, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES 

Anthony J. Gaston 


Outbreaks of disease among birds 
breeding in colonies have been frequently 
documented but, as far as I am aware, 
there are no accounts of illness among 
breeding murres. This note describes 
some symptoms and mortality observed 
among Thick-billed Murres ( Uria lomvia ) 
at Coats Island, NWT, Canada, in the 
summer' of 1997, in the hope of stimulat- 
ing communication on the topic. 

On 16 July, a murre sitting at a 
breeding site on plot DA seemed to be in 
an unusual pose and was not seen to 
move. After prolonged observation con- 
firmed that it was either dead or in a 
coma, we decided to retrieve the carcass. 
While climbing down to collect it, a sec- 
ond dead bird was found on a breeding 
site about 3 m away. Both birds had full 
brood patches. One still had the egg 
tucked into its brood-patch, while the 
other had slumped off the egg: both had 
apparently died while incubating and both 
had one eye closed and apparently 
“shrunken.” 

One individual had been banded as a 
breeder in 1993, at a site approximately 4 
m away, the other was unbanded. The 
banded bird had weighed 990 g in 1993 
and weighed 880 g when collected. The 
other bird weighed 850 g. Both of these 
weights are well below normal for incu- 
bating birds at this colony: nine incubat- 
ing breeders weighed between 28 July and 
4 August averaged 1020 g (sd 57 g). 
However, they are well above the weights 
recorded for starved Thick-billed Murres 
found dead in winter (mean 660 g, n = 5, 
unpublished data). 


On 1 8 July, at a breeding site about 50 
m from those where the birds had died 
(Q25), I observed a bird (banded light- 
green/metal) with one eye partially closed 
and rimmed with some sort of exudate. It 
was behaving very strangely, lolling 
across the back of its incubating partner 
(orange/metal), its head flopping loosely 
in a very abnormal manner. From time to 
time, it perked up and behaved normally 
for a few minutes and during some of 
these interludes it performed a change- 
over on the egg. However, within 1-2 
minutes it had allowed the egg to slip 
from its brood patch, whereupon its mate 
resumed incubation. These double incu- 
bation exchanges happened 3 times in less 
than 30 minutes. 

The next day the sick bird still had one 
eye partially closed, but was no longer 
lolling about. However, it continued to 
show little interest in incubation and a few 
moments after change-over with its mate 
it stood up, allowing the egg to roll aside 
and stood at its site, ignoring the egg and 
sleeping intermittently. The mate contin- 
ued to incubate normally, so that the egg 
was being incubated only about 2/3 of the 
time. This behaviour continued until 24 
July, with the sick individual gradually 
taking greater interest in incubation until 
its behaviour finally became normal. The 
shrunken eye gradually improved until, by 
1 August no sign of shrinkage could be 
detected. The egg was a replacement lay- 
ing and had still not been incubated for 33 
days (normal incubation period) when we 
departed on 1 8 August, 


The shrunken eye (only one eye in 
each case) linked the two dead birds with 
the sick individual. The proximity in time 
and space also suggested that whatever 
malady caused the death of the incubating 
birds was the same that produced the 
symptoms described for light-green/metal. 

The period during which the mortality 
occurred was an especially warm one, 
with maximum shade temperatures of 14- 
21° C. during 11-15 July (the hottest pe- 
riod of the summer and the highest tem- 
perature ever recorded at our camp in 14 
years) and 18° on 18 July. Temperatures 
read from the backs of incubating birds 
using an infra-red thermometer exceeded 
40° C occasionally. During this period, 
many incubating birds showed the influ- 
ence of heat stress, gaping, panting and 
spreading their wings to allow additional 
air circulation. A few birds left their eggs, 
apparently in response to overheating. 
Coats Island experiences the highest 
maximum temperatures of any of the 
large Canadian Thick-billed Murre colo- 
nies. Whether the deaths and abnormal 
behaviour might be a direct effect of heat- 
stress, rather than a result of some infec- 
tious disease is not known. I would be 
interested to hear of any similar observa- 
tions from elsewhere. 

By Anthony J. Gaston, Canadian Wildlife 
Service, National Wildlife Research Cen- 
tre, 100 Gamelin Boulevard., Hull, Que- 
bec K1 A 0H3, Canada. 

[This is a peer reviewed article.] 


FIRST NESTS OF CASPIAN TERNS (STERNA CASPIA ) FOR ALASKA AND THE BERING SEA 

Brian J. McCaffery, Christopher M. Harwood , and John R. Morgart 


Caspian Terns ( Sterna caspia ) are 
nearly cosmopolitan, breeding across 
much of North America, Eurasia, southern 
Africa, and Australia (American Orni- 
thologists’ Union 1983, Harrison 1983). 
In recent years, the species has been ex- 
panding its breeding range north along the 
coast of the northeast Pacific (Gill and 
Mewaldt 1983, Campbell et al. 1990). 
The species was first detected in southeast 
Alaska in 1981, when several were 


sighted near Ketchikan and Sitka (Gibson 
and Kessel 1992). As predicted by Gill 
and Mewaldt (1983), Caspian Terns ap- 
parently began breeding in Alaska soon 
after reaching the state. Most observa- 
tions in Alaska since 1981 are from the 
southeast and south coastal regions, with 
the majority concentrated around Prince 
William Sound (Gibson and Kessel 1992). 
Adults and young-of-the-year are detected 
annually in this area, particularly near 


Cordova and the Copper River Delta (To- 
bish 1994a), where the species is sus- 
pected of nesting since the late 1980’s 
(Tobish 1994b). To date, however, no 
Caspian Tern nests have been discovered 
in Prince William Sound, or elsewhere in 
the state. We report here the first con- 
firmed nestings of Caspian Terns in 
Alaska. 

On June 5, 1994, BJM spotted an adult 
Caspian Tern patrolling the surf line at 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 71 


ARTICLES 


Windy Cove, 1.8 kilometers east of Cape 
Romanzof (61°48' N, 166°05 W) on the 
coast of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. 
This was the first Bering Sea record for 
the species since the 1880’s (Nelson 
1887), and the westernmost in Alaska 
(Tobish 1994a). 

On June 3, 1996, BJM spotted an adult 
Caspian Tern foraging <100 m from shore 
6 km northeast of Cape Romanzof. He 
saw another near the same location on 
June 11. After patrolling parallel to the 
shoreline, the tern flew offshore toward 
Neragon Island (61°53’ N, 165°58’ W), a 
low (<1 m), unvegetated, sand island 5 
km to the north- northeast. 

On July 2, 1996, CMH and JRM vis- 
ited the southern end of Neragon Island. 
In a loose colony of Glaucous Gulls 
(. Larus hyperbore us), they found a pair of 
nesting Caspian Terns. One adult flushed 
from the nest as they approached, and 
both circled overhead. The nest (Nest 1) 
contained 4 eggs. On July 5, 1996, BJM, 
CMH, and JRM visited Neragon Island to 
conduct an island-wide seabird census. 
Nest 1 contained 1 dry chick, 1 pipped 
egg, and 2 unpipped eggs. A few hundred 
meters farther north, we found a second 
pair of Caspian Terns with a 1-egg clutch, 
and several hundred meters north of that, 
a third pair and nest (also with 1 egg). 
Finally, we found a dry but recently 
hatched Caspian Tern chick (similar in 
size to the chick found at the first nest) in 
a Glaucous Gull nest between tern nests 2 
and 3. Two adult Glaucous Gulls circled 
and alarm-called overhead, but we found 
no terns in the immediate vicinity of this 
nest. We only saw 6 adult Caspian Terns 
during the census, 2 associated with each 
of the 3 nests located. The origin of the 
chick in the Glaucous Gull nest Is un- 
known. 

We located all 3 nests along the long 
axis of the island, which was slightly 
higher and drier than the perimeter. Such 
sites are less likely to flood during storm 
tides, which can surround, but not neces- 
sarily inundate, the raised nests con- 
structed by Glaucous Gulls elsewhere on 
the island. All 3 nests were in the lee of 
driftwood fragments where sand had ac- 
cumulated. Nest 1 was a simple scrape in 
the sand 1 m from a 4 m-long log. There 
was no nest lining of any kind and no 
debris within 50 cm of the scrape. At nest 
2, the single egg was 15 cm from a 1 m- 
long piece of driftwood, and the scrape 
was sparsely lined with a few bivalve 
shell fragments and vegetative debris. At 
nest 3, the egg was 13 cm from a 0.5 m 


piece of driftwood, and the scrape was 
lined with driftwood twigs, dried sprigs of 
beach rye grass ( Elymus arenarius), and a 
single feather. 

On April 25, 1997, BJM initiated a 
coastal migration watch at Cape Roman- 
zof. He saw 1 Caspian Tern fly north past 
Cape Romanzof on May 8, and 1-3 terns 
at the cape on 5 of the next 7 days. On 
July 2, 1997, CMH, JRM, and an assistant 
visited Neragon Island and located 3 Cas- 
pian Tern nests. Two nests were 11 m 
apart in a dry, sandy area just east of the 
longitudinal center of the island, and 
contained 5 and 3 eggs, respectively. The 
third nest (4 eggs) was located farther 
north along the wrack line in a Glaucous 
Gull colony on the west side of the island. 
The scrape abutted an 8-m long piece of 
driftwood, and included a few blades of 
dry grass and several broken pieces of 
bivalve shells. As in 1996, we saw only 3 
pairs of adults on the island, all of which 
mobbed us as we checked their respective 
nests. 

The 6 Caspian Tern nests on Neragon 
Island in 1996 and 1997 were the first to 
be found in Alaska. Individuals from the 
expanding population in the northeast 
Pacific (Gill and Mewaldt 1983, Camp- 
bell et al. 1990, Tweit and Gilligan 1991, 
Gibson and Kessel 1992) probably colo- 
nized Neragon Island, but this supposition 
is not certain. Neragon Island is over 
1,100 km and 20° of longitude from the 
nearest suspected breeding site in North 
America (Prince William Sound). The 
nearest confirmed breeding sites for Cas- 
pian Terns in Canada are at Great Slave 
Lake, Northwest Territories (2,400 km to 
the east; Harrison 1983), and south coastal 
British Columbia (2,900 km to the south- 
east; Campbell et al. 1990), and Neragon 
Island is over 4,000 km from the nearest 
Asian breeding sites (American Orni- 
thologists’ Union 1983, Harrison 1983). 

Despite the distance to Asian breeding 
sites, however, the possibility of coloni- 
zation from Asia to the southwest cannot 
be dismissed, particularly in light of Cas- 
pian Tern wintering distributions on either 
side of the Pacific Ocean. Neragon Island 
is 4,300 km from the nearest Asian win- 
tering area in Japan (Harrison 1983), but 
nearly 5,000 km from the Pacific coast of 
Mexico, the main wintering area of the 
population breeding along the Pacific 
coast of North America (Gill and Me- 
waldt 1983, Harrison 1983). In addition, 
Caspian Terns were observed on the 
Yukon Delta in the late 1800’s (Nelson 
1887), decades before the northward ex- 


pansion of the population on the Pacific 
Coast of North America (Gill and Me- 
waldt 1983), and may have been birds of 
Asian origin. 

There may also be no way to deter- 
mine precisely when Neragon Island was 
colonized by Caspian Terns. In the late 
nineteenth century, Caspian Terns were 
considered occasional visitants along the 
Bering Sea coast between the Yukon 
River mouth and St. Michael (150-275 km 
north of Neragon Island), and the Yup’ik 
Eskimos of that era had a specific name 
for it (Nelson 1887). Despite extensive 
ornithological field work on the Yukon 
Delta in the century since then, however, 
no other Caspian Terns were documented 
until 1994. Whether the birds observed in 
the 1 800’s were part of a small or sporadic 
breeding population will never be con- 
firmed. No Caspian Terns were nesting 
at Neragon Island in 1984 (Byrd 1984), 
the last time the island was visited by or- 
nithologists prior to 1996. Because a bird 
was seen in the vicinity of Cape Roman- 
zof in 1994, it is possible that the species 
was already breeding at Neragon Island at 
least as early as that date. 

Acknowledgments 

The observations reported here were 
made during the course of an ornithologi- 
cal inventory of Cape Romanzof Long 
Range Radar Site and surrounding Yukon 
Delta National Wildlife Refuge lands. 
We thank Gene Augustine of the United 
States Air Force for his support of this 
cooperative project between the U. S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service and the U. S. Air 
Force. We also thank the staff of Cape 
Romanzof Long Range Radar Site for 
logistical support, and Heather Moore for 
assistance in the field in 1997. 

References Cited 

American Ornithologists’ Union. 
1983. Check-list of North American birds, 
6th edition. American Ornithologists’ 
Union, Washington, D. C. 

Byrd, G. V. 1984. Observations of 
flora and fauna in the Bering Sea unit, 
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Ref- 
uge In July 1984. Unpublished United 
States Fish and Wildlife Service report, 
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Ref- 
uge, Homer, AK. 

Campbell, R. W,, N. K. Dawe, I. 
McTaggart-Cowan, J. M. Cooper, G. W. 
Kaiser, and M. C. E. McNall. 1990. The 
birds of British Columbia: Nonpasserines, 
Vol. 2. Royal British Columbia Museum, 
Victoria, BC. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 72 


ARTICLES 


Gibson, D. D., and B. Kessel. 1992. 
Seventy-four new avian taxa documented 
in Alaska 1976-1991. Condor 94: 454- 
467. 

Gill, R. E., Jr., and L. R. Mewaldt. 
1983. Pacific coast Caspian Terns: dy- 
namics of an expanding population. Auk 
100:369-381. 

Harrison, Peter. 1983. Seabirds: an 
identification guide. Houghton Mifflin 
Company, Boston, MA. 


Nelson, E. W. 1887. Birds of Alaska. 
In Report upon natural history collections 
made in Alaska between the years 1877 
and 1881 (H. W. Henshaw, ed.). United 
States Army Signal Service Arctic 

Series 3: 35-222. United States Govern- 
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 

Tobish, T. G. 1994a. Alaska Region. 
Field Notes 48: 976-978. 

Tobish, T. G. 1994b. Alaska Region. 
Field Notes 48: 330-332. 


Tweit, B., and J. Gilligan. 1991. Ore- 
gon/Washington Region. American Birds 
45:489-491. 

By Brian J. McCaffery , Christopher M. 
Harwood, and John R. Morgart , U. S. 
Fish & Wildlife Service, Yukon Delta 
National Wildlife Refuge, Post Office 
Box 346, Bethel, Alaska 99559 USA 

[This is a peer reviewed articled 



Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 73 



CONSERVATION NEWS 


NDANGERED SPECIES ACT 
IPDATE 


!ongressional Reauthorization 

In September, Senator Kempthorne 
JTIdaho) unveiled a reauthorization bill 
3 r the Endangered Species Act that has a 
trong chance of enactment. It is 
o-sponsored by Senators Baucus (D- 
dont), Chafee (R-RI) and Reid (D- 
levada), and is supported by Interior Sec- 
etary Babbitt. Thus the Kempthorne bill 
njoys bipartisan support by the relevant 
:hairmen of the Senate Committees and 
ub-Committees, as well as the Clinton 
tdministradon. This bill may be consid- 
ered by the full Senate when Congress 
eturns from the holidays. No companion 
nil has yet been introduced in the House 
} f Representatives. 

The Kempthorne bill requires FWS to 
use better science in making listing deci- 
sions, and focuses on recovering listed 
species. Half of the 1,000 listed species 
have no recovery plans. The bill requires 
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) 
to write recovery plans for all species 
within five years, half of which within 
three years. When new species are listed, 
draft recovery plans must be published 
within 18 months, and final plans must be 
published within 30 months of the listing. 
Organizations such as the Pacific Seabird 
Group would have more opportunities to 
participate in the recovery process. 

The Kempthorne bill preserves the 
consultation process whereby FWS re- 
views activities of other agencies that 
require federal permits, and FWS can 
require modifications to those projects to 
prevent jeopardy to listed species. While 
FWS will retain the lead role in this proc- 
ess (a role that has been questioned), it 
will now have to make its decisions 
within 60 days. One complaint from both 
the regulated and the conservation com- 
munities has been that FWS frequently 
delays decisions indefinitely. 

The Kempthorne bill establishes a 
“streamlined” program whereby landown- 
ers can develop multi-species habitat con- 
servation plans (HCPs) on private prop- 
erty. It codifies the safe harbor agree- 
ments that the Clinton administration de- 
veloped by regulation and includes the 
“no surprises” policy. Safe harbor agree- 


ments guarantee landowners who imple- 
ment habitat conservation plans that they 
would not be required to spend more 
money or conduct additional mitigation 
measures beyond the agreements they 
already make with the government. The 
fear that the federal government would 
not abide by its agreements in a habitat 
conservation plan dissuaded landowners 
from taking voluntary steps to preserve 
species and their habitats. Kempthorne 
also introduced a separate bill that pro- 
vides incentives to landowners to take up 
voluntary habitat conservation practices. 

At a September hearing on the 
Kempthorne bill, representatives of FWS 
generally supported it, but insisted that 
FWS be guaranteed sufficient funding to 
carry out its new responsibilities. Senator 
Chafee said, “don’t let the vision of the 
perfect get in the way of good,” and 
warned, “the chances that something very 
different from this gets passed are very 
slim. I would hope we all recognize that 
there are some things we’d all like 
changes to” but cannot get. 

Despite wide support for most aspects 
of the Kempthorne bill, some raised con- 
cerns. FWS Director Jamie Clark said 
that the recovery planning and consulta- 
tion deadlines may be hard to meet even 
with more funding. And although the 
Kempthorne bill incorporates changes 
responding to many of the concerns aired 
earlier this year by environmental groups 
“including new incentives to landowners 
to voluntarily conserve habitat, a stream- 
lined consultation process and eliminating 
a controversial water rights section some 
remain dissatisfied. 

The National Wildlife Federation is 
concerned about requiring FWS to make 
section 7 decisions within 60 days be- 
cause this may “authorize potentially de- 
structive projects to go forward.” The 
National Wildlife Federation said the 
Kempthorne bill “represents a step back- 
ward” in habitat conservation plans be- 
cause FWS “will approve HCPs that un- 
dermine the Endangered Species Act’s 
recovery goal.” It also opposes the no 
surprises policy” in habitat conservation 
plans, although this is already law in the 
Clinton administration. Habitat conser- 
vation plans have exposed a philosophical 
split among conservationists. Mike 
O’Connell, The Nature Conservancy, 
asked a May 1997 conference of envi- 


ronmentalists, “do we want to protect or 
punish?” O’Connell noted that many en- 
vironmentalists want to bring down pri- 
vate developers, even though owners of 
land with endangered species on may be 
no more real villains that people who live 
in suburbs and towns where the buffalo 
once roamed. Thus, this issue will con- 
tinue to be debated by conservationists 
who agree on their goals but disagree on 
the means to achieve those goals. 

Representative George Miller (D-Cal) 
has introduced a bill in the House, which 
expands regulation and citizen suit 
authority and establishes natural resources 
damages liability. Miller may have intro- 
duced the bill to set a benchmark in the 
House for other Endangered Species Act 
bills. An analyst for the Sierra Club said 
“we don’t think Miller expects his bill to 
be referred out of committee.” That pros- 
pect does seem unlikely, because House 
Resources Chairman Don Young 
(R-Alaska) strongly opposes Miller’s bill, 
saying it would decrease many existing 
private property rights for landowners 
throughout the nation” and would “gut” 
the no surprises policy that seeks to pro- 
vide assurances to landowners who de- 
velop long-term habitat conservation 
plans. 

Litigation May Force FWS to Designate 
More Critical Habitat 

In a decision that may have wide- 
spread consequences for designating criti- 
cal habitat for west coast seabirds and 
other listed species, the Ninth Circuit 
Court of Appeals in May ordered FWS to 
designate critical habitat for the California 
Gnatcatcher. Natural Resources Defense 
Council v. U.S. Department of Interior 
113 F.3d 1121 (9 th Cir. 1997). The court 
ruled that FWS’s rules thwart congres- 
sional intent to require critical habitat to 
be identified simultaneously with the 
listing of a threatened or endangered spe- 
cies. Unless the Supreme Court overrules 
the decision, the Ninth Circuit has the last 
word on federal law in California, Ore- 
gon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. 
This case could force FWS to designate 
critical habitat for the first time for New- 
ell’s shearwaters, dark-rumped petrels, 
California least terns and brown pelicans 
{see “The Federal Endangered Species 
Act and Seabirds,” Pacific Seabirds 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 74 


21:22-23). FWS has designated critical 
habitat for Marbled Murrelets. 

The court ruled that FWS “failed to 
discharge its statutory obligation to desig- 
nate critical habitat when it listed the 
gnatcatcher as a threatened species, or to 
articulate a rational basis for invoking the 
rare imprudence exception.” The Endan- 
gered Species Act requires that FWS 
designate critical habitat concurrently 
with listing a species as endangered or 
threatened “to the maximum extent pru- 
dent and determinable.” Under FWS’ 
rules, it is not prudent to designate critical 
habitat if, (1) identifying critical habitat 
can be expected to increase taking of the 
species; or (2) designation would not 
benefit the species. 

The court stated that FWS’ rationale 
that designation of critical habitat “in- 
creases the threat” to the species fails to 
balance the pros and cons of designation 
as Congress expressly required. The 
Court found that FWS improperly ex- 
panded a narrow statutory exemption for 
imprudent designations into a broad ex- 
emption for imperfect designations. The 
Department of Interior may appeal this 
decision to the Supreme Court. 

By Craig S. Harrison , Washington, DC 


FWS MAY LIST HARLEQUIN 
DUCK AS ENDANGERED 


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(FWS) is considering listing the eastern 
North America population of the harle- 
quin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) un- 
der the Endangered Species Act. FWS is 
responding to a petition by the Northern 
Rockies Biodiversity Project in Montana 
and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation in 
Colorado. These organizations contend 
that the eastern North America population 
of the harlequin duck has undergone a 
precipitous decline, that there are a num- 
ber of threats to the population which will 
cause further declines, and that urgent 
protective measures are necessary. 

In 1993, the Pacific Seabird Group 
sent copies of a report entitled “The Status 
of Harlequin Ducks in North America” to 
the directors of FWS and the Canadian 
Wildlife Service (Pacific Seabirds 21:23) 
and asked those agencies to investigate 
the status of this species. We noted then 
that there may be grounds to declare the 
eastern population endangered or threat- 
ened. 


CONSERVATION NEWS 

FWS suggests that the species may 
have undergone a precipitous decline in 
the late 1800s and early 1900s, and that a 
somewhat less precipitous decline has 
continued since then. Possible threats to 
the population include oil spills, land use 
practices, illegal hunting, and hydropower 
development. The population may also be 
vulnerable the loss of genetic diversity 
due to the low numbers of individuals. 

FWS is soliciting information con- 
cerning: (1) whether the eastern North 
America population is distinct from the 
Pacific, Greenland, and Iceland popula- 
tions; (2) the size and distribution of the 
eastern North America population; and (3) 
the status and trends of breeding and 
wintering groups of the eastern North 
America population. For further infor- 
mation, contact Linda Welch, FWS Maine 
Field Office (207) 827-5938. 

By Craig S. Harrison , Washington, DC 


WASHINGTON STATE SEA- 
BIRD PROTECTION MEAS- 
URES IN COMMERCIAL 
SALMON NET FISHERIES 


The following measures have been 
adopted by the Washington State Depart- 
ment of Fish and Wildlife to reduce sea- 
bird net entanglement in Puget Sound 
commercial salmon net fisheries in 1997 
and 1998. These actions are the result of 
joint Department, Washington State Sea 
Grant and fishing industries studies on 
seabird entanglement conducted since 
1993. The original objective of the stud- 
ies was to monitor marbled murrelet im- 
pacts under the Endangered Species Act 
of 1992. Although, Puget Sound net fish- 
eries were determined to have minimal 
impacts on marbled murrelets based on 
monitoring during 1993 and 1994, num- 
bers of other seabirds , especially com- 
mon murres and rhinoceros auklets were 
observed to be entangled in nets with 
some resulting mortality. Since 1994, 
studies have been conducted to test gear 
modifications and area exclusions to re- 
duce seabird entanglement. 

Removal Of Purse Seine Corks 

The Purse Seine Vessel Owners Asso- 
ciation supported adoption of proposal to 
the Washington State Fish and Wildlife 
Commission to remove corks (floats) 
from four sections in the bunt (capture 


end) of purse seine nets used in Puget 
Sound salmon fisheries to allow escape 
areas for seabirds encircled by the net. 
During monitoring studies observers and 
fishers observed that as the purse seine net 
was drawn around the encircled seabirds 
that particularly Rhinoceros Auklets were 
unable to either fly out of the net or climb 
over the corks. One fisher voluntarily 
removed several corks from the end of his 
net and seabirds were observed swimming 
out through the opening as the net was 
closed. The following year ten purse 
seine vessels participated in a study where 
five vessels removed corks and five ves- 
sels acted as a control. Although the re- 
sults of seabird entanglement were not 
statistically significant between the two 
sets of vessels, observed use of the escape 
sections by seabirds resulted in voluntary 
support for the new regulation by the 
fishing industry. (For information about 
the Puget Sound purse seine seabird en- 
tanglement studies contact Jeff June at 
Natural Resources Consultants, Inc. 
Phone: 206-285-3480, email: 

jajfish@aol.com) 

The exact language in the revised gear 
regulation (WAC 220-47-301) reads, “ It 
shall be unlawful to take of fish for 
salmon with purse seine gear in Puget 
Sound unless at least four sections, each 
measuring no less than 12 inches in 
length, along the corkline in the bunt, and 
within 75 fathoms of the bunt have no 
corks or floats attached. These four sec- 
tions must to spaced such that one section 
is along the corkline in the bunt, within 5 
fathoms of the seine net, and the other 
three sections must be spaced at least 20 
fathoms apart along the corkline within 75 
fathoms of the bunt.” 

Gill net Gear Modification 

Results of a 1995 and 1996 Washing- 
ton State Sea Grant study indicated that a 
panel of white seine twine attached im- 
mediately below the corkline of gill nets 
is effective in reducing seabird entangle- 
ments. The Puget Sound Gill netters As- 
sociation supported a proposal adopted by 
the Washington State Fish and Wildlife 
Commission to require such modifications 
to gill net vessels fishing in Puget Sound 
fisheries for sockeye and pink salmon in 
areas 7 and 7A (San Juan Islands to the 
Canadian border), beginning in 1998. 
(For a copy of the Washington State Sea 
Grant study and additional information on 
gill net entanglement studies contact: Mr- 
Ed Melvin, Washington State Sea Grant, 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 75 


CONSERVATION- NEWS 



Phone: 206-543-9968, email: 

emel vin @ u. washington.edu). 

The exact language in the revised gear 
regulation (WAC 220-47-302) reads, It 
shall be unlawful to take of fish for 
salmon with gill net gear beginning in 
1998 in Areas 7 and 7 A sockeye or pink 
fisheries unless said gill net gear is con- 
structed so that the first 20 meshes below 
the corkline are composed of five-inch 
mesh white opaque minimum 210d/30 
(#12) diameter nylon twine.” 

Gill Net Daily Hours 

The Washington State Sea Grant 
studies on seabird entanglement in gill 
nets indicated that the morning change-of- 
light period had higher encounters of sea- 
birds than full daylight or dark. Tradi- 
tionally, gill net fisheries have been open 
for 24 hours periods including both 
morning and evening change of light pe- 
riods. Beginning in 1997, gill net opening 
and closing hours were modified on a 
sliding date basis to avoid fishing during 
both change of light periods during area 7 
and 7 A (San Juan Islands to the Canadian 
border) sockeye and pink salmon fisher- 
ies. 

High Seabird Abundance Area Restric- 
tions 

Both commercial purse seine and gill 
net fisheries are excluded from within 
1,500 ft of shore in seabird, particularly 
marbled murrelet, areas of high abun- 
dance in the vicinity of the San Juan Is- 


lands. Commercial net fishing in other 
areas is also restricted for other reasons 
each season. The areas restricted to re- 
duce seabird entanglement include: Bur- 
rows Bay on the west side of Fidalgo Is- 
land; The northeast shoreline of Cypress 
Island; Two areas on the Southwest 
shoreline of Lopez Island; The northwest 
shoreline of Camano Island; and The en- 
tire coastline of Orcas Island except for 
Hast Sound 

By Jeff June , Seattle, Washington 


GALAPAGOS PENGUIN AND 
CORMORANT CENSUS - 1997 


The annual census of Galapagos 
Penguins ( Sphensiscus mendiculus ) and 
Flightless Cormorants { Nannopterum har- 
risi ) was conducted from August 31 to 
September 9 1997. Personnel of the Gala- 
pagos National Park Service (GNPS) and 
Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) 
counted birds on all islands where they 
occur. 1284 penguins (883 adults, 184 
juveniles and 217 of undetermined age) 
and 829 cormorants (778 adults, 8 juve- 
niles and 43 of undetermined age) were 
counted. For penguins this total is 27% 
greater than the 1996 value. For cormo- 
rants, the total is 24% lower than the 
1996. 


Apparently there is a sig- 
nificant probability that the El 
Nino event may be developing 
in the Pacific basin. During 
some past El Nino events 
populations of both Galapagos 
Penguins and Flightless Cor- 
morants have declined greatly. 
After the 1982-83 El Nino, 
archipelago-wide censuses 
documented a 77% decline in 
penguins and a 50% decline in 
cormorants. Our preliminary 
results for 1997 documented 
that such declines are not oc- 
curring yet, but actual com- 
parisons will have to await 
future censuses. 

Galapagos Penguin 

Penguins were sighted on 
the following islands: Isabela 
(878); Fernandina (323); Santi- 
ago (33); Bartolom (29), Som- 
brero Chino (19); Floreana (2); 
and Rbida (0). Groups of more 
than 10 and up to 60 penguins were seen 
foraging together at sites on western 
Isabela and eastern Fernandina. 

These large groups of penguins were 
not seen after the 1982-1983 Nino year. 
Of penguins whose age was determined, 
17% were juveniles. No eggs and chicks 
were recorded. 21 adults were seen molt- 
ing (they usually molt before breeding). 
During the census, penguins were ob- 
served feeding on large schools of sar- 
dines. Because Galpagos Penguins nest 
deep in holes within the lava coastlines of 
the islands, it is impossible to accurately 
quantify their reproductive effort in our 
censuses. 

Flightless Cormorant 

As usual, cormorants were only found 
on Isabela (536) and Fernandina (293). 
Cormorants appeared more affected by 
recent climatic events than penguins. The 
apparent decline in the number of cormo- 
rants compared to 1996, is also reflected 
in reproductive parameters. This year we 
found 64 active nests, 46 eggs and 13 
chicks. These values represent declines of 
30%, 27% and 15%, respectively. In 
1996 we found 0.78 eggs and 0.39 chicks 
per active nest. This year we found 0.72 
and 0.20 chicks per active nest. While the 
samples are not sufficient for statistical 
comparisons, it appears as though repro- 
duction is reduced overall, rather than by 
interactions of components. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 76 


CONSERVATION NEWS 


It is tempting to speculate that cormo- 
rants may be responding to the high sea 
temperatures (evident this year), by de- 
clining populations while penguins are 
increasing. Actually, it is simply too early 
to address the relative responses at this 
time. However, the CDRS and GNPS 
will be closely monitoring the future 
fluctuations in these endemic populations. 

By Hernan Vargas, Howard Snell , 
Charles Darwin Research Station, Charles 
Darwin Research Station Isla Santa Cruz, 
Galpagos Isla Santa Cruz, Galpagos, Ec- 
uador, Ecuador. E-mail: 

hnanv@fcdarwin.org.ee and 
hoard® f cdarwin . org . ec and Hec- 
tor Serrano, Galapagos National Park 
Service, Isla Santa Cruz, Galpagos, Ecua- 
dor. E-mail: png@ecua.net.ec 



JAPANESE OIL SPILL - 1997 


The New Year began most inauspi- 
ciously in Japan with the January 2 nd 
storm-related sinking of the Russian 
tanker Nakhodka in the Japan Sea result- 
ing in the discharge of 6,270 kl (approxi- 
mately 1.3 million gallons) of heavy C 
grade fuel. The New Year’s holiday, 
rough weather, and insufficient prepara- 
tion and planning resulted in a response 
that has been heavily criticized for being 
slow. Oil washed up along 800 km of 
coastline. 

Easily the most disastrous spill ever in 
Japan, the media coverage was predicta- 
bly voracious. Less predictable was the 
tremendous number of volunteers (over 
250,000 in all) coming from all over the 


country to help with the shoreline 
cleanup. Pictures of men, women, and 
children removing the thick oil and water 
mousse with buckets, scoops, or just 
gloved hands and passing bucket after 

bucket of oil along human chains 

these will be the lasting images of the 
Nakhodka spill for most people in this 
country. 

The focus of concern during the 
spill — as reflected in the media and offi- 
cial government response — was its effect 
on human safety and commerce, espe- 
cially the impact on fisheries. However, 
several environmental and research or- 
ganizations, with Environment Agency 
cooperation, organized an ad hoc network 
to determine the extent of injury to sea- 
birds. Harry Carter (Seabird Biologist, 
USGS, Biological Resources Division), 
Roger Helm (Chief, Natural Resource 
Damage Assessment and Oil Spill Re- 
sponse, USFWS), and Scott Newman 
(DVM, Wildlife Health Center, UC 
Davis) were invited to come to Japan to 
assist. Newman advised personnel in 
oiled wildlife care techniques and facility 
standards. Carter and Helm developed 
field-data collection and oiled bird han- 
dling protocols and joined Koji Ono 
(Hokkaido Seabird Center), Mihoko Sato 
(Japan Alcid Society), and John Fries 
(University of California) to inspect the 
spill zone and conduct surveys on eight 
beaches. 

The impact on seabird populations is 
still being determined, but this much is 
known. Over 1300 oiled seabirds, most 
already dead, were recovered from the 
shoreline. Most of these were Rhinocerus 
Auklets and Ancient Murrelets, but a few 
Marbled Murrelet and Japanese Murrelet 
carcasses were also found. Including 
birds lost at sea or washed up but unre- 
covered, the actual number killed is be- 
lieved to be many times higher. 

In July, Japan experienced another 
high-profile spill. The Diamond Grace, a 
147,012 ton tanker ran aground on a shoal 
in Tokyo Bay and spilled over 1500 kl 
(aprox. 320,000 gallons) of crude oil (Ini- 
tial estimates had put this number at over 
3 million gallons!!). Favorable weather 
and a rapid, effective response meant that 
little oil reached the shore. Surveys using 
the protocols developed during the Nak- 
hodka spill indicate that the immediate 
effects on seabirds was minimal. 

These two incidents have led to efforts 
in Japan to improve the effectiveness of 
oil spill response in general, as well as to 
incorporate wildlife protection more fully 


into the official response system. To help 
achieve this latter goal, WWF- Japan, The 
Nippon Foundation, the Wildlife Rescue 
Veterinarian Association of Japan, and 
the Japan Alcid Society are sponsoring a 
symposium to be held in Tokyo on De- 
cember 7, 1997. US speakers will be 
Captain Joseph Brusseau (Commander, 
Activities Far East, US Coast Guard), 
Pete Bontadelli (Administrator, California 
Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Re- 
sponse - OSPR), Paul Kelly (Science Di- 
vision, OSPR), Jonna Mazet (Director, 
California Oiled Wildlife Care Network), 
and Harry Carter and Scott Newman. 
Japanese speakers will include represen- 
tatives from the Environment Agency, the 
Wild Bird Society of Japan, and the 
Wildlife Rescue Veterinarian Association 
of Japan. 

For further information regarding this 
symposium please contact John Fries at 
jnfries@bio.sci.toho-u.ac.jp 

By John Fries, Tokyo and Koji Ono, 
Haboro, Hokkaid, Japan 


SEABIRD DIE-OFF IN 
ALASKA 


A large number of seabirds have died 
in several apparently related events in 
western Alaska this summer. There was a 
moderate die-off of Common Murres near 
Nunivak Island in May, an unusual time 
for murres to die off. Things were quiet 
for a couple of months. Then murres and 
puffins washed up in a small area of St. 
Lawrence Island in late July. At the end 
of July villages and field stations all over 
the lower Alaska Peninsula began report- 
ing moribund and dead Black-legged Kit- 
ti wakes and shearwaters. During the first 
and second weeks of August, Short-tailed 
Shearwater die-off was reported all over 
Bristol Bay, on the Aleutians as far west 
as Adak, Nunivak and the Pribilof Islands, 
and north to St. Lawrence Island and 
Anadyr (Russia). 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
conducted several widely-scattered aerial 
and beach surveys. Data are still being 
worked up, but numbers on beaches 
ranged from tens per mile on the Alaska 
Peninsula to several hundred per mile in 
the Bering Sea. Approximately 100 
specimens were sent to FWS from vil- 
lages and agencies all over the die-off 
area; the best of these are being necrop- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 * Fall 1997 • Page 77 


CONSERVATION NEWS 


sied at the USGS/BRD National Wildlife 
Health Laboratory in Wisconsin. 

It seems likely that the die-off is a re- 
sult of abnormal sea conditions. Alaskan 
waters in summer 1997 were warm and 
stratified. We hope to learn more as data 
from fishery and oceanography research 
in the area are analyzed. 

This may be the most widespread die- 
off documented in Alaska. It is undoubt- 
edly the best-reported, thanks to calls 
from numerous villagers, fishermen, state 
field offices, and others. We will do our 
best to repay the cooperation by getting 
our conclusions to all areas, even those 
without regular access to the mass media. 
We suspect that abnormal oceanographic 
conditions may persist through the winter. 

By Vivian Mendenhall , Anchorage, 
Alaska 


PROTECTING ROOSTING 
CALIFORNIA BROWN PELI- 
CANS AT WILLAPA BAY 


The North Channel of Willapa Bay, 
Washington, has been migrating north- 
ward over the years, and eroding the 
shoreline in the Cape Shoalwater area. 
About 2,000 feet of State Route 105, 
which runs along the north shore of Wil- 
lapa Bay, is jeopardized by this erosion. 
When the Federal Highway Administra- 
tion and the Washington State Department 
of Transportation began planning a proj- 
ect to protect Route 105 from erosion, 
they were unaware that a sandy island in 
the center of the bay is the most important 
night roost for endangered Brown Peli- 
cans north of the Farallon Islands. The 
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services’ (FWS) 
Oregon Coastal Refuges had conducted 
aerial surveys along the Oregon and 
Washington coasts since 1987 and found 
the mean number of pelicans using the 
island to be 2,178 birds (range 786 to 
5,875). 

The highway agencies’ environmental 
assessment found no significant impact 
under the National Environmental Policy 
Act for constructing an 85-acre “plug” in 
the North Channel made of sand-filled 
geotubes. This would reduce the tidal 
flow and halt the North Channel’s north- 
ward migration. Additionally, the high- 
way agencies proposed constructing a 
large groin and adding sand to the nearby 
beach to protect the beach from wave 
action. The sand would be excavated just 


south of the project to depths of up to 20 
feet. 

FWS initially approved a mitigation 
and monitoring agreement that, among 
other things, creates breeding habitat for 
snowy plovers and monitors plover 
populations for a decade. It did not ad- 
dress Brown Pelicans. With the project 
scheduled to begin in August, PSG mem- 
ber Roy Lowe was contacted by the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers in late June and 
asked about the Oregon Coastal Refuges’s 
aerial surveys of pelicans. Roy and PSG 
member Deborah Jaques informed FWS 
in Olympia of the importance of Willapa 
Bay to pelicans and potential impacts as- 
sociated with the highway project. The 
refuge’s aerial survey data and Deborah’s 
ground observations from her thesis work 
convinced all project cooperators that 
pelicans were at risk. Apparently, local, 
federal and state biologists were unaware 
of the importance of this island to peli- 
cans, which the Seattle Times described 
as the best kept secret of Willapa Bay. 

FWS initiated an emergency section 7 
consultation under the Endangered Spe- 
cies Act for the Brown Pelican. The proj- 
ect cannot proceed until a mitigation and 
monitoring agreement for pelicans is 
reached, despite agreement for other spe- 
cies. If the highway agencies proceed 
with building a “dike,” FWS recommends 
that no dredging or other activities be 
allowed within a half mile of the roost and 
that the highway agencies coordinate with 
FWS to insure that the project design 
minimizes risk to pelicans. The 

design of the channel plug, including 
sand dredging, should not redirect the 
flow of the north channel toward the night 
roost. Brown Pelicans must be monitored 
for up to ten years, including annual aerial 


photographs of the roosts; annual bathy- 
metry; roost observations during con- 
struction to determine the effectiveness of 
the buffer zone; and summer monitoring 
of distribution. 

The Corps of Engineers’ permit re- 
quires a buffer zone, is being issued for all 
aspects of the project except the “plug.” 
FWS continues working with the highway 
agencies to modify the “plug” design and 
to fashion a mitigation plan. PSG mem- 
bers are urged to lend their expertise on 
this project. For additional information 
contact Gwill Ging or Fred Sevey, FWS. 
510 Desmond Drive S.E.. Suite 102, La- 
cey, WA 98503-1273, (360) 753-9440. 

By Roy W. Lowe , Newport, Orgon 


CONSERVATION OF THE 
SHORT-TAILED ALBATROSS 


On September 22 and 23 a meeting 
concerning the conservation of the Short- 
tailed Albatross ( Phoebastria albatrus) 
was held in Anchorage, Alaska by the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Endan- 
gered Species Office. The “Short-tailed 
Albatross Population Modeling and Con- 
servation Information Meeting” was a 
round table meeting for information pres- 
entation and discussion of current re- 
search, fishery incidental take, National 
Marine Fishery Service management and 
observer program, current legal status, 
and population modeling to determine 
research needs and conservation actions. 
Key participants included Dr. Hiroshi 
Hasegawa of Toho University, Japan who 
presented his ongoing research and con- 



Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 78 



servation activities on Torishima Island, 
Japan from 1976 to present; Jean Co- 
chrane of the University of Minnesota 
who presented an individual based sto- 
chastic model of Dr. Hasegawa’s data; Dr. 
Tony Starfield of the University of Min- 
nesota who facilatated the population 
modeling discussion; Kim Rivera of the 
N.M.F.S., Juneau, Alaska who reviewed 
regulations to avoid seabird bycatch and 
data of incidental seabird take; and Janey 
Fadley of the U.S.F.W.S., Endangered 
Species Office Anchorage who reviewed 
the current legal status of the Short-tailed 
Albatross, the endangered species listing 
process, the U.S.F.W.S involvement, as 
well as organized the meeting. The 
meeting generated ideas on additional 
refinement of the Cochrane population 
model, and future management needs for 
the conservation of the Short-tailed Alba- 
tross. Further information can be ob- 
tained from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv- 
ice, Ecological Services, Anchorage Field 
Office. Project Leader Janey Fadely. E- 

mail: janey_fadely@mail.fws.gov 

By Scott Wilbor 


EL NINO/SOUTHERN 
OSCILLATION 1997 - 
INFORMATION 


The 1997 El Nino/Southern Oscilla- 
tion may or may not prove to be the 
strongest ever recorded. It will certainly 
be the best-studied, predicted by NOAA 
in March, and followed by satellites 
which have monitored SST (sea surface 
temperature), sea height (Kelvin waves) 
and rainfall (Outgoing Long wave Radia- 
tion). 

The ENSO event developed much 
earlier than usual and it remains unclear 
whether this event will also end earlier. If 
it stays around, it may cause massive 
damage and climatic change. 

As of mid September, events linked to 
the 87 ENSO include a suppressed hurri- 
cane season in the Atlantic, warm waters 
off California, Peru and Alaska, heavy 
rains in Peru and Chile, die-offs of sea- 
birds in Peru, Alaska, and the Bering Sea, 
closing of northwest North American 
shellfish industries because of toxins, 
drought in Brazil, and major shifts in fish 
and seabird distributions throughout the 
Pacific. Not all of these may be directly 
linked to ENSO. Some of the Alaskan 
events may be associated with an on- 


CQNSERVATIQN NEWS 

going drought, the resulting reduced river 
runoff and a weak Alaska Coastal Cur- 
rent. Comparisons with the 1983 major 
ENSO will be helpful once the dust set- 
tles. 

Seabird biologists need to consider 
what they can do to measure the effects of 
this event on their study organisms. Out- 
breaks of mosquitoes, heavy vegetation 
growth, or flooding can affect reproduc- 
tion during ENSO events. We know that 
food shifts during ENSO affect seabirds. 
Can we now establish the links to food 
resources and the oceanographic forces 
that in turn affect them? If birds die, is it 
because food is scarce? If food is scarce, 
what has changed in the local marine 
system? Now might be a good time to 
team up with local oceanographers and 
marine biologists to build up a compre- 
hensive picture of local events. 

Beyond ENSO, if local mortality of 
adults occurs, what effect does this have 
on the breeding population? Do ‘floaters’ 
replace nesters, so the population remains 
stable, but productivity drops? Or do 
floaters die, so the whole population de- 
creases? 

Not all these questions can be asked or 
answered for each site or seabird, but 
ENSO offers a major chance to look at the 
effects of a major perturbation. It also 
offers a chance to link birds to studies of 
lower trophic levels. The next chance to 
do this won’t come for at least a decade. 
Let’s get it right now. 

Useful Web Sites 

Daily sea surface temperature anoma- 
lies - 

h t tp : // w w w . f noc . n a v y . m i I /oti s/oti s_gl b 
l_00_sstanomaly.gif 

ENSO teleconnections or what ENSO 
does in your neighborhood 

http://www.dir.ucar.edu/esig/use_tx.ht 

ml 

http://enso.unl.edu/ndmc/enigma/tabl 

enso.htm 

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el- 
nino/impacts, html 

To report ENSO events 
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/EN 
SO. html 

Pacific data sets and information 
http://nauIu.soest.hawaii.edu/index.ht 

ml 

California data 
http://www- 

inlrg.ucsd.edu/mpeg/tanom_eq.mpg 

By David Cameron Duffy , Anchorage, 
Alaska 


THE CIRCUMPOLAR SEA- 
BIRD WORKING GROUP 


Background 

The Program for the Conservation of 
Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) was es- 
tablished to address the special needs of 
Arctic species and their habitats in the 
rapidly developing Arctic region. It forms 
one of four programs of the Arctic Envi- 
ronmental Protection Strategy which was 
adopted by Canada, Denmark/Greenland, 
Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Swe- 
den, and the United States. The main 
goals of CAFF are, 1) to conserve Arctic 
flora and fauna, their diversity and their 
habitats, 2) to protect the Arctic ecosys- 
tems from threats, 3) to improve conser- 
vation management laws, regulations, and 
practices for the Arctic, and 4) to integrate 
Arctic interests into global conservation 
fora. The majority of CAFF’s Work Plan 
activities are directed at species and 
habitat conservation, and attempt to inte- 
grate indigenous peoples and their knowl- 
edge into CAFF initiatives. 

At the inaugural meeting of CAFF in 
1992, concern was expressed about the 
conservation of a number of circumpolar 
seabird species. During the second meet- 
ing CAFF in 1993, a proposal to create a 
Circumpolar Seabird Working Group 
(CSWG) presented by the USA was ap- 
proved. The goal of the CSWG is to 
promote, facilitate, and coordinate seabird 
research, management, and conservation 
activities among the circumpolar coun- 
tries by improving communication be- 
tween scientists and managers concerned 
with northern seabirds. 

Recent Activities Of The CSWG 

The fourth meeting of the Circumpolar 
Seabird Working Group occurred April 
17-20 in St. Johns, Newfoundland. John 
Chardine, Canada’s CSWG representa- 
tive, and the Canadian Wildlife Service 
hosted the meeting. Representatives from 
six of eight countries signatory to the 
Declaration on the Protection of the Arc- 
tic Environment attended. The meeting 
agenda included several items related to 
the conservation, research, and manage- 
ment of Arctic seabirds and seaducks. 
Here, we briefly review some of these. 

Circumpolar Seabird Colony Database 
This database will eventually hold all 
seabird colony data that is available from 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 79 


CONSERVATION NEWS 


circumpolar countries. Initially, the data- 
base will only include the colony data for 
murres. Do date, all murre data sets have 
been received from the countries, and they 
are now being conformed to the CSWG 
database structure and coding specifica- 
tions by John Chardine. 

North Atlantic Murre Banding Recov- 
eries Technical Report 

Vidar Baken (Norway), is producing a 
Technical Report summarizing all murre 
band recoveries. To date, the banding 
recovery database structure has been 
completed and the database now includes 
all band recoveries from all countries ex- 
cept Greenland. A total of 1728 recover- 
ies have been documented. Although 
completion of the database is awaiting the 
Greenland recovery data, a CAFF Techni- 
cal Report entitled “Thick-billed Murre 
Banding Recoveries in the North Atlan- 
tic” is anticipated in the fall of 1997. It 
will discuss the origin, age, distribution, 
and timing of band recoveries in thick- 
billed murre winter areas. 

Human Disturbance Of Seabirds In 
The Arctic 

The potential for increased tourism 
and development in the Arctic may bring 
increased risks of disturbance at colonies. 
With this in mind, the CSWG initiated an 
overview of disturbance issues at Arctic 
seabird colonies and reviewed existing 
regulations that are in place in each coun- 
try to reduce disturbance (lead: John 
Chardine, Canada). For each country, 
information was collected relating to dis- 
turbance problems, legal protection, and 
disturbance issues that need to be ad- 
dressed. This information will be summa- 
rized in a Technical Report anticipated in 
early 1998 entitled, “Human Disturbance 
of seabird colonies in the Arctic “. 

Circumpolar Eider Conservation 
Strategy and Action Plan 

While completing its work on the 
Murre Strategy, CSWG was directed by 
CAFF to undertake preparation of a Cir- 
cumpolar Eider Conservation Strategy 
and Action Plan. This initiative (lead: Jon 
Bart, USA) reflected global concern for 
several eider species. The goal of the 
Strategy was to facilitate circumpolar 
efforts to conserve, protect and restore 
eider populations. The Strategy was de- 
veloped to assist groups within countries 
to identify eider conservation efforts of 
greatest importance from a worldwide 
perspective, and to lead to greater inter- 
national cooperation in eider conservation 


efforts. The Strategy contains Action 
Items relating to consumptive use, non- 
consumptive use, commercial activities, 
habitat protection and enhancement, 
communication and consultation, and 
research and monitoring. Each country 
will decide for itself how to implement 
the Strategy and guidelines are provided 
in the document to aid this process. The 
Eider Strategy was approved in June 1997 
at the CAFF ministerial meeting. 

Implementation Of The International 
Murre Conservation Strategy And Ac- 
tion Plan 

The conservation and management of 
murre populations requires international 
coordination because murre populations 
migrate across international boundaries. 
The International Murre Conservation and 
Action Plan was developed by CSWG 
(lead; John Chardine, Canada) to enhance 
conservation of murre populations by 
coordinating international effort. The 
Murre Strategy identified several Action 
Items that were meant to, 1) ensure that 
consumptive and non-consumptive use of 
murres is sustainable, 2) minimize the 
deleterious effects of commercial activi- 
ties such as shipping and commercial 
fishing, 3) ensure that murre habitat iden- 
tification, protection, and enhancement 
measures are undertaken, 4) implement 
communications and education programs 
to ensure public support for murre con- 
servation, 5) facilitate circumpolar coor- 
dination of murre research and monitoring 
programs. At the St. John’s meeting, each 
country representative discussed how 
each country intended to implement the 
Action Plans of the Murre Strategy, and 
the progress that was being made. 

Summary 

For further information regarding the 
activities and products of the CSWG, 
please feel free to contact the authors. 
The CSWG also produces the Circumpo- 
lar Seabird Bulletin, which reports on 
publications and general activities of the 
Working Group. The annual bulletin also 
includes short papers on topics related to 
Arctic marine birds, and seabird special- 
ists working in the Arctic are encouraged 
to contribute materials to the bulletin. To 
receive or to contribute to the CSWG 
bulletin, please contact Kent Wohl. 

By Grant Gilchrist , Canadian Wildlife 
Service, P.O. Box 2970, Yellowknife, 
Northwest Territories. email: 

grant. gilchri st @ec.gc.ca, John Chardine , 


Canadian Wildlife Service, 6 Bruce 
Street, Mount Pearl, Newfoundland. AIN 
4T3. email: john.chardine@ec.gc.ca, and 
Kent Wohl, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv- 
ice, 1011 E. Tudor Road, Anchorage, 
Alaska. 


NORTH AMERICAN WATER- 
FOWL MANAGEMENT PLAN 


Thanks to the timely and hard work of 
Jim Lovvorn, PSG filed extensive com- 
ments on the initial approach to updating 
the North American Waterfowl Manage- 
ment Plan. The plan has not been revised 
for over a decade. PSG strongly advo- 
cated an ecosystem, multi-species, inter- 
national approach to bird conservation. 
Among PSG’s recommendations were (1) 
including all shorebirds, seabirds and 
seaducks in the plan; (2) expanding the 
geographic scope to include entire ranges 
of waterbirds; (3) including Important 
Bird Areas and Partners in Flight plans 
and agreements; (4) expanding existing 
joint ventures to include all waterbirds. 
PSG also suggested establishing a 
Seaduck Joint Venture. We explained our 
concerns about apparent declining popu- 
lations of eiders, Harlequin Ducks, scoters 
and Oldsquaws. The most serious obsta- 
cle to effective conservation action is the 
lack of knowledge about the breeding, 
migrating, and wintering biology of 
seaducks. Coordinated studies of their 
population processes and habitat relations 
throughout the annual cycle are needed to 
identify causes of population declines. In 
particular, we need research on habitats in 
the non-breeding period for these species. 


TROPICAL SEABIRD CON- 
SERVATION FORUM 


At the Pacific Seabird Group Annual 
Meeting in Portland, a number of mem- 
bers interested in tropical seabird conser- 
vation (tropical and subtropical areas of 
the Pacific) met to discuss how PSG and 
its individual members can become in- 
volved and raise awareness of tropical 
seabird conservation. This initial discus- 
sion resulted in many good ideas for how 
PSG can have more of a presence in these 
areas and also how members can contrib- 
ute in various projects. A majority of 
individuals agreed that an open forum in 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 80 



CONSERVATION NEWS 


Pacific Seabirds would be a method for 
individuals to highlight significant re- 
search or conservation work in-progress, 
identify specific conservation needs, and 
also serve as a site for further discussion 
and action by PSG. Perhaps most impor- 
tantly, many people agreed that simply 
identifying current needs or actions with a 
contact person would be the best method 
for individual members to become in- 
volved- Scott Johnston, PSG’s Regional 
Representative for the Pacific Rim, has 
agreed to help develop the forum and 
serve as a clearinghouse for ideas, sug- 
gestions, and items for inclusion in the 
forum. Please send any comments or 
submission to Scott (addresses on the 
Executive Council page in back of PS). 

The following items are the results 
of the initial discussion on tropical seabird 
conservation: 

1. Methods for PSG involvement in 
tropical seabird conservation. 

•Members identify specific conserva- 
tion issues and address to write for more 
information or action. 

•Members draft letters supporting 
conservation actions, research, or legisla- 
tion. 

•Members publish specific projects 
for funding or assistance within the fo- 
rum. 

•Publish a home page devoted to 
tropical seabird conservation. 

•Mentoring of tropical biologists (re- 
quires identification of people seeking 
mentoring). 

•Sponsor a membership to Pacific 
Seabirds for someone in the Pacific (re- 
quires Identification of people seeking 
membership). 

• H Adopt-an-Island”: PSG members 

adopt an island and determine threats, 
data gaps, history, resources, etc.. Publish 
in PS to raise awareness and promote spe- 
cific conservation tasks. 

2. Specific Topics 

Christmas Island 

•potential for PSG as clearinghouse 
for communication with industries to 
promote conservation. 

•agency people need more equipment 
such as boat motors. 

•potential for graduate student proj- 
ects. 

•school education is possible: Phoenix 
petrel is on national stamp. 


•worksheets or coloring books could 
be used for education. 

•draft letter to IUCN re: conservation 
needs and opportunities. 

•has own home page - could assist 
with developing further. 

•Blue Water Cruising Association - 
publication that could reach sailors trav- 
eling in the tropical Pacific to encourage 
conservation action. 

•Develop methods for reaching long- 
line fisheries in order to reduce conflicts 
with seabirds. 

Ciipperton Island 

•many island uninhabited, but devel- 
opment is potential issue. 

•PSG could bring up issues of conser- 
vation value in press or other media, 
•potential World Heritage Site, 
•contact with French biologists is nec- 
essary. 

•BBC is looking for sites to do docu- 
mentary. 

Galapagos Islands 

•requires monetary and international 
support for conservation efforts. 

•PSG as clearinghouse for issues of 
importance for Galapagos. 

•Darwin Research Station has home 
page. 

If you are interested in more informa- 
tion on any of these topics and would like 
to be in contact with a lead person, please 
contact Scott Johnston. If you have addi- 
tional information or would like to take 
the lead on any of these issues, please 
volunteer. Thank you for your interest in 
tropical seabird conservation. Look for 
the Tropical Seabird Conservation Forum 
in upcoming issues of PS. 

By Scott Johnston , Washington, DC 


GIANT SEAGULLS ATTACK 
WHALES 


[Conservation education has yet to reach 
many individuals, witness the following 
news item.) 

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Giant sea- 
gulls, swollen beyond their normal size by 
a diet of rubbish in southern Argentina, 
have taken to swooping down on top of 
whales and pecking pieces of their flesh, a 
whale-watching group said on Thursday. 


The whales of the Peninsula Valdes 
“are being savagely attacked by seagulls, 
which cause wounds in the animals' skin 
up to seven centimeters (three inches) 
deep,” whale-watcher Carlos Bottazzi told 
the state-run Telam news agency. 

“The whales feel such intense pain 
that they twist around to try to escape 
from the birds and swim underwater,” 
Bottazzi, of the “Green Fleet” of whale- 
watching boats, said. 

The seagulls’ behavior has changed 
due to years on a diet of rubbish and fish 
dumped by local fleets, which has allowed 
them to grow bigger than ever before. 

“That diet has made the seagulls as- 
tonishingly big and heavy. And if you add 
that to the bird’s quick wits and strength, 
you have a dangerous customer,” Bottazzi 
said. 

He said the seagulls also attack whale 
calves. 

Peninsula Valdes is a world-famous 
spot for observing Right whales, which 
swim close to shore to give birth to their 
calves. Tourists who come from around 
the world to visit the whales on boat trips. 


OCEANOGRAPHIC SAM- 
PLING OFF NEWPORT, 
OREGON 


Bill Petersen of the National Marine 
Fisheries Service is conducting bi- 
monthly oceanographic sampling off 
Newport, Oregon. His sampling is being 
conducted along the Newport Hydro- 
graphic Line (44°40’N) at stations 1, 3, 5, 
10 and 15 miles from shore. Bill and oth- 
ers sampled this same hydrographic line 
for zooplankton and larval fish during the 
1970s and others from the OSU Oceanog- 
raphy Department monitored here in the 
1960‘s and 1970‘s both with CTD (con- 
ductivity, temperature, depth) surveys as 
well as with current meter moorings. 
Thus there is a fairly large data base on 
hydrography, currents, plankton and lar- 
val fish for the 1 970’s. Very little sam- 
pling has been done off Oregon since the 
late 1970's. Bill has resumed sampling 
along this line in order to compare ocean 
conditions at present to those which ex- 
isted in the past and is particularly inter- 
ested in learning how (or if) the coastal 
pelagic ecosystem has changed as a result 
of the climate shift of 1977. Bill is also 
interested in learning to what degree pos- 
sible changes m ocean productivity ex- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 81 


CONSERVATION NEWS 



plain the continuing decline in survival of 
coho salmon. This work began in May 
1996 and will continue for at least three 
more years. 

At each station a profile of conductiv- 
ity and temperature with depth is recorded 
with a Seabird SBE-19 CTD, a secchi 
depth reading is made, water samples for 
chlorophyll analysis are collected from 0 
and 10 m, a vertical haul with a 1/2 m 
mouth diameter, 200 um mesh zooplank- 
ton net is made from the bottom to the 
surface, and a double oblique tow with a 
]~m diameter, 333 um mesh net over the 
upper 20 m fot fish eggs, fish larvae and 
euphausiids is also made. All work is 
accomplished during the daytime from a 
small 37’ boat. In the lab, a complete 
work-up of the zooplankton samples is 
made and everything is counted to species 
and for the common species, to develop- 
mental stage. 

Currently, not enough data analysis 
has been done to draw too many conclu- 
sions. However, it is clear that the past 
two summers (1996 and 1997) have both 
been "anomalous” compared to the 1970's 
in that the water is warmer, upwelling has 
begun later and ended sooner. Since the 
upwelling season is reduced in length, you 
would expect on average that the water 
would be warmer and last summer up- 
welling occurred for 9 weeks and this 
summer 4 weeks. Another intriguing as- 
pect about the upwelling in recent years is 
that when it does occur, it does not seem 
to be as intense. During the 1970's they 
commonly observed water of 8.0-8. 5 
centigrade (C) at the surface nearshore. 
Bill has not seen water that cold during 
the present sampling with the coldest re- 
corded so far at 9.3° C. Also, the cope- 
pod ( Acartia clausii) which was very 
abundant at the most nearshore stations (1 
and 3 miles) has been virtually non- 
existent. Abundance of more offshore 
species do not seem to be all that differ- 
ent. 

The only clear difference is with the 
length of the upwelling season. This can 
be analyzed further by looking at the his- 
torical wind data from Newport s south 
jetty but this has not been done yet. Bill 
is currently gathering surface temperature 
data from the 1970’s and 1980’s in an at- 
tempt to develop a climatology. There are 


some good data from the weather buoys 
(Buoy 46050 and 46040) but neither has a 
very long time series. Buoy 46040 was 
off Depoe Bay from about 1987-1991 and 
buoy 46050 was off Newport from 1990- 
1996. Once analyzed, they'll have a time 
series of approximately 9 years length that 
should be useful for looking a the length 
of the upwelling season. Bill's working 
hypothesis at this point is that low pro- 
ductivity and "poor ocean conditions" 
may be due solely to a shorter upwelling 
season. 


STATUS OF SEABIRD/ 
GILLNET ISSUE IN WASH- 
INGTON 


A significant step was taken this year 
when the Washington Fish and Wildlife 
Commission implemented several regula- 
tions designed to reduce seabird mortality 
in the non-tribal sockeye fishery in north 
Puget Sound. These measures included 
eliminating gillnet fishing at night and 
during the morning change of light in 
1997, requiring a strip of visible mesh 20 
meshes deep in the upper part of gillnets 
in 1998, and authorizing the Director of 
Washington Department of Fish and 
Wildlife to consider seabird and fish 
abundance when scheduling fishing open- 
ers. These measures are based on rec- 


ommendations from the study on modi- 
fied gillnet gear conducted by Ed Melvin 
of Washington Sea Grant. In addition, 
monitoring of seabird numbers during the 
fishery has been implemented by Wash- 
ington Department of Fish and Wildlife to 
enable seabird abundance to be factored 
into fisheries management decisions. 
Two types of aerial surveys, one intensive 
and one abbreviated, are being conducted 
for comparative purposes. Implementa- 
tion of these measures will provide a sig- 
nificant reduction in seabird entangle- 
ment, although additional measures to 
further reduce entanglement will be re- 
quired. 

Because of the current El Nino condi- 
tions on the outer coast of the Pacific 
Northwest, there was a great deal of con- 
cern about a large influx of murres into 
Puget Sound. Because conservation 
measures were not fully implemented in 
1997, significant conflicts with the gillnet 
fishery were possible. Fortunately, mur- 
res in large numbers did not materialized. 
Fishing effort was also lower than antici- 
pated because the majority of the large 
sockeye salmon run returning to the 
Fraser River did not pass through U.S. 
waters. 

By John Grettenberger, U.S Fish and 
Wildlife Service and David Nysewander, 
Washington Department of Fish and 
Wildlife. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 82 


JAPAN SEABIRD CONSER- 
VATION 


Report Of The Japan Seabird Conser- 
vation Committee - Fall 1997 

The New Year began most inauspi- 
ciously in Japan with the January 2 nd 
storm-related sinking of the Russian 
tanker Nakhodka in the Japan Sea result- 
ing in the discharge of 6,270 kl (aproxi- 
mately 1.3 million gallons) of heavy C 
grade fuel. The New Year’s holiday, 
rough weather, and insufficient prepara- 
tion and planning resulted in a response 
that has been heavily criticized for being 
slow. Oil washed up along 800 km of 
coastline. Easily the most disastrous spill 
ever in Japan, the media coverage was 
predictably voracious. Less predictable 
was the tremendous number of volunteers 
(over 250,000 in all) coming from all over 
the country to help with the shoreline 
cleanup. Pictures of men, women, and 
children aremoving the thick oil and water 
mousse with buckets, scoops, or just 
gloved hands and passing bucket after 

bucket of oil along human chains 

these will be the lasting images of the 
Nakhodka spill for most people in this 
country. 

The focus of concern during the 
spill — as reflected in the media and offi- 
cial government response — was its effect 
on human safety and commerce, espe- 
cially the impact on fisheries. However, 
several environmental and research or- 
ganizations, with Environment Agency 
cooperation, organized an ad hoc network 
to determine the extent of injury to sea- 
birds. Harry Carter (Seabird Biologist, 
USGS, Biological Resources Division), 
Roger Helm (Chief, Natural Resource 
Damage Assessment and Oil Spill Re- 
sponse, USFWS), and Scott Newman 
(DVM, Wildlife Health Center, UC 
Davis) were invited to come to Japan to 
assist. Newman advised personnel in 
oiled wildlife care techniques and facility 
standards. Carter and Helm developed 
field-data collection and oiled bird han- 
dling protocols and joined Koji Ono 
(Hokkaido Seabird Center), Mihoko Sato 
(Japan Alcid Society), and John Fries 
(University of California) to inspect the 
spill zone and conduct surveys on eight 




Courtesy Mark Rauzon, Ber- 
keley, California 




beaches. 

The impact on seabird populations is 
still being determined, but this much is 
known. Over 1300 oiled seabirds, most 
already dead, were recovered from the 
shoreline. Most of these were Rhinocerus 
Auklets and Ancient Murrelets, but a few 
Marbled Murrelet and Japanese Murrelet 
carcasses were also found. Including 
birds lost at sea or washed up but unre- 
covered, the actual number killed is be- 
lieved to be many times higher. 

In July, Japan experienced another 
high-profile spill. The Diamond Grace, a 
147,012 ton tanker ran aground on a shoal 
in Tokyo Bay and spilled over 1500 kl 
(aprox. 320,000 gallons) of crude oil (Ini- 
tial estimates had put this number at over 
3 million gallons!!). Favorable weather 


and a rapid, effective response meant that 
little oil reached the shore. Surveys using 
the protocols developed during the Nak- 
hodka spill indicate that the immediate 
effects on seabirds was minimal. 

These two incidents have led to efforts 
in Japan to improve the effectiveness of 
oil spill response in general, as well as to 
incorporate wildlife protection more fully 
into the official response system. To help 
achieve this latter goal, WWF-Japan, The 
Nippon Foundation, the Wildlife Rescue 
Veterinarian Association of Japan, and the 
Japan Alcid Society are sponsoring a 
symposium to be held in Tokyo on De- 
cember 7, 1997. US speakers will be 
Captain Joseph Brusseau (Commander, 
Activities Far East, US Coast Guard), 
Pete Bontadelli (Administrator, California 
Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Re- 
sponse - OSPR), Paul Kelly (Science Di- 
vision, OSPR), Jonna Mazet (Director, 
California Oiled Wildlife Care Network), 
and Harry Carter and Scott Newman. 
Japanese speakers will include represen- 
tatives from the Environment Agency, the 
Wild Bird Society of Japan, and the 
Wildlife Rescue Veterinarian Association 
of Japan. For further information regard- 
ing this symposium please contact John 
Fries atjnfries@bio.sci.toho-u.ac.jp John 

By Fries , Tokyo and Koji Ono , Haboro, 
Hokkaido 


MARBLED MURRELET CON- 
SERVATION 


Summary Of Activities Of The Mar- 
bled Murrelet Technical Committee 
For 1997. 

This is the second year I have acted as 
your Marbled Murrelet Technical Com- 
mittee (MMTC) coordinator. The MMTC 
had a busy and productive year in 1996, 
and although 1997 has not been as busy, 
we still have some important items to 
accomplish for this years agenda and sig- 
nificant issues to be addressed. I would 
like to do a better job of organizing and 
keeping track of the various subcommit- 
tees, names of members of the commit- 
tees, the tasks that they are working on, 
and timelines for completing their work. I 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 83 


PSG NEWS 


would appreciate the help of everyone 
involved in accomplishing these goals. I 
have enjoyed working for you and PSG 
over the last two years. The following is 
a summary of our activities for 1997. 

Communications 

4/24/97 - A letter updating several as- 
pects of the Pacific Seabird Group Mar- 
bled Murrelet Inland Survey Protocol was 
sent to all interested parties. The purpose 
of the letter was to clarify some aspects of 
the protocol including the number of sur- 
vey visits to be conducted at a site to es- 
tablish absence, presence, or occupancy. 
The letter also discusses the definition of 
suitable habitat, the interpretation of cir- 
cling behavior and changes to the survey 
form. Copies of the letter are available 
from C.J. Ralph, USFS, 1700 Bayview 
Drive, Areata, CA. 95521. 

10/9/97 - Many Pacific Seabird Group 
members have voiced their concern over 
the last year and during the last PSG 
meeting that changes and updates to the 
Marbled Murrelet Inland Survey Protocol 
(Ralph et al. 1994) are often made without 
prior knowledge or a chance for peer re- 
view by many of the members of the 
Marbled Murrelet Technical Committee. 
To help solve this problem the MMTC 
has planned a meeting to discuss devel- 
oping a more structured process that 
would allow changes and updates to be 
made to the Marbled Murrelet Inland Sur- 
vey Protocol with the peer review and 
participation of a broader audience of 
technical committee members. If a proc- 
ess can be developed that all participants 
are satisfied with, it may be useful to con- 
sider implementing it for other communi- 
cations that the MMTC produces. If time 
allows, we would also like to discuss de- 
veloping a final version of the survey 
protocol that would be peer reviewed and 
published in a scientific journal. A notice 
of the meeting was sent to all current 
members of the MMTC. If you are not 
able to attend but would like to comment, 
please send your comments to Thomas 
Hamer. The meeting was held in Port- 
land, Oregon on Thursday, October 9 th , 
1997. 

Marbled Murrelet Recovery Team 

The USFWS Marbled Murrelet Re- 
covery Team has completed incorporating 
public comment and making final edits to 
the Marbled Murrelet Recovery Plan. 
Most of the final edits were made at a 
meeting in February 1997. The final re- 
covery plan has been sent to the printer 


for publication. At the last recovery 
meeting, the team also reviewed the study 
design and results of the Six Rivers Na- 
tional Forest survey effort to determine if 
murrelets were absent from regions of this 
forest. Lee Web of the Siskiyou National 
Forest made a presentation on similar 
survey efforts they have been conducting 
in southwest Oregon. Steve Courtney of 
SEI made a presentation on the plans to 
conduct a population viability model for 
marbled murrelets in northern California 
to support a Habitat Conservation Plan for 
the Pacific Lumber Company. 

Annual Pacific Seabird Group Meeting 
- 1996 

Several sub-committees of the MMTC 
met during the last Pacific Seabird Group 
meeting held in Portland, Oregon. These 
committees included the Inland Survey 
Protocol Sub-committee, Marine Survey 
Protocol Subcommittee, Education and 
Research Priorities Subcommittee, and the 
Inland Habitat Subcommittee. Kathy 
Kuletz would like to organize a nest be- 
havior subcommittee is people are inter- 
ested. These committees will meet again 
at the next annual PSG meeting in Mon- 
terey. If you are interested in joining and 
supporting one of these subcommittees 
please sign up during the MMTC general 
meeting to be held on Jaunuary 21 st . 

Conservation Issues 

Mortality of marbled murrelets in the 
Puget Sound due to entanglement in gill- 
nets still remains a conservation issue. To 
help bring the issue to light and learn 
more about where the issue stands and 
what is being done about the problem, the 
MMTC would like to invite several 
speakers to the next annual PSG meeting 
to update us on the issue, provide their 
viewpoints on the severity of the problem, 
provide recommendations on how to ad- 
dress the issue, and discuss current re- 
search and conservation efforts to grapple 
with the matter. Look in the 1998 MMTC 
agenda at the meeting in Monterey for the 
times of these presentations. 

The Long-billed Murrelet — A New 
Species 

It is now official ! The Asiatic form of 
the Marbled Murrelet ( Brachyramphus 
marmoratus perdix ) was declared a dis- 
tinct species by the American Ornitholo- 
gists’ Union (AOU) in July (Auk 
1 14:544-545). Its new name is the Long- 
billed Murrelet ( Brachyramphus perdix). 
Although long considered separate spe- 
cies, the North American form ( B . m. 


marmoratus ) and the Asiatic form of the 
Marbled Murrelet were considered con- 
specific by the AOU in 1957. However, 
recent molecular genetic evidence pre- 
sented by Friesen et al. (1944, 1996) and 
Piatt et al. (1994) demonstrated that these 
subspecies should again be recognized at 
the species level. 

International Conservation 

In summer of 1996, surveys for the 
Long-billed Murrelet (formerly the Asi- 
atic form of the Marbled Murrelet) were 
conducted on the island of Hokkaido in 
northern Japan in an attempt to located 
potential breeding sites (see page 62 for a 
summary of this research). While no in- 
dividuals were detected at inland sites 
during the 1996 surveys, many murrelets 
were sighted in the Sea of Okhotsk off the 
Shiretoko Penninsula in northeastern 
Hokkaido during offshore surveys in 
summer 1997 by Dr. Yoshihiro Fukuda. 
S. Kim Nelson and Tom Hamer, along 
with Dr. Fukuda, Dr. Koji Ono, John 
Fries, and Harry Carter, are currently 
looking for funding to continue the off- 
shore surveys in 1998 and inland surveys 
in later years in a continued effort to de- 
termine the breeding status of the Long- 
billed Murrelet in Japan. 


PSG TESTIFIES TO ECOSYS- 
TEM MANAGEMENT PANEL 
ON MARINE FISHERIES 


When Congress recently reauthorized 
the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conserva- 
tion and Management Act, it directed the 
National Marine Fisheries Service 
(NMFS) to establish an Ecosystem Prin- 
ciples Advisory Panel. The panel is to 
study how marine ecosystem research is 
conducted, and to advise how the results 
of that research should be used to improve 
management of marine resources. Panel 
members include government and aca- 
demic marine scientists, representatives of 
fishing industry, conservation organiza- 
tions and regional fishery management 
councils. While PSG’s nominee was not 
appointed to this panel, PSG provided 
written and oral testimony at the panel’s 
first meeting in Washington, D.C, in 
September 1997 (see p. 58). 

An ecosystem management approach 
encourages NMFS to view fisheries re- 
sources as part of an interconnected 
community of living things, including 
humans, and the physical environment 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1 997 • Page 84 


PSG NEWS 


with which they interact. Many of the 
complex interactions in marine ecosys- 
terns are poorly understood, and require 
research. 

The panel will advise NMFS through 
a report to Congress due October 1998, 
which will include: (1) an analysis of the 
extent to which ecosystem principles are 
being applied in fishery conservation and 
management activities, including; and (2) 
proposed actions that NMFS and Con- 
gress should undertake to expand the ap- 
plication of ecosystem principles in fish- 
ery conservation and management. 


CALL FOR NOMINATIONS 
FOR PSG AWARDS AND EX- 
ECUTIVE COUNCIL MEM- 
BERS 


Please send any nominations for the 
Lifetime Achievement or Special 
Achievement Awards to Bill Everett (see 
address on inside of back cover). Also 
please send any nominations for the Ex- 
ecutive Council, including Chair-elect, 
Secretary, Treasurer, and Regional Repre- 
sentatives to Pat Baird (see address on 
inside of back cover). 


MANUSCRIPTS NEEDED FOR 
PACIFIC SEABIRDS 


Pacific Seabirds is available for the 
publication of a variety of items that can 
appear in technical Articles and Review 
Articles, the Forum, Book Reviews, Con- 
servation News and the Bulletin Board. 
Items should be submitted to the appar- 
priate editors (see inside front cover). 

We encourage the authors of posters and 
oral papers presented at the Pacific Sea- 
bird Group annual meeting to consider 
Pacific Seabirds as an appropriate outlet 
for the publication of their studies. Posters 
may be particularly suitable to appear as 
short technical Articles. Of course, re- 


sults of studies not reported at the annual 
meeting are certainly welcome, from 
anywhere in the world. 

The topics of Review Articles can be 
conservation, management or scientific in 
nature. Review Articles, as the title im- 
plies, are designed to provide in-depth 
reviews of topics relating to the conserva- 
tion and biology of seabirds and their en- 
vironment. Potential authors of Review 
Articles should contact the Editor for 
Technical Articles, Bill Sydeman, prior to 
beginning a review. 

AH submissions that appear as Articles 
or Review Articles require the successful 
completion of a peer review process and 
required revisions. 

Help us continue to build Pacific Sea- 
birds by submitting manuscripts; they are 
needed and appreciated. 

The Editors 


EXXON VALDEZ OIL SPILL 
RESTORATION FINAL RE- 
PORT 

FIRST PSG TECHNICAL 
PUBLICATION NOW AVAIL- 
ABLE 


The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Restora- 
tion Project Final Report, of the Exxon 
Valdez Oil Spill Seabird Restoration 
Workshop, has been completed and sub- 
mitted. Requests for copies of the report 
should be directed to the Exxon Valdez 
Oil Spill Office in Anchorage, Alaska (1- 
800-283-7745). Ken Warheit, Craig 
Harrison and George Divoky edited the 
Final Report. 

In the near future the report will be 
available on the PSG web site, where us- 
ers will be able to download copies. 

This is the first of the Pacific Seabird 
Group Technical Publications, a new PSG 
series designed for the publication of a 
variety of documents necessarly to long 
for publication in Pacific Seabirds. The 


series is available for publishing reports 
relating to the biology and conservation of 
marine birds and their environment, 
throughout the world. Publications will 
appear as hard copy, or electronic form on 
the PSG web site, and in both formats as 
appropriate. This will be the first step in 
electronic publishing by the Pacific Sea- 
bird Group. 


MEETING ABSTRACTS ON 
THE PSG WEB SITE 


The abstracts of papers and posters to 
be presented at the 25 th annual meeting of 
the Pacific Seabird Group in Monterey, 
California, January 1998, will soon be 
available on the PSG web site. There they 
can be viewed in their entirety or down- 
loaded. 


AUCTION ITEMS NEEDED 
FOR PSG’S 25™ ANNUAL 
MEETING 


PSG will again hold a silent auction at 
the Annual Meeting. Please help PSG 
raise money for the Endowment Fund by 
sending donations for the auction to 
Elizabeth McClaren (see address on inside 
of back cover). 


HISTORY OF PSG 


At our 25 th Annual Meeting a pictorial 
history of PSG will be presented in the 
lobby of the Monterey Convention Cen- 
ter. Please help us make this history a 
complete and memorable experience by 
sending your ideas, photographs, and 
memories or details of PSG meetings, 
members, post-meeting field trips, and 
field research to S. Kim Nelson (see ad- 
dress on inside of back cover). 


1 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 85 


PSG NEWS 


1998 ANNUAL MEETING IN MONTEREY, CALIFORNA 


PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING 
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA 
21-25 JANUARY 1998 


The 1998 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group will be 
held at the Monterey Conference Center in downtown Monterey, 
California from 21-25 January 1998. The meeting will include 
special events to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pacific 
Seabird Group. As part of the celebration a symposium is being 
developed entitled Seabirds in a changing ocean: advances in 
seabird science. The symposium will include plenary and re- 
view papers on this theme. A meeting announcement, with sym- 
posium speakers, registration materials and a call for papers, will 
be mailed in September 1997. Deadlines for abstracts were due 
shortly thereafter. Registration for the meeting is ongoing. 

If you have any questions or would like to assist with the plan- 
ning please contact: 

Local Committee Chair: 

Mike Parker , USFWS, San Francisco Bay National Wildlife 
Refuge Complex, Post Office Box 524, Newark, California 
94560. E-mail: mike_parker@mail.fws.gov 

Program Chair: 

Alan E. Burger, Department of Biology, University of Victoria, 
Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3N5. e-mail: aburger@uvm.uvic.ca 

Symposium Chair: 

David C. Duffy, Alaska Natural Heritage Program, University of 
Alaska, Anchorage, 707 A Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501. e- 
mail: afdcdl@uaa.alaska.edu 


TENTATIVE Daily Schedule 

Wednesday 21 January 

Preconference meetings -open to all 
Executive Council 

Committee Meetings - to be announced 
Welcome reception in the evening 

Thursday 22 January 

Plenary Session in morning 
Paper Session in afternoon 
Poster Session/evening reception 

Friday 23 January 

Paper sessions morning and afternoon 
Reception at Monterey Bay Aquarium 

Saturday 24 January 

Paper sessions morning 
Committee meetings in afternoon 
Executive Council 
Conservation Committee 
Business meeting 

Other committee meeting as needed 
Evening banquet 

Sunday 25 January 

Field Trips - to be announced 


CONSULT THE PSG WEB SITE FOR THE MEETING TIME SCHEDULE 
PAPER AND POSTER SESSIONS, COMMITTEE MEETINGS 

SOCIAL EVENTS 
PAPER ABSTRACTS 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 86 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


RUSSIA-ALASKA 


The Cook Inlet Seabird and Forage 
Fish Study (CISeaFFS [’’Sisyphus”]), led 
by John Piatt (BRD/USGS, Anchorage) 
in collaboration with the EVOS Trustees, 
APEX (Dave Duffy), USFWS (Vern 
Byrd, David Irons), ADF&G, UAF and 
MMS ha$ completed its third year of 
study on seabird responses to fluctuating 
prey densities. In 1997, CISeaFFS in- 
volved more than 40 field personnel and 
hands-on collaborators. We continued to 
census and measure breeding, behavioral, 
and foraging responses of Common Mur- 
res. Black-legged Kittiwakes, Tufted and 
Horned puffins, cormorants and Glau- 
cous-winged Gulls at three markedly dif- 
ferent colonies in lower Cook Inlet: Gull 
Island, Kachemak Bay (increasing popu- 
lations, studies by Stephani Zador, April 
Nielsen, Mike Shultz, Jenny Wetzel); 
Chisik Island (decreasing populations, 
Ann Harding [Sheffield U.], Dave 
Black, Greg Hoffman), and the Barren 
Islands (stable populations, Art Kettle, 
Dave Roseneau, Margi Blanding, and 
others, Alaska Maritime NWR). In 1997, 
we also initiated banding of adult murres 
and kittiwakes on Gull and Chisik islands 
to measure annual survival, radio te- 
lemetry to assess foraging behavior and 
adult survival (Tom van Pelt), and con- 
trolled experiments at colonies and in the 
lab to examine stress (corticosteroid) re- 
sponses of murres, kittiwakes and puffins 
to differing food regimes (Sasha Kitay- 
sky, John Wingfield, U. Washington). 
Adult murres, puffins and kittiwakes were 
also collected for continuing diet studies 
(with Alan Springer [UAF]), stable iso- 
tope studies (Keith Hobson [CWS]), and 
population genetics (Brad Congdon, 
Vicki Friesen, Queen’s U.) At several 
colonies in Kachemak Bay, Mike Litzow, 
Brian Duggin [OSU], Sadie Wright 
[UAF] and Brian Smith [OSU] studied 
Pigeon Guillemot breeding biology, diets 
and foraging behavior; and collected 
blood for studies of oil exposure (in col- 
laboration with Dave McGuire, 
BRD/UAF). Marc Romano (OSU) and 
Jennifer Pierson (OSU) completed a 
second year of lab studies in Kachemak 
Bay on kittiwake and puffin chick growth 
on different food regimes (in collabora- 
tion with Dan Roby [BRD/OSU]. On the 


at-sea side of CISeaFFS, we conducted 
our third year of hydroacoustic surveys 
around each colony (Suzann Speckman), 
mid-water trawling for schooling fish 
(Alissa Abookire, Jared Figurski), and 
nearshore seining of forage fish with a 
particular emphasis on sandlance (Martin 
Robards [MUN], in collaboration with 
George Rose [MUN]). In 1997 we added 
phyto- and zooplankton surveys in 
Kachemak Bay (in collaboration with 
Peter McRoy, UAF). We continued to 
characterize the local oceanography with 
continuous temperature loggers, CTD 
profiles and AVHRR satellite imagery 
(Gary Drew). Analysis of historical for- 
age fish data in Cook Inlet and the Gulf of 
Alaska continue in collaboration with 
Paul Anderson (NMFS), Bill Bechtol 
(ADF&G) and Jim Blackburne 
(ADF&G). Additional field assistance 
was provided by Greg Snedgen 
(AMNWR), Roman Kitaysky, and Lilly 
Goodman. CISeaFFS is scheduled (and 
more importantly, funded) to continue for 
two more field seasons. 

Bob Day of ABR reports a second 
year of research (with Deb Nigro of 
ABR) on status and ecology of Kittlitz’s 
and Marbled murrelets in glaciated Ijords 
of Prince William Sound and on-going 
radar-based research on migration of ei- 
ders past Point Barrow (with USFWS and 
the North Slope Borough). 

Dee Boersma continued her work on 
reproductive success of murres in the Bar- 
ren Islands by deploying cameras that 
took pictures of the birds every 10 min- 
utes during daylight hours from mid-June 
until Mid-September. This work is a con- 
tinuation of research examining the im- 
pacts of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on 
murres. Boersma and Julia Parrish have 
a paper in press in Auk on their work on 
the response of Fork-tailed Storm-petrels 
to environmental variability that should 
come out in the January 1998 issue. 

Scott Hatch and Charla Sterne con- 
tinue to work on development of the Pa- 
cific Seabird Monitoring Database, with 
cooperation this year from PRBO, Simon 
Fraser University, various colleagues in 
Japan and Canada, and several offices of 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 
National Park Service. 

Lisa Haggblom reports that Togiak 
NWR staff monitored population and pro- 
ductivity of Black-legged Kittiwakes, 


Common Murres and Pelagic Cormorants 
at Cape Pierce, AK during May - August, 
populations and productivity of Black- 
legged Kittiwakes and Common Murres at 
Cape Newenham during the same period, 
and collected Black-legged Kittiwakes for 
diet studies at Cape Pierce in 1997. 

Leslie Slater and a field crew of Re- 
becca Howard, Shelly Britton, Jennifer 
Wang conducted population and produc- 
tivity studies at St. Lazaria Island (SE 
Alaska) on Fork-tailed and Leach’s storm- 
petrels, Pelagic Cormorants, Common and 
Tthick-billed murres. Rhinoceros Auklets, 
and Tufted Puffins. This is their fourth 
full field season at this location. Reports 
summarizing results may be obtained 
from Leslie Slater, Alaska Maritime Na- 
tional Wildlife Refuge 2355 Kachemak 
Bay Drive, Homer, AK 99603-8021. 
Leslie was able to recheck periodically 
visited plots at Forrester Island as well. 
She also coordinated EVOS Apex work at 
Chisik and Duck islands. Cook Inlet. 

Dave Roseneau, Arthur Kettle, 
Margi Blanding, Stephanie Zuniga and 
others continued the EVOS Apex research 
in the Barren Islands, and they also 
monitored murre populations in the Bar- 
rens. Dave Roseneau and Martin Ro- 
bards continued the EVOS study involv- 
ing the use of predatory fish to sample 
relative abundance of forage fish in lower 
Cook Inlet. 

Dave Roseneau, Mary Chance, and 
Peter Chance continued the annual 
monitoring program for seabirds at Cape 
Lisburne, a project sponsored by Minerals 
Management Service. 

Art Sowls continued to lead annual 
monitoring programs for seabirds in the 
Pribilofs with camp leaders Rachael 
Schindler at St. George and Terry 
Carten at St. Paul. He also coordinated a 
project conducted by Mike Cavin to col- 
lect halibut stomachs at St. Paul to de- 
scribe relative abundance of forage fish. 

Art Sowls, Tony DeGange, Jay Nel- 
son, and Mike Schwitters conducted sea- 
bird monitoring at Hall and St. Matthew 
Islands, a periodic monitoring site. Art 
Sowls continued to work on the Pribilof 
rat prevention project and he and Tony 
DeGange made progress in implementing 
a program to respond to ship wrecks that 
could introduce rats on islands. 

Steve Ebbert led a project to restore 
seabird nesting habitat on Semisopochnoi 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 * Page 87 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


and Kagalaska islands by removing intro- 
duced arctic foxes. He and Greg Thom- 
son conducted murre and auklet surveys 
on Semisopochnoi as well. 

Jeff Williams coordinated annual 
seabird monitoring projects at Kasatochi 
Island, where Lisa Scharf was the camp 
leader, and at Buldir, where Mary Ort- 
worth was camp leader. Susan Wood- 
ward, camp leader, continued the annual 
seabird monitoring program at Aiktak 
Island. 

Vernon Byrd, Jeff Williams, and 
Don Dragoo participated in a cooperative 
seabird, marine mammal, and oceanogra- 
phy investigation near the Pribilofs. They 
also conducted seabirds surveys at 
Bogoslof and Walrus islands. Vernon 
Byrd and Jeff Williams have conducted 
seabird surveys at Koniuji and Ulak is- 
lands. Ed Murphy and O’Brien Hollow 
counted Common Murres and Black- 
legged Kittiwakes and continued the an- 
nual monitoring of breeding performance 
of murres, kittiwakes and Pelagic Cormo- 
rants at Bluff. 

Becky Howard and Joel Cooper 
completed entering historic data for most 
of the major seabird monitoring sites on 
the refuge in the Pacific Seabird Moni- 
toring Database. 

Vernon Byrd and Don Dragoo edited 
the first annual report summarizing sea- 
bird monitoring data for 1996 on the 
Alaska Maritime NWR (with information 
also from Togiak NWR and several non- 
refuge sites). This report is available 
from the refuge office (2355 Kachemak 
Bay Drive, Suite 101, Homer, AK 99603). 

From Tony DeGange comes news of 
a report: DeGange, A.R. 1996. A con- 
servation assessment for the Marbled 
Murrelet in southeast Alaska. USDA For- 
est Service, Pacific Northwest Research 
Station (PNW). General Technical Re- 
port PNW-GTR-388. 72pp., available 
through: U.S. Forest Service, PNW, Re- 
search Information Services/Publication 
Requests P.O. Box 3890, Portland, Ore- 
gon, and Seim, S. G., A. N. Golovkin, M. 
J. Wilson, K. D. Wohl. 1997. Alaska- 
Russian Far East seabird bibliography. 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Non game 
Migratory Bird Management, 1011 East 
Tudor Road, Anchorage AK 99503. 289 
pp. Also available as Pro-Cite computer- 
ized database. Contains 2,836 citations, 
including unpublished material. 

Bill Ostrand, USFWS, is conducting 
an at sea foraging study in Prince William 
Sound, Alaska, as a component of an eco- 
system study, APEX, supported by the 


Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council. 
Short-term goals are to compare forage 
fish biomass to seabird abundance and 
productivity. Long-term objectives in- 
clude developing seabird and forage-fish 
habitat selection models and the mapping 
of important seabird foraging habitat 
within Prince William Sound. Reports are 
currently available and publications are 
anticipated within the next year. Contact: 
William D.Ostrand, USFWS, 1011 E. 
Tudor Rd, Anchorage, AK 99503. 

Black Guillemot breeding phenology 
and adult survival were monitored at 
Cooper Island in the western Beaufort Sea 
by George Divoky (UAF). The colony is 
continuing to decline - down to 110 pairs 
from its high of 225 pairs in 1989. A 
relatively cool May and June resulted in 
the latest clutch initiation this decade. 

Jane Fadley, Jean Cochrane, Vivian 
Mendenhall, Kent Wohl (all USFWS), 
and Hiroshi Hasegawa (Toho Univer- 
sity) met on 22 - 23 September in An- 
chorage to discuss population modelling 
for the Short-tailed Albatross and to 
brainstorm on conservation needs. 

Kathy Kuletz and Steve Kendall re- 
sumed the EVOS restoration study of 
Marbled Murrelet productivity in Prince 
William Sound. Record numbers of adult 
murrelets were encountered, but produc- 
tivity was roughly equivalent, or lower, 
than in 1994-1996. In addition to surveys 
at sea to gauge murrelet productivity, they 
quantified murrelet diet and sampled for- 
age fishes. They found spatial and tempo- 
ral differences in prey species used by 
murrelets (mainly herring and sand lance) 
that may be related to juvenile densities. 
The murrelet data will be compared to 
independent measures of forage fish 
abundance as part of the APEX ecosystem 
study. 

Information about the murrelet pro- 
ductivity index used in Prince William 
Sound can be obtained from: Kuletz, K.J., 
S.J. Kendall and D.A. Nigro. 1997. 
Relative abundance of adult and juvenile 
Marbled Murrelets in Prince William 
Sound, Alaska: Developing a productivity 
index. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration 
Project Final Report, Project 95031. 
USFWS, 1011 E. Tudor Rd., Anchorage, 
Alaska 99503. The same information also 
will be: Kuletz and Kendall. In press. A 
productivity index for Marbled Murrelets 
in Alaska based on surveys at sea. J. 
Wildlife Management. A related note is: 
Kuletz and Marks. 1997. Post-fledging 
behavior of a radio-tagged juvenile Mar- 


bled Murrelet. Journal of Field Ornithol- 
ogy 68:421-425. 

A synopsis of damage assessment and 
restoration studies on the Marbled Mur- 
relet is available in the Exxon Valdez Oil 
Spill Restoration Notebook Series (Mar- 
bled Murrelet Synthesis Account, by 
Kathy Kuletz) from the Restoration Of- 
fice, 645 G St., Suite 401, Anchorage, AK 
99501. 

Kathy is also working with biologists 
in the Chugach National Forest (U.S. 
Forest Service), who received oil spill 
criminal settlement funds. They plan to 
map potential murrelet nesting habitat in 
Prince William Sound by using the Kuletz 
et al. model of nesting habitat, remote 
sensing combined with ground-truthing 
habitat studies, and GIS. Field work will 
begin in 1998. The goals and approach are 
similar to those of the Murrelet Effective- 
ness Monitoring Plan coordinated by 
Sarah Madsen, USFS, in the tri-state 
region. 

The murrelet and guillemot crews at 
Naked Island (PI for guillemot project is 
Greg Golet) were also successful in their 
first attempts to capture juvenile murrelets 
and Pigeon Guillemots at sea. They used 
the night-time spotlighting technique 
Kathy learned while attending the Xantus’ 
Murrelet capture effort in California. The 
Alaska crews hope to expand this effort in 
1998 to obtain post-fledging weights and 
to track marked juveniles. 

Oil Spill restoration efforts continue 
to focus on habitat acquisition. Currently, 
a densely forested parcel on northern 
Afognak Island is under consideration. 
This parcel has high densities of nesting 
murrelets and is adjacent to numerous 
small seabird colonies. Negotiations with 
the Native corporation logging these 
lands, however, are stalled. If you want to 
have input, contact Molly McCammon 
(907-278-8012), Director of the Trustee 
Council. 

Greg Golet, Ted Spencer, and other 
field crew members (USFWS and OSU) 
continued a study of the breeding and 
feeding ecology of Pigeon Guillemots in 
Prince William Sound as part of the 
APEX project, which is designed to in- 
vestigate food limitation in seabirds. 
David Irons, Rob Suryan, and a cast of 
many others (USFWS and OSU) studied 
reproductive and foraging ecology of 
Black-legged Kittiwakes in Prince Wil- 
liam Sound as part of the APEX project, 
which is designed to investigate food 
limitation in seabirds. Rob Suryan and 
David Irons have been working on a 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 88 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


meta-population paper for Black-legged 
Kittiwake colonies in Prince William 
Sound. David Irons also monitored 
populations and productivity of Black- 
legged Kitti wakes in Prince William 
Sound. Diana Bran, and Matt Stots, and 
David Irons (USFWS) monitored popu- 
lations and productivity of Black-legged 
Kittiwakes, Pelagic Cormorants, and Red- 
faced Cormorants in Chiniak Bay, Kodiak 
Island. 

George Hunt, back from a September 
cruise in the Bering Sea, reported 
shearwater mortality associated with a 
broadening of diet from mature euphau- 
siids to trawl offal, squid, and immature 
euphausiids. Shearwaters were under- 
weight and avoided foraging in the light 
green waters associated with ongoing 
coccolithophore blooms. The September 
cruise was a follow-up on a May cruise 
that measured bird and oceanographic 
conditions before the onset of the summer 
97 anomaly in the Bering Sea. 

David Duffy continues as lead scien- 
tist on the APEX Project, examining why 
seabirds are not recovering from the spill 
of the Exxon Valdez. He will be also con- 
vening and editing the proceedings of the 
25th anniversary symposium for PSG. 
During the current ENSO event, he has 
been issuing weekly updates on possible 
ENSO effects. These can be found on the 
SEABIRD list server and at 
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/ENSO. 
html on the web, thanks to Peter Bryant 
and Barry Costa-Pierce at U.C. Irvine. 

By David Cameron Duffy, Anchorage, 
Alaska 


WASHINGTON AND 
OREGON 


Washington 

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge 
(NWR) Complex and other U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff, includ- 
ing Louise Vicencio, Jean Takekawa, 
and John Grettenberger, conducted an- 
nual seabird surveys by boat and air at the 
San Juan Islands NWR in July. New 
signs were installed on several Refuge 
islands to reduce wildlife disturbance; 
they request that boaters observe a 200 
yard buffer around the islands. A coop- 
erative agreement with The Whale Mu- 
seum greatly improved educational efforts 
to reduce wildlife disturbance there, in- 


cluding a Challenge Grant which provided 
funding to them, to distribute educational 
materials and conduct field contacts with 
boaters around the Refuge islands. The 
final public use plan and environmental 
assessment for Dungeness NWR was re- 
leased and new regulations were imple- 
mented in May 1997. These regulations 
are designed to reduce wildlife distur- 
bance and focus on wildlife-dependent 
recreation. Ulrich Wilson, Coastal Ref- 
uge Office, continues to conduct long- 
term monitoring of seabirds, Bald Eagles, 
Peregrine Falcons and assist with the 
Oregon and Washington Brown Pelican 
survey. 

Randy Hill reports that a dieoff of 
whitefish in the Potholes Reservoir area 
south of Moses Lake attracted hundreds 
of American White Pelicans to Columbia 
National Wildlife Refuge. The whitefish 
dieoff is an annual event occurring at least 
for the last 8-10 years. The dieoff is as- 
sumed to be associated with a water qual- 
ity problem that whitefish are especially 
sensitive to but the problem has not yet 
been identified by Washington Depart- 
ment of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) fish- 
eries biologists. White Pelicans tradition- 
ally have summered from near Grand 
Coulee Dam throughout the Columbia 
Basin, and now winter in numbers along 
the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. 
Columbia NWR has had an increase in 
pelican use for the last six years associ- 
ated with summer draw downs for vege- 
tation and carp control. Pelicans do an 
excellent job of carp control when waters 
are shallow enough for efficient feeding. 
American White Pelicans nested in the 
state for the first time since 1926 just 
three years ago on Crescent Island, in the 
reservoir formed by McNary Dam on the 
Columbia River. 

Walter Major III, a graduate student 
at Washington State University (WSU), 
has begun research on Double-crested 
Cormorant predation of rainbow trout on 
smaller, managed inland waters. Under 
the direction of Rod Sayler (WSU) and 
Christian Grue (University of Washing- 
ton Coop Unit), and using funding from 
WDFW fisheries, Walter will assess bird 
abundance and behavior on waters that 
represent four separate but comparable 
fishery management strategies to deter- 
mine the amount of cormorant predation 
each strategy incurs. Analysis of food 
habits from stomach contents is dependent 
upon obtaining permits. Work will con- 
tinue this fall and through the spring, 
summer and fall of 1998, and includes 


rotenone treated and stocked lakes on 
Columbia NWR and WDFW managed 
lands. This work is a follow-up to moni- 
toring by Randy Hill (Columbia NWR) 
and Jim Tabor (WDFW) in 1993 which 
produced inconclusive results. 

Don Williamson (USFWS) assisted in 
the analysis and evaluation of impacts of 
the “SR 105 Emergency Stabilization 
Project” to stop continued shoreline ero- 
sion at the mouth of Willapa Bay near 
Cape Shoalwater, WA. Ever-changing 
designs call for armoring the shoreline, 
plugging the main tidal channel, and 
dredging a pilot diversion channel. Con- 
cerns include potential for impacting a 
Brown Pelican roosting island, Marbled 
Murrelet foraging currents, and Snowy 
Plover nesting habitat. Dredging started 
in the summer but ceased after the vessel 
was damaged in a grounding. 

Don Williamson and Alan Clark 
(USFWS) continued banding Doubled- 
crested Cormorants at Columbia River 
colonies. A total of 2,498 chicks have 
been banded in the three years of the proj- 
ect. There have been 35 band recoveries 
to date from 1,340 chicks banded in 1995 
and 1996. This is a 2.6% rate of recovery 
for the first two years. Locations of re- 
turns range from Los Angeles, CA, to the 
south, Vancouver, BC, to the north, and 
The Dalles, OR, to the east. The majority 
of returns (25 of 35) came from the Puget 
Sound area. These preliminary results 
suggest that most cormorants fledged in 
the Columbia River estuary migrate in the 
fall and spend their first winter, at least, in 
the vicinity of Puget Sound. For the first 
time, there was evidence of disease at the 
colonies. Three chicks at Rice Island and 
12 at E. Sand Island were observed with 
symptoms such as curled toes, “limber 
neck”, and tightly clasped wings they 
could not extend. Three were sent to the 
National Wildlife Health Center where 
diagnoses was Newcastle disease. 

The Common Murre die-off in Ore- 
gon extended into Washington with in- 
creased numbers of dead adults and a near 
lack of hatching-year birds washing up on 
Long Beach Peninsula beaches and found 
during seabird mortality counts conducted 
by Don this summer. Snowy Plovers had 
a very successful year in producing fledg- 
lings at Leadbetter Point in 1997. 

Terry Wahl reports that pelagic trips 
off Grays Harbor, WA this year have so 
far indicated very ENSO-like conditions, 
reminiscent of 1983. SSTs are high, Alba- 
core are closer to shore, a Blue Marlin 
was caught off Westport, bird numbers 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 89 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


are low, and migration appears late. In 
particular, Cassin’s Auklets and puffins 
are almost non-existent, though his sam- 
ple area is not near colonies. Virtually no 
hatching-year murres where encountered 
this year during his trips. Almost all Rhi- 
noceros Auklets observed where in Grays 
Harbor or nearshore where there have 
been big numbers of foraging pelicans 
and gulls, including large numbers of 
Heermann’s. Elegant Terns have made it 
at least as far north as Grays Harbor. 

Joe Galusha and Jim Hayward 
(Walla Walla College Marine Station, 
Anacortes, WA) conducted their tenth 
census of the Glaucous-winged Gulls 
breeding on the Protection Island National 
Wildlife Refuge, Jefferson County, 
Washington. 

Numbers of nests located were up 
three percent from two years ago. There 
has been a gradual increase in the num- 
bers of gulls breeding here since 1980. 
Joe and Jim have also been monitoring the 
numbers of bald eagle-gull interactions 
occurring on Violet Spit, the main gull 
breeding area. Joe Galusha is also 
studying quantitative behavioral differ- 
ences between successful and unsuccess- 
ful families of gulls. It is not yet clear 
whether the observed differences are a 
result of cause of differential reproduction 
in this species. This is the second year of 
a five year project. 

Brian Cooper, of ABR, Inc., partici- 
pated in three studies of Marbled Mur- 
relets during 1997. He continued work 
with Paul Henson (USFWS) on a study 
evaluating the use of radar for long-term 
population monitoring of Marbled Mur- 
relets along the Oregon coast. For a sec- 
ond year, Brian collaborated with Martin 
Raphael and Diane Evans of the USDA 
Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Re- 
search Station, on a study investigating 
the feasibility of using a radar as an in- 
ventory and monitoring tool for Marbled 
Murrelets in the Olympic Peninsula. This 
year they began to document both annual 
and seasonal variability in radar counts. 
Brian also worked on a study for the 
Olympic Natural Resources Center that 
used radar techniques to help evaluate the 
current survey protocol for Marbled Mur- 
relets. With the concurrent radar and 
audio-visual observations, they were able 
to begin to measure the proportion of 
birds that are double-counted, missed, or 
that are detected and continue to fly to 
another area during a standard survey. 

Martin G. Raphael and Diane Ev- 
ans, of the US Forest Service (USFS) 


Pacific Northwest Research Station in 
Olympia, WA, continued collaborative 
studies on Marbled Murrelets in 1997. 
At-sea surveys during the breeding season 
in the San Juan Islands, originally estab- 
lished jointly with the Redwood Sciences 
Lab in 1994, were conducted this year 
primarily to evaluate alternative tech- 
niques of estimating productivity. Spe- 
cifically, density-based estimators will be 
compared with adult/juvenile ratios to 
assess the appropriate methods for long- 
term population monitoring. Preliminary 
results indicate that the ratio of the density 
of juveniles to pre-breeding density of 
adults may be a more reliable estimator of 
productivity than simultaneous ratios of 
counts. However, they are concerned that 
neither method yields accurate estimates 
and that using these estimates to param- 
eterize demographic models is problem- 
atic. They are also investigating alterna- 
tive transect layouts for at-sea surveys, 
contrasting results from lines running 
parallel with shore to lines running in 
zigzag and perpendicular patterns. These 
studies are supported in part by the 
USFWS and the National Council for Air 
and Stream Improvement (NCASI), with 
collaboration from Steven Courtney of 
Sustainable Ecosystems Institute. 

At-sea surveys also were conducted in 
Hood Canal in conjunction with radar 
monitoring. Brian Cooper, assisted by 
Bob Day, Alaska Biological Research, 
continued an assessment of radar as a 
long-term monitoring tool on the Olympic 
Peninsula. In collaboration, they began to 
investigate the relationship between at-sea 
densities and numbers of murrelets trav- 
eling inland during the breeding season. 
The third component of this study looks at 
the potential of watershed-scale effects of 
habitat availability on murrelet activity as 
measured by radar flights. Results will be 
reported at the upcoming PSG Annual 
Meeting. 

They completed the third and final 
year of inland surveys on the Quilcene 
Ranger District of the Olympic National 
Forest to evaluate Marbled Murrelet 
habitat characteristics at the stand and 
watershed levels. Inland dawn surveys 
were conducted following PSG protocol 
in 7 subwatersheds, each varying in level 
of forest management. Habitat attributes 
were measured at occupied and unoccu- 
pied sites, and GIS analysis is underway 
to correlate habitat structure, landscape 
pattern, and occupancy. 

Also for the third and final year, they 
collaborated with John Marzluff, Sus- 


tainable Ecosystems Institute and Univer- 
sity of Washington, investigating the risk 
of Marbled Murrelet nests to predation on 
the western Olympic Peninsula. This 
study is supported in part by the Wash- 
ington Department of Natural Resources 
(WDNR), Rayonier Timber Co., USFWS, 
and NCASI, and investigates how the 
numbers of potential predators change 
with forest stand structure and forest 
fragmentation, and how the risk of simu- 
lated murrelet nests to these predators 
increases or decreases under different 
forest conditions. Preliminary results 
suggest that the interrelationship between 
forest patterns and human activity may be 
the biggest influence on predation risk. 
Even a large forest stand may not buffer a 
nest from the intrusion of predators asso- 
ciated with a campground, whereas if the 
human influence is removed, risk of pre- 
dation may decrease with more contigu- 
ous forest. 

David Nyse wander, Joe Evenson, 
Bryan Murphie, and Warren Michaelis 
(all WDFW), have completed the first five 
years of marine bird and waterfowl 
monitoring associated with the Puget 
Sound Ambient Monitoring Program in 
western Washington. In 1997 this in- 
volved summer and winter aerial censuses 
of all inner marine waters and adjacent 
shorelines, which were combined with 
more intensive focus studies by boat last 
winter looking at concentrations of loons, 
grebes, and alcids in central Puget Sound. 
Aerial surveys this last summer were ex- 
panded to include more coverage over 
several months to assist the management 
of the sockeye salmon gillnet fisheries to 
reduce or limit entanglement mortalities 
for alcids like Common Murres and Rhi- 
noceros Auklets. 

Scoter numbers wintering in the 
greater Puget Sound region have remained 
at very low levels over the past five year 
period when compared with the numbers 
seen in these same areas 17-20 years ago. 
Preliminary analyses of contaminant lev- 
els in scoters by Mary Mahaffy 
(USFWS) and others have failed to pin- 
point a cause for this decline. 

Mary Mahaffy is continuing the 
contaminant studies on Surf Scoters in 
Puget Sound. She completed a report on 
scoters collected in the Tacoma, Wash- 
ington area. Overall, surf scoters from 
the Tacoma area appeared to be healthy. 
Although concentrations of mercury and 
chromium slightly increased while the 
scoters were in the area, they were well 
below concentrations known to cause 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 90 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


negative impacts to birds. Concentrations 
of cadmium, copper and zinc decreased 
while the scoters were in the area. The 
scoters were primarily feeding on mus- 
sels, clams, tube worms and snails. Sco- 
ters were collected in Bellingham Bay, 
Washington in fall 1996 and late winter 
1997; however, analytical results are not 
available at this time. Scoters in the 
Bellingham Bay area consumed mussels 
and/or clams. 

Mary Mahaffy and Lee Robinson 
continued a nest box study of pigeon 
guillemots. Wooden nest boxes at Port 
Townsend and Grays Harbor are being 
occupied to a limited extent, but nest 
boxes have been a success on Protection 
Island National Wildlife Refuge. Use of 
nest boxes by guillemots have increased 
annually on Protection Island since they 
were first set out in 1994. In 1997, 28 out 
of 46 boxes were occupied by guillemots, 
an increase from 19 out of 47 boxes in 
1996. However, productivity was lower 
in 1997 than 1996, with only 1.0 
chicks/pair produced in 1997 versus 1.4 
chicks/pair in 1996. Also, in 1996, 89% 
of the occupied nest boxes were success- 
ful and only 68% were successful in 1997. 
Adult birds that were banded as nestlings 
were observed returning to the colony for 
the first time this year, although none 
nested in the boxes. 

Tom Hamer of Hamer Environmental 
(HE), in cooperation with the Mt. Baker- 
Snoqualmie National Forest and NCASI 
began testing the feasibility of using 
modified marine radar to monitor popula- 
tions of Marbled Murrelets at inland sites 
in the North Cascades of Washington. 
Because of the difficulties of observing 
and studying Marbled Murrelets at inland 
sites, there is currently no reliable terres- 
trial tool available to monitor murrelet 
populations on specific forest ownerships 
or in particular regions. Knowledge of 
the statistical power of a survey and 
monitoring program to detect population 
trends is essential if surveys are to detect 
changes in population size or density. 
Objectives of the pilot study were to: (1) 
locate sites in the North Cascades that are 
ideal to use as long-term monitoring loca- 
tions; (2) ascertain the utility of radar as a 
long-term inland monitoring tool in this 
region by sampling these sites and re- 
cording the daily and seasonal variability 
of radar detections to determine the num- 
ber of samples needed to calculate popu- 
lation sizes and trends; (3) conduct power 
analysis of the data to determine the prob- 
ability of detecting population trend 


changes between 0% and 15% over a five 
year period or less. For 1997 the equip- 
ment needed was purchased and assem- 
bled and more than 50 sites were checked 
for their suitability as radar monitoring 
stations in the North Cascade Range. 
Sampling by radar was conducted at 10 of 
these sites. At each survey station radar 
consistently detected many times more 
murrelet targets than ground observers 
using the Pacific Seabird Group Survey 
Protocol methods, especially in areas 
where little suitable habitat existed and 
murrelets appeared to call less frequently. 
Results are preliminary but it appears ra- 
dar monitoring can produce more accurate 
and consistent counts of murrelets than 
ground survey ers and that suitable sites 
exist throughout the North Cascade range 
to allow monitoring of murrelets in this 
region using radar. More intensive sam- 
pling at these sites is planned for 1998 to 
accomplish the third objective. 

Tom Hamer (HE) in collaboration 
with Dr. Steven Beissinger of the Divi- 
sion of Ecosystem Sciences at the Univer- 
sity of California initiated a research and 
monitoring study focused on Marbled 
Murrelets that examines the terrestrial and 
marine factors affecting murrelet density, 
productivity and population trends in 
California, Oregon, and Washington. The 
goal of the project is to determine the 
relative importance of forest landscape 
conditions and marine influences on the 
productivity and population dynamics of 
the Marbled Murrelet. It will be accom- 
plished by monitoring the density, pro- 
ductivity, and population trends of the 
murrelet throughout California, Oregon, 
and Washington, and then determine how 
these factors relate to measures of terres- 
trial and marine habitat quality. Initial 
cooperators in the endeavor include the 
USFWS Technical Support Office (Port- 
land), USFWS North Pacific Coast 
Ecoregion (Olympia), Chris Thompson 
of WDFW, ODFW with Craig Strong of 
Crescent Coastal Research, and Univer- 
sity of California, Berkeley. Others coop- 
erators are being sought. The objectives 
of Phase I of the first two years of a seven 
year program are to: (1) Define the target 
populations to be studied and monitored; 
(2) Conduct a distance sampling marine 
workshop to standardize methodology and 
train observers; (3) Assess the application 
of distance sampling by testing two im- 
portant assumptions of this method; (4) 
Refine the marine survey protocols for 
sampling murrelet population density, 
population trends and productivity (i.e. 


adult/juvenile ratio and juvenile density) 
within each sampling unit and; (5) De- 
velop a sampling protocol for large scale 
monitoring. Phase II of the research pro- 
gram will: (1) Monitor the density, pro- 
ductivity, and population trends of the 
murrelet throughout California, Oregon, 
and Washington; (2) Complete the devel- 
opment of GIS landscape databases; (3) 
Calculate measures of forest and marine 
habitat quality for each local area using 
GIS databases and Landsat images; and 
(4) Conduct landscape level census of 
Corvid populations in each sampling unit 
in each state to use as a terrestrial factor in 
the Phase III analysis. The objectives of 
Phase III are to: (1) Evaluate and better 
understand the relative importance of for- 
est landscape conditions and marine influ- 
ences on the productivity (i.e. 
adult/juvenile ratio and juvenile density) 
and dynamics of the Marbled Murrelet; 
multiple regression and multivariate mod- 
els will be used to examine what combi- 
nation of marine and terrestrial habitat 
features best predicts murrelet density, 
productivity, and population trends; and 
(2) Examine population trends of the 
Marbled Murrelet in each sampling unit 
and across the three-state range. Funding 
was obtained to begin Phase I of the proj- 
ect. In June of this year they conducted a 
distance sampling field workshop in Puget 
Sound to help standardize marine survey 
methodology and train marine research- 
ers. At the workshop researchers were 
instructed on how distance sampling tech- 
nology functions and they reviewed the 
critical assumptions that researchers need 
to meet to use distance sampling method- 
ology. A day was then spent instructing 
researchers how to properly use distance 
sampling techniques in the field and the 
group discussed ways to improve the 
techniques used when conducting marine 
surveys for Marbled Murrelets. Discus- 
sions also began on how to standardize at- 
sea survey methodology across the range 
of the murrelet. The workshop ended 
with a conference call to statistician Jeff 
Laake of the National Marine Mammal 
Laboratory where participants asked Jeff 
questions about marine survey designs 
and how distance sampling methodology 
could work as a tool to monitor Marbled 
Murrelet populations. The workshop was 
a big success and attended by federal, 
state and private researchers from Cali- 
fornia, Oregon and Washington. A report 
of the findings of the workshop will be 
provided to the USFWS Office of Techni- 
cal Support in Portland. 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 91 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


As part of Phase II of their research 
program they also began testing two im- 
portant assumptions about the distance 
sampling methodology that may poten- 
tially be violated when applying the tech- 
nique to the murrelet. Distance sampling 
methods require that all birds near the 
transect line be detected and that little 
movement by birds occur away from the 
transect line as the boat proceeds and 
birds are detected. They examined this 
possibility in detail by determining at 
what distances murrelets dove, flew or 
swam away from approaching vessels by 
using an additional independent observer 
who located individual birds 200-300 m 
ahead of approaching boats and docu- 
mented their behavior. They also exam- 
ined the number of birds near the transect 
line that were missed by observers. Ves- 
sel size was varied to see how it affected 
avoidance behaviors. Only a small sam- 
ple size of 100 matched observations was 
obtained in 1997 between the standard 
observers and the independent third ob- 
server so that additional data will be col- 
lected in 1998. Data is currently being 
analyzed. The second assumption they 
tested concerned the accuracy of distance 
estimates to birds and differences in de- 
tectability of juveniles and adults. Dis- 
tance sampling is susceptible to bias from 
imprecise estimates of the distance of the 
bird from the transect. Tests of among 
observer variation of distance estimates 
was conducted in 1997. Data is currently 
being analyzed. 

The last objective for Phase I 1997 is 
to standardize analyses of line transect 
data sets collected on Marbled Murrelets. 
A fall workshop with a small group of 
principle investigators from each region 
will help train personnel in the use of 
DISTANCE (Laake et al. 1994) and asso- 
ciated software for making density esti- 
mates. The training will help researchers 
minimize the variation in analyses and 
errors due to choice of detection func- 
tions, bin widths and truncation points of 
data tails. Data on adult and juvenile sea- 
sonal population changes and habitat use 
will be examined from each area to de- 
termine the best methods for determining 
adult/juvenile ratio’s and juvenile density. 

Tom Hamer (HE) completed the first 
year of a three year research program 
studying Marbled Murrelet nest density 
and nest success in relation to habitat 
characteristics in Washington. This is a 
companion study to a project being con- 
ducted by Kim Nelson in Oregon that was 
initiated in 1995 is being funded by the 


USFWS, WDNR, and Rayonier Timber 
Company. In 1997, the study established 
thirty 40 m radius plots located randomly 
in three forested sites occupied by Mar- 
bled Murrelets. All trees with potential 
nest platforms were climbed in each plot 
and old and new nests were located. The 
objectives of the study were to: (1) deter- 
mine if nest abundance (density) and nest 
distribution differed between edge and 
interior plots, (2) compare stand structures 
of nest and non-nest plots, (3) locate ac- 
tive nests using tree climbing techniques, 
in addition to eggshell searches and 
monitoring murrelet behavior, (4) com- 
pare nest and stand characteristics be- 
tween successful and unsuccessful nests, 
and (5) describe preferred nest platform, 
nest tree, and nest stand characteristics. 
The first year of the study was a great 
success with nineteen nests located and 
the structural characteristics of the nest 
limb, nest tree, and nest plot recorded. 
The characteristics of random potential 
nest platforms within the stands were also 
recorded. Data analysis is preliminary but 
it appears Marbled Murrelets are selecting 
western hemlock trees for nesting sites 
and avoiding western red cedar, Sitka 
spruce and silver fir trees. Because of the 
random design, the study will provide the 
first unbiased descriptions of the range of 
nest sites used and allow an examination 
of nest site preference for the species. 
These data will be crucial to characteriz- 
ing suitable and optimal habitat, devel- 
oping silvicultural prescriptions for de- 
sired future conditions, providing infor- 
mation for recovery, identifying key vari- 
ables for adaptive forest management, and 
developing methods to avoid or minimize 
take. Results from this study wall be used 
to develop models of stand structural 
characteristics and configurations that will 
maximize habitat suitability (based on 
preference) and reproductive success. 

Julia K. Parrish continued to monitor 
attendance and reproductive success of 
the Tatoosh Island Common Murre 
population. Although this colony has 
suffered from Bald Eagle predation and 
associated egg-predator facilitation in the 
past, eagle activity was down this year 
and murre reproductive success was cor- 
respondingly higher. In fact, despite the 
emerging El Nino, the island’s murres 
posted the highest colony-wide reproduc- 
tive success since she began comprehen- 
sive monitoring in 1992. Associated re- 
search projects concentrating on prey spe- 
cies, food delivery rates, and adult forag- 
ing patterns indicate that like last year the 


murres are feeding their chicks a wide 
variety of fish, mainly Pacific Herring, 
Surf Smelt, Sandlance, and Eulachon. 
Most of the adults they tagged with radio 
telemeters stayed well within rahge of 
fixed receivers (conservative estimate 
about 5 miles) suggesting that the waters 
around Tatoosh may provide ample food 
even in years of presumable food stress. 

Ken Warheit completed the PSG- 
EVOS Report on Seabird Restoration, and 
submitted the final report to USFWS and 
the Exxon Valdez Trustee Council. Ken 
also continued work on Common Murre 
population genetics for populations in 
British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, 
and California. The genetic work was 
conducted in collaboration with Vicki 
Friesen. 

Chris Thompson, WDFW, was in- 
volve with a number of research projects 
this past summer focusing on Marbled 
Murrelets and Common Murres in Wash- 
ington. Chris had five goals for the sum- 
mer of 1997 and his first goal was to con- 
duct 8 replicates of transects oriented par- 
allel to shore at 200, 400, 800, and 1200 
meters from shore, and in a zigzag or 
sawtooth pattern between 100 and 1300 
meters from shore, in order to determine 
which method yields a “better” (i.e., lower 
variance, higher statistical power) index 
of Marbled Murrelet and Common Murre 
abundance. His second goal was to sur- 
vey the entire Washington coast as thor- 
oughly as possible both geographically 
and seasonally to determine general pat- 
terns of abundance and distribution of 
these species. Chris also conducted land- 
based and at-sea surveys of murres using 
the Point Grenville complex of rocks off 
of the Quinault Nation Reservation (city 
of Taholah) and he also surveyed the en- 
tire outer of coast of Washington repeat- 
edly throughout the summer with the spe- 
cific goal of trying to monitor the south to 
north movement of dad-chick pairs of 
Common Murres from the Oregon border 
(Columbia River) up to and eastward 
down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Chris 
also coordinated an extensively survey of 
Washington beaches for dead birds from 
mid-June through mid-August. 

Chris has not analyzed most of his 
survey data yet, however, the land-based 
surveys documented successful breeding 
of about a dozen murres visible from land 
on Big Stack at Point Grenville. Chris 
estimates there were a total of 300-500 
murres on Big Stack this year and the may 
have fledged at least 100 chicks. This is 
the first confirmed breeding at a Wash- 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 92 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


ington colony other than on Tatoosh Is- 
land since the El Nino of 1982-1983. 
Perhaps more significant was the finding 
that the colony followed a phenology es- 
sentially identical to that of Tatoosh Is- 
land, and not of Oregon colonies which 
are about a month earlier. 

Despite the relatively low reproduc- 
tive success of murres at central and north 
Oregon colonies this year, Chris was able 
to accurately track a south to north 
movement of dad-chick pairs. Dad-chick 
pairs first appeared in southern Washing- 
ton in mid-July, and appeared progres- 
sively further north, and finally into the 
strait of Juan de Fuca by early to mid- 
August. In their beached seabird study, 
Chris and others surveyed all of the 
beaches of the outer Washington coast 
from Point Grenville south to the Colum- 
bia River, and much lesser effort further 
north and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. 
Most of their effort was concentrated in a 
27 mile stretch of beach between Ocean 
Shores, immediately north of Gray’s Har- 
bor, to Point Grenville. From mid-June 
through mid-August they collected nearly 
2000 dead murres on this single stretch of 
beach. Various stretches of this 27-mile 
track were surveyed every 1-4 days, usu- 
ally every other day. In general, the rate 
at which birds appeared on the beaches 
increased rapidly from mid-June through 
early July to a maximum rate of about 4 
murres per mile of beach per day, and 
then rapidly declined to about 1 murre per 
mile per day for couple weeks. By early- 
mid-August, the die-off was essentially 
over — at least as far as birds showing up 
on beaches. 

Oregon 

Tom Hamer (HE) began a feasibility 
study this fall for the Oregon Department 
of Forestry (ODF) in Northwest Oregon 
as part of a planned Habitat Conservation 
Plan (HCP) for the region. The purpose 
of the project is to develop a habitat suit- 
ability rating system for Marbled Murrelet 
habitat on ODF managed lands in North- 
west Oregon. The rating system or pre- 
dictive habitat model would be used to 
develop a long-term HCP for Marbled 
Murrelets in cooperation with the 
USFWS. An accurate habitat rating sys- 
tem for murrelets in this region that could 
predict murrelet occupancy and assess the 
relative value of the habitat to the popula- 
tion may allow ODF to cease protocol 
surveys and use the rating system to 
measure and sample murrelet habitat in a 


standardized and repeatable fashion, and 
assess the likelihood that a stand used by 
murrelets as nesting habitat. The model 
would also enable ODF to compare the 
relative habitat value of different stands 
and amounts of habitat to the murrelet 
population, estimate the impact to mur- 
relets and suitable habitat from proposed 
activities outlined in the HCP, and pro- 
vide information on how to develop 
habitat in the future. 

A cooperative study with Paul Hen- 
son of the USFWS, Tom Hamer (HE) 
and Kim Nelson, was conducted in the 
spring and summer of 1997 to determine 
if nesting Marbled Murrelets are nega- 
tively affected by human disturbance. 
Other cooperators included the USFS, 
Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 
private industry, and state forestry and 
wildlife agencies in Washington, Oregon, 
and California. Four active nests were 
located in 1997 in Oregon and Washing- 
ton. Researchers planned to generate arti- 
ficial disturbances near the nest sites and 
record the response of adults and chicks. 
Three nests failed too early to be used for 
the study but one nest in Washington was 
monitored for three weeks with an infra- 
red video camera and responses of adults 
and the chick to various disturbances were 
recorded. Data is in the process of being 
summarized and analyzed. Researchers 
hope to observe a larger sample of nests 
in 1998. 

Craig Strong and Mark Fisher con- 
ducted the 6 th year of surveys of Marbled 
Murrelets off the Oregon coast for the 
Oregon Dept, of Fish & Wildlife 
(ODFW). Repeated surveys of central 
and southern Oregon sub-areas were con- 
ducted this year to Improve power in de- 
tecting population trends, as opposed to 
the statewide coverage attempted in pre- 
vious years. Their initial, unquantified 
impression is that lower numbers of mur- 
relets occurred in central Oregon, but pro- 
ductivity in central and southern Oregon 
appeared higher than in prior years. Con- 
current with murrelet surveys, a large 
database on abundance and productivity 
of other seabirds in nearshore waters of 
Oregon and northern California has been 
assimilated. The survey season was cut 
short this year in mid-August when their 
outboard motors failed and the boat was 
capsized in the surf (no injuries, fortu- 
nately). 

In collaboration with Roy Lowe and 
Dave Pitkin (USFWS), Craig and Mark 
initiated a preliminary program to sample 
seabird prey with partial support from and 


California Department of Fish & Game. 
Gillnet, throw net, seines, otter trawls, 
herring jigs, and hydroacoustic methods 
were used in the nearshore environment 
of the Marbled Murrelet. All methods 
except the seine produced results, but all 
had limitations as well. Surf Smelt and 
Night Smelt were the most frequently 
occurring species. The small, mobile na- 
ture of prey patches made it difficult to 
collect representative prey samples, but 
there was an obvious relation between 
seabird feeding activity and hydroacoustic 
signals. Improved net design and a fo- 
cused sampling program show great po- 
tential for relating prey composition and 
ecology with seabird distribution and pro- 
ductivity. 

For Pat Jodice the summer Of 1992 
should mark the final field season of his 
Ph.D. degree program studying Marbled 
Murrelets in Oregon. This past summer 
was spent conducting more intensive in- 
land surveys in the Oregon Coast Range. 
Pat monitored five different survey sites 
at least 55 times each. Three of the five 
sites were also monitored in 1994 and 
1996. Numbers of daily detections at 
these sites appear to be less than those 
recorded in 1994 but similar to those re- 
corded in 1996, however, further data 
analysis is necessary. Variability of daily 
detections at these three sites appeared to 
be higher in 1996 and 1997, than in 1994. 

Ken Collis and Stephanie Adamany 
of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish 
Commission, and Dan Roby, David 
Craig, Tom Ruszkowski, and Kyle 
Brakensiak of the Oregon Cooperative 
Wildlife Research Unit at Oregon State 
University (OCWRU-OSU) conducted a 
field study of avian predation on juvenile 
salmonids in the Columbia River Basin. 
Their work focused primarily on Caspian 
Terns and Double-crested Cormorants 
nesting in the Columbia River estuary. 
The Caspian Tern colony on Rice Island 
(a dredge spoil island northeast of Asto- 
ria) numbers about 8,000 pairs, the largest 
known colony of this species in North 
America and perhaps the world. About 
85% of the diet of this tern colony con- 
sisted of juvenile salmonids. Only about 
400 young were fledged from the colony, 
however, due to high kleptoparasitism and 
predation rates, primarily by west- 
ern/glaucous-winged gulls. About 6,000 
pairs of double-crested cormorants nest at 
two colonies in the Columbia River estu- 
ary and their reproductive success was 
markedly higher than the terns. Also, 
cormorants did not specialize as much on 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 93 


- — - . REG IONAL REPORTS 

juvenile salmonids as did the terns. The 


proportion of juvenile salmonids in the 
diets of gulls, either in the estuary or fur- 
ther up river, was small. 

S. Kim Nelson and Amanda K. Wil- 
son, (OCWRU-OSU), with the help of 
Kimberly Augenfeld, Snzi Freeman, 
Diane Gilbert, Sean Stephens, Scott 
Hyde and Joe Tremblay, continued their 
research on characterizing Marbled Mur- 
relet habitat on state lands in western 
Oregon (Tillamook and Elliott State For- 
ests). 1997 was the third year of this five 
year project funded by ODF, ODFW and 
USFWS. A total of 23 Marbled Murrelet 
nests (19 old and 4 active) have been lo- 
cated to date. Two additional active nests 
are known on the Tillamook forest from 
1994. Of the active nests, two were suc- 
cessful (1994 and 1995), three failed from 
predation during the chick stage (1994 
and 1997), and one chick starved to death 
(1997). These 25 nests were located in 
young, mature and old-growth forests 
with large platforms or mistletoe and 
other limb deformations that provided a 
suitable substrate for nesting. 

Surveys for Marbled Murrelets were 
also conducted at Mt. Rainier National 
Park in the Washington Cascades by Kim 
Nelson, Gayle Anderson and Tanya 
Zastrow, in a project funded by the Na- 
tional Park Service. Study areas included 
the Carbon River, Mowich and Tahoma 
River drainages. Murrelets were detected 
and are suspected to be nesting in the 
Carbon and Mowich River drainages, 
located in the northwest corner of the 
park. No detections were recorded along 
the Tahoma River which is located in the 
southwest corner of the park and further 
from Puget Sound. In the future, tree 
climbing may help to locate nest sites 
along the Carbon and Mowich Rivers. 

Nelson is also working with the USFS 
PNW Research Station to develop models 
of murrelet habitat in the Oregon Coast 
Ranges Province. The study will include 
using Landsat Thematic Mapper images 
and habitat information from ground plots 
to develop stand- and landscape-level 
models that best predict differences be- 
tween occupied murrelet sites and random 
sites. In addition, offshore data provided 
by Craig Strong will be used to determine 
the relationship between murrelet occur- 
rence offshore and distribution of inland 
suitable habitat. 

She also authored the Birds of North 
America account on the Marbled Mur- 
relet. Copies of this publication, which 
was published by the Philadelphia Acad- 


emy of Sciences and the American Orni- 
thologists’ Union, is available from Buteo 
Books at (800)722-2460. 

In response to the developing El Nino 
conditions in Oregon, Astoria school 
teacher Mike Patterson began conduct- 
ing 1 hour, weekly timed seawatches at 
two coastal locations in Oregon. Using the 
connectivity of the internet, he also asked 
interested observers to make regular, 
timed watches from vantage points all 
along the Oregon and Washington Coast. 
The protocols were intended to be rela- 
tively simple and non-threatening. The 
observer was asked to spend an hour 
watching seabirds each week sorting them 
as flying by, sitting on the ocean or sitting 
on rocks or beaches. There was no at- 
tempt to define “seabird” therefore any 
bird species (i.e., ducks, raptors or pas- 
serines) seen during the period were 
counted. Time of day, wind direction and 
speed, temperature, cloud cover and tide 
were recorded. Three observers at four 
sites produced regular observations using 
the same protocols, two on headlands and 
two on jetties. Others contributed obser- 
vations from sites without all protocols in 
place. The resulting collected observa- 
tions have been archived at 

http://www.pacifier.com/~-mpatters/enso/ 
jetty.html. It is Mike’s intention to con- 
tinue these seawatches through several 
consecutive years and to look for correla- 
tions to nearshore ocean conditions. 

Under the direction of Jan Hodder of 
Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, stu- 
dents continued with the long-term Pe- 
lagic Cormorant monitoring project at 
Cape Arago. This was the 25 th consecu- 
tive year that this colony has been studied. 
Jan will present a poster on this project at 
this years annual meeting in Monterey, 
CA. 

Roy Lowe and David Pitkin of the 
USFWS, Oregon Coastal Refuges Office 
continued seabird monitoring projects 
during the summer of 1997. Aerial pho- 
tographic surveys were conducted of all 
Common Murre and Brandt’s and Dou- 
ble-crested Cormorant colonies on the 
Oregon coast. Select colonies will be 
counted for annual population monitoring. 

In addition, for the third consecutive year 
3 replicate aerial photographic surveys of 
15 north coast Common Murre colonies 
were conducted. Other field work in- 
cluded monitoring Pelagic Cormorant 
nesting attempts at 17 colonies near New- 
port. For the ll lb consecutive year a 
beached bird mortality study was con- 
ducted on 7.1 km of beach located be- 


tween Seal Rock and Alsea Bay in Lin- 
coln County, Oregon. This study is con- 
ducted from June through September and 
the number of dead adult murres recorded 
this year was the second highest since the 
study began. In late September, Roy 
Lowe David Pitkin, Eric Nelson, 
(USFWS) and Deborah Jaques con- 
ducted an aerial survey of Brown Pelicans 
along the Oregon and southern Washing- 
ton coasts. The survey recorded the few- 
est number of pelicans in the survey area 
over the last 10 years as migration had 
apparently begun earlier and occurred 
more swiftly possibly due to El Nino con- 
ditions and extremely early winter storms. 
Surveys of Aleutian Canada Goose use of 
Oregon coastal rocks and islands also 
continued this year. 

Bob and Shirley Loeffel and Don and 
Sara Brown continued to conduct their 
long term beached bird mortality transects 
near Newport, Oregon. Their study is 
conducted on 7.4 km of beach just south 
of Newport, Lincoln County, Oregon. 
This is the 20 th consecutive year of this 
study. The number of dead adult murres 
found on their beach during June and July 
was the second highest in 20 years. 

Dave Huber (BLM-Eugene) con- 
ducted Marbled Murrelet protocol surveys 
at eight sites. One site was documented 
with occupied behaviors. The other seven 
had no detections for the year. They also 
monitored four known occupied sites, and 
three of the sites still had occupancy. 
They also conducted three surveys using 
the high frequency radar and after seeing 
the results from those surveys, they have 
decided to pursue a study using radar to 
determine the population and distribution 
of Marbled Murrelets on the mid to upper 
parts of the Siuslaw River drainage. 

Larry Mangan reports the Coos Bay 
BLM District conducted 469 Marbled 
Murrelet surveys predominately in the 
Oregon Coast Range. Locations included 
areas within the Smith and Umpqua River 
drainages east of Reedsport, areas within 
the Coquille River drainage south and east 
of Coos Bay, and an area in the Klamath 
Province east of Brookings. The surveys 
resulted in 377 detections of murrelets 
and 22 new occupied sites. The District 
participated in the 6 th year of an inter- 
agency study conducted by the Oregon 
Natural Heritage Program to determine 
Western Snowy Plover productivity along 
the Oregon Coast. Key study areas within 
the District were the New River - Floras 
Lake area south of Bandon and the Coos 
Bay North Spit. Nests were protected 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 94 


from predators by wire enclosures. Data 
from the study will be available in late 
fall. In addition, the District removed 
European Beachgrass and deposited shell 
fragments on the North Spit of Coos Bay 
in a continuing effort to restore former 
plover habitat. Two seasonal employees 
conducted educational sessions and 
monitored recreational use in the Floras 
Lake area to minimize human impacts on 
nesting birds. 

Joe Witt (BLM-Roseberg) has com- 
pleted six years of monitoring and inven- 
tory of the inland distribution of Marbled 
Murrelets in Douglas County, OR, and he 
has submitted a manuscript of his work to 
Northwest Science. The inventory and 
monitoring (889 surveys at 105 sites) us- 
ing PSG standards involves both timber 
sale actions (33%) and general distribu- 
tion sites (66%) ranging from 30 to 47 
miles inland. Three occupied sites were 
located within 36 miles of the coast, plus 
three sites with detections only, were re- 
corded within 38 miles from the coast. A 
manuscript has been submitted to North- 
west Naturalist on the farthest inland nest 
site for the Marbled MurreJet in 1994. The 
manuscript deals with both habitat and the 
behavior around the unique site. Mean 
arrival time at the nest site was later than 
previous observations (i.e., literature) plus 
there was a distinct pattern in the detec- 
tion rate during the nesting season. High 
then low, then high again, range: 4 to 25 
detections per survey. 

By Roy Lowe, Newport, Oregon 


NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 


H.T. Harvey and Associates biologists 
David Ainley and Larry Spear have 
been conducting seabird research through 
a variety of studies: 1) they are continuing 
with weekly censuses of marine birds and 
mammals at the deep ocean disposal site 
designed to receive dredged materials 
from San Francisco Bay. Marine birds 
and mammals are censused from SF Bay 
out to the disposal site (20 nm west of the 
Farallon Islands and 50 nm from the 
mainland). In conjunction with this proj- 
ect they are also participating in oceano- 
graphic cruises that examine mid and sur- 
face-water faunas near the site during 
three oceanographic seasons each year: 
winter (Davidson Current), upwelling, 
and oceanic periods. This effort, begun in 
1985, is allowing the assessment of 


REGIONAL REPORTS 

changes in the avifauna on a seasonal and 
annual basis and has shown a continuing 
trend in long-term declines of cold-water 
species; 2) they recently completed an 
analysis of the marine avifauna in the 
vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands, using 
data gathered over a 10-year period, 1983- 
1992, and have also completed the Birds 
of North America species account for 
Newell’s and Townsend’s shearwater; 3) 
in collaboration with the Research Unit 
for Wildlife Population Assessment 
(Scotland, S. Buckland), they continue to 
develop statistical procedures to estimate 
the abundance of seabirds using at-sea 
censuses. They have also been invited to 
participate in a cruise in the Indian Ocean 
by the French Antarctic Program in order 
to assist in refining French at-sea census 
techniques used for the past 15 years; 4) 
they are about to embark on their second 
field season, in collaboration with Land- 
Care Research New Zealand, to investi- 
gate the factors affecting geographic 
structures of seabird colonies (e.g., size 
and spacing). The project, centered on 
penguins in the Ross Sea, uses classical 
colony-based research at three colonies, 
radio telemetry to determine feeding ar- 
eas, assessment of food loads and changes 
in body weight of parents, aerial census- 
ing of colony populations (15 yr. record), 
and satellite imagery of pack ice charac- 
teristics (15 yr. archive). 

Sarah Allen (National Park Service- 
Point Reyes Nat’l Seashore) initiated sur- 
veys for the presence/absence of Ashy 
Storm-Petrels at the Point Reyes Head- 
land in 1997 using tape playback. 
Weather conditions hindered most of the 
surveys but she plans to continue next 
year. Sarah, along with Carol Keiper 
(Moss Landing Marine Laboratories), also 
participated in a week-long cruise in cen- 
tral California surveying marine birds and 
mammals. Seabird activity was very 
patchy and the water temperature reached 

1 8 degrees centigrade during the trip. 
Work continues on Snowy Plovers at 
Point Reyes beaches. In cooperation with 
Gary Page and Jennifer White (Point 
Reyes Bird Observatory - PRBO), nests 
exclosures were built and placed around 

19 out of 25 nests in order to provide 
protection from predation by Common 
Ravens. Only nests with exclosures pro- 
duced fledglings (26 fledglings from 43 
chicks). This is the second year of this 
project and plans are to continue next 
year. In addition, a long-term manage- 
ment plan is in the works for Snowy 
Plovers at Point Reyes. Along with these 


projects, Sarah continues to collaborate 
with the USFWS-San Francisco Bay 
NWRC (SFBNWRC) and PRBO (see 
below) on continuing studies of Common 
Murres at colonies located within the Sea- 
shore. She has also been involved in the 
Natural Resource Damage Assessment of 
the October 1996 Cape Mohican oil spill 
in San Francisco Bay. This spill, which 
spread from the Bay south to Thornton 
Beach and north to Drakes Bay, affected 
shorebirds, seabirds and other marine spe- 
cies. 

Harry Carter, Gerry McChesney 
and Bill M elver continued their contract 
work with USGS-BRD (Dixon Field Sta- 
tion) and Humboldt State University 
Foundation. They are completing a third 
year of studies on Ashy Storm-Petrel 
breeding biology at Santa Cruz Island, 
California. Mclver plans to write up the 
storm-petrel data for a Master’s thesis at 
Humboldt State University. Aerial sur- 
veys of California Channel Islands 
Brandt’s and Double-crested Cormorant 
breeding colonies were conducted again 
for the seventh straight year. Gerry 
McChesney completed his Master’s the- 
sis entitled “Breeding biology of the 
Brandt’s Cormorant at San Nicolas Island, 
California” (congratulations Gerry!). 
Xantus’ Murrelet work included nest sur- 
veys conducted on West Anacapa Island 
(with Frank Gress - see below). Carter 
and McChesney also cooperated with 
Darrell Whitworth and John Takekawa 
(USGS-BRD, California Science Center) 
on a radio telemetry study and surveys of 
Xantus’ Murrelets in the Channel Islands. 
Carter continued his cooperative efforts 
with USFWS-SFBNWRC on restoration 
of Common Murre colonies in central 
California (see below) and with the Cali- 
fornia Dept, of Fish & Game on radio 
telemetry of Marbled Murrelets in central 
California (see below). Carter, Scott 
Newman (UC Davis) and Roger Helm 
(USFWS-Portland) were invited by the 
Wild Bird Society of Japan to assist with 
the assessment of damages from an oil 
spill in the Sea of Japan that occurred in 
the spring of 1997. 

Frank Gress (Dept. Of Wildlife, Fish 
& Conservation Biology-UC Davis; Cali- 
fornia Institute of Environmental Sci- 
ences), in cooperation with Dan Ander- 
son (UC Davis), Scott Newman and Paul 
Kelly (CDFG-OSPR), has been involved 
with a study funded by OSPR assessing 
impacts to Brown Pelicans oiled in the 
Cape Mohican spill in San Francisco Bay. 
A total of thirty pelicans (mostly juve- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 ® Page 95 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


niles), both rehabilitated and healthy 
(serving as controls), were fitted with 
radio transmitters and followed via 
ground and aerial surveys. This study 
will continue through November of this 
year. Frank has also continued his efforts 
at refining aerial survey techniques of 
Brown Pelican, Double-crested and 
Brandt’s cormorant colonies on Anacapa 
Island using large-format, high resolution 
photography. He has found that this tech- 
nique works well for pelican colonies, but 
is only marginally useful for cormorants 
because of their nesting habitat (cliffs). 
Other work includes finishing a summary 
of organochlorine contaminants in Dou- 
ble-crested Cormorants and Brown Peli- 
cans from the years 1977-1992 and col- 
laboration with Gerry McCbesney and 
Harry Carter on nest habitat characteri- 
zation of Xantus’ Murrelets breeding on 
Anacapa Island. 

Jim Harvey and graduate students 
(Moss Landing Marine Laboratories- 
MLML) are continuing various seabird 
studies in the Monterey Bay area. Scott 
Benson (in conjunction with Don Croll 
and others at UCSC) is continuing a sec- 
ond year of strip transects for seabirds and 
line transects for marine mammals in 
Monterey Bay. The visual surveys are 
conducted while also gathering hy- 
droacoustic information regarding prey 
relative abundance and distribution and 
net tows to identify prey species and size 
classes. Surveys are conducted mostly 
during late summer and fall. Jennifer 
Parkin is finishing her research on Cas- 
pian Terns in Elkhorn Slough. She began 
her studies in 1993, determining feeding 
ecology, nesting chronology and the pos- 
sible effects of pollutants on the repro- 
ductive failure of this colony in 1995. 
Jamie Scholton is finishing his studies of 
Brandt’s Cormorants near Monterey. 
Since 1993, he has investigated the atten- 
dance and colony size, food habits and 
nesting behavior of a large colony on Bird 
Rock (Point Lobos). Pam Byrnes is 
completing her studies of Great and 
Snowy Egrets and Great Blue Herons in 
Elkhorn Slough. She has investigated the 
distributional patterns relative to habitat 
types, foraging behavior and abundance 
of these species. Other MLML work in- 
cludes training local volunteers to conduct 
beach walks in the Monterey Bay area as 
part of a monitoring program funded by 
the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanc- 
tuary and California Urban Environmental 
Research and Education Center. The goal 
is to establish a 10-20 year dataset re- 


garding stranded seabirds and marine 
mammals that may be used as a baseline 
for monitoring upper trophic levels of the 
sanctuary. 

Deborah Jaques and Craig Strong 
(Crescent Coastal Research) initiated 
studies of seabirds at Castle Rock NWR 
for the USFWS (Kevin Foerster, Kim 
Forrest at Humboldt Bay NWR). Boat 
and shore-based surveys, along with 
analysis of aerial photographs taken by 
Mike Parker (USFWS/SFBNWRC-see 
below) and Harry Carter will produce 
updated population estimates for Com- 
mon Murres, Tufted Puffins, Pigeon 
Guillemots, and all three cormorant spe- 
cies on Castle Rock, the second largest 
seabird colony in California. Pelagic 
Cormorant productivity was monitored at 
a smaller colony nearby, and data on pro- 
ductivity of murres and guillemots was 
collected in conjunction with research on 
Marbled Murrelets (see Oregon report). 
Work conducted this season will hope- 
fully represent the beginning of an annual 
monitoring program and a basis for future 
studies to include auklets and petrels. 
Deborah and Craig developed a prelimi- 
nary biological assessment of impacts of 
human disturbance to seabirds and marine 
mammals from lighthouse restoration at 
St. George Reef in Del Norte County. 
Nesting Pelagic Cormorants, post- 
breeding Steller Sea Lions and a Pere- 
grine Falcon roost site are the primary 
concerns. Field work on this project will 
continue into the fall. Deborah (working 
for CDFG North Coast Region) conducted 
surveys of waterbirds at Lakes Earl and 
Talawa, a large coastal lagoon system 
which supports nesting Western Grebes. 
She also surveyed beaches in Del Norte 
County for nesting Snowy Plovers. Craig 
and Mark Fisher, in cooperation with 
CDFG-OSPR (Paul Kelly), initiated a 
seabird prey sampling program in north- 
ern California. Gillnets, throw nets, otter 
trawls and herring jigs all had limited 
success, and seines were promising with 
design modifications. Osmerid smelt 
were the most common among the 10 
prey species caught. Once the kinks have 
been worked out, this prey sampling pro- 
gram will hopefully provide excellent 
information when integrated with seabird 
monitoring and tracking of oceanographic 
variables. 

Scott Newman and J.G. ZinkPs (UC 
Davis - Wildlife Health Center) research 
on baseline blood parameters of seabirds 
was completed in December 1996 and a 
report entitled “Establishment of hema- 


tological, serum biochemical and electro- 
phoretogram reference intervals for spe- 
cies of marine birds likely to be impacted 
by oil spill incidents in the state of Cali- 
fornia” was produced. Blood reference 
ranges were established for 9 species of 
birds during the past several years through 
the collaborative efforts of numerous vol- 
unteers, personnel and agencies. The 
project was supported by Mike Sobey and 
Dave Jessup (CDFG-OSPR). Scott is 
also involved in another collaborative 
effort to measure stress levels associated 
with effects of capture, restraint and at- 
tachment of radio-telemetry units on 
Xantus’ Murrelets. This study will eluci- 
date the biological effects of these proce- 
dures on this species and will assist with 
the identification of better handling tech- 
niques for all marine bird species. This 
work is funded by the Oiled Wildlife 
Network’s Competitive Grants Program 
and cooperators include: Harry Carter, 
Darrel Whitworth, Gerry McChesney, 
Bill Mclver, John Takekawa, and Paige 
Martin (Channel Islands Nat’l. Park). 
Scott has also been a cooperator on a 
study of Marbled Murrelets in central 
California (see MAMU section below). 
For the third consecutive year, Common 
Murre carcasses were recovered along the 
central California cost by numerous 
groups (CDFG, USGS-BRD, USFWS, 
NOAA-Gulf of the Farallones National 
Marine Sanctuary and Monterey Bay Na- 
tional Marine Sanctuary’s beach watch 
programs, Monterey ASPCA and Interna- 
tional Bird Rescue and Research Center). 
Murres recovered in 1995 were necrop- 
sied and found to be extremely emaciated, 
some with fungal lesions and others with 
fish hooks present in their stomachs. 
Roughly 50 murres from 1996 will be 
necropsied this year. Twelve murres 
found in 1997 were necropsied in mid- 
August but did not show signs of emacia- 
tion. Brevitoxin, a biotoxin associated 
with red tide is being investigated as a 
possible cause for this year’s die off. 

Mark Rauzon participated in sur- 
veying seabirds and searching for Specta- 
cled Eider nests on St. Lawrence Island 
this summer with the USFWS-Migratory 
Bird Division. He continued research on 
Hawaiian Stilt’s response to habitat resto- 
ration as part of a mangrove eradication 
program on the Kaneohe Marine Corps 
Base. Here he also monitored the repro- 
ductive success of Red-footed Boobies 
nesting in the Ulupa’u Crater where na- 
tive vegetation has been reintroduced to 
help surpress fires that threaten the col- 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 96 


ony. Also, Mark’s children’s book “Sea- 
birds” was recently published in paper- 
back (congratulations Mark!). 

Marbled Murrelet Research 

Esther Burkett (CDFG) continued 
her efforts to coordinate Marbled Murrelet 
research in California. Working in coop- 
eration with Paul Henson and Lynn 
Roberts (USFWS), John Takekawa, 
Harry Carter, Scott Newman, Rick 
Golightly (Humboldt State University), 
Gary Strachen (Ano Nuevo State Re- 
serve), Dave Jessup, Bud McCrary, 
John Bulgar (Big Creek Lumber Co.), 
and Dana Jones (Big Basin Redwoods 
State Park), CDFG launched a radio- 
telemetry study of Marbled Murrelets in 
the Santa Cruz mountains area of central 
California in May 1997. The study, 
funded by the USFWS, entailed three 
capture efforts conducted in May, June 
and August utilizing the spot-lighting and 
dip net technique perfected on Xanius’ 
Murrelets in the Channel Islands by 
Darrell Whitworth, Harry Carter and 
others. Forty-three murrelets were cap- 
tured in Ano Nuevo Bay, 24 of which 
were radio-equipped in the May and June 
efforts. Most of the birds had fully devel- 
oped brood patches. Blood samples col- 
lected by Scott Newman from 41 mur- 
relets will be analyzed for baseline pa- 
rameters. Stress hormone and genetic 
analyses will be performed by Vicki Frie- 
sen (Queens University, Canada) for 
comparison with other populations of 
murrelets in the northwest and Canada. 
Two birds were recaptured in August that 
had been radio equipped in May. Two 
CDFG patrol vessels as well as a private 
vessel owned by Jim Christmann as- 
sisted with the capture of birds. CDFG 
pilots and pilot Bob VanWagenen 
(Ecoscan Resource Data) tracked birds 
from the air. Tree climbing was con- 
ducted by Jim Spickler and Dana 
Laughlin (Eco-Ascension Research). 
Four nest sites/areas were located inland: 
2 at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, 1 in 
Pescadero Creek County Park, and 1 at 
Scott Creek (Big Creek Lumber Co.). An 
additional nesting attempt was also docu- 
mented at Big Basin but the pair aban- 
donned the site prior to egg-laying, possi- 
bly due to human disturbance. The tele- 
metered bird from this pair may have been 
taken by a Peregrine Falcon. All four 
confirmed nests failed, one due to preda- 
tion by a Red-shouldered Hawk. Causes 
of the other nest failures are unknown, but 
Steller’s Jays were noted as numerous in 


REGIONAL REPORTS 

the vacinity of all of the sites. Data is still 
being compiled and analyzed and will be 
presented at the PSG meeting in January 
1998. Plans for next year are still in the 
works, but should continue with addi- 
tional research aspects being explored. 

Ben Becker and Steve Beissinger 
(UC Berkeley) continued their 3 rd year of 
at-sea surveys from Santa Cruz to Half 
Moon Bay investigating density and pro- 
ductivity of Marbled Murrelets. Their 
data suggest that 1997 was another year of 
low productivity. This work will continue 
in 1998 and Ben has been accepted into 
the PhD program at UC Berkeley and will 
be conducting murrelet research under 
Steve Beissinger. Jack Ames and Paul 
Kelly (CDFG) assisted with this study by 
providing support and access to a vessel 
for extensive surveys. Big Creek Lumber 
Co. also provided support for the project. 

C.J. Ralph and Sherri Miller (USFS- 
Redwood Sciences Lab) continued their 
at-sea surveys of murrelet density and 
productivity in northern California. They 
also conducted inland surveys on Pacific 
Lumber Co. lands and in Humboldt Red- 
woods State Park. The inland surveys 
were done as part of the baseline data for 
the Pacific Lumber Habitat Conservation 
Plan, which is still under heavy negotia- 
tion. 

Steve and Stephanie Singer (Santa 
Cruz Mountains Murrelet Group) con- 
ducted their 18 th season of inland moni- 
toring of murrelets and their nesting 
habitat in the Santa Cruz Mountains. 
They continue to find new occupied sites. 
With assistance from Mike Jani and 
John Bulger, Steve completed mapping 
of the remaining old-growth forest in the 
area for inclusion in a forthcoming Habi- 
tat Conservation Plan. Next summer 
Steve and Stephanie plan to continue their 
research on the location and characteriza- 
tion of Marbled Murrelet nesting habitat. 
Supporters of this research have included 
the California Dept, of Parks and Recrea- 
tion, the Sempervirens Fund, the Save the 
Redwoods League, and the Santa Cruz 
Mountains Bioregional council. 

Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) 
Farallon Island and Marine Programs: A 
new Farallon Biologist, Kelly Hastings 
(formerly of University of Alaska), was 
hired in the spring of 1997. She, along 
with Bill Sydeman and Michelle Hester, 
in cooperation with the USFWS- 
SFBNWRC, continued long-term moni- 
toring of population size, reproductive 
performance and prey utilization of 
twelve species of seabirds breeding on 


Southeast Farallon Island (SEFI). Other 
work on SEFI includes cooperation with 
Joelle Buffa (USFWS-SFBNWRC) to 
implement new management and protec- 
tion strategies for the declining Ashy 
Storm-Petrel (see below). Bill Sydeman, 
Harry Carter, Jean Takekawa 
(USFWS-Nisqually NRWC) and Nadav 
Nur (PRBO) have completed a compre- 
hensive investigation of Common Murre 
population trends on SEFI from 1985- 
1995. Other work on murres conducted 
by Hester, Hastings and Sydeman in- 
cluded collecting data on attendance pat- 
terns, k-correction factors, non-breeding 
attendance and breeding site history as 
part of a collaborative effort with the 
USFWS-SFBNWRC Apex Houston Sea- 
bird Restoration Project (see below). Na- 
than Fairman, Julie Thayer, Marcy 
Brown and Karen Carney, in coopera- 
tion with Daphne Hatch (NPS-Golden 
Gate National Recreation Area), contin- 
ued to monitor the disturbance effects of 
human use on seabirds, particularly 
Brandt’s Cormorants, breeding on Alca- 
traz Island. Fairman and Thayer also 
continued the sixth year of monitoring of 
the Rhinoceros Auklet population and 
other wildlife on Ano Nuevo Island for 
the Ano Nuevo State Reserve. This proj- 
ect is funded by the Monterey Bay Na- 
tional Marine Sanctuary and as well as by 
private foundations. Jennifer Roth and 
Sarah Thome, in cooperation with Paige 
Martin (Channel Islands National Park), 
are continuing to monitor the population 
size, productivity and phenology of eight 
species of seabirds breeding on Santa 
Barbara Island. At the Point Reyes 
Headlands, Julie Thayer, collaborating 
with Sarah Allen, continued a third year 
of monitoring of Common Murre and 
Brandt’s Cormorant colonies at Elephant 
Cove Beach. Sydeman, Mary Beth 
Decker and Dan Howard (Cordell Bank 
National Marine Sanctuary) continued 
another year of research into the relation- 
ship between the Point Reyes Upwelling 
Plume and the distribution and abundance 
of macrozooplankton, larval and juvenile 
fish and seabirds. This year’s work was 
expanded to include the Davenport 
Plume. Bill Sydeman continues his work 
on his PhD dissertation at UC Davis, Mi- 
chelle Hester has almost completed her 
M.S. thesis at MLML, and Nathan Fair- 
man will be heading off to graduate 
school at Simon Fraser University. 

Pacific Flyway Project: Gary Page 
and Lynn Stenzel are continuing to sum- 
marize many years worth of data from the 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 97 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


Pacific Flyway project. They collabo- 
rated for a second year with Sarah Allen 
(see above) in placing predator exclosures 
around Federally Endangered Snowy 
Plover nests on Point Reyes beaches. 
This project has been very successful to 
date and will continue next year. Gary 
and Lynn also worked with USFWS- 
SFBNWRC biologist Erin Fernandez 
(see below) in placing exclosures around 
plover nests in Monterey County. Dave 
Shuford conducted surveys of Black 
Terns in the interior of California as part 
of a status review of this species for the 
USFWS. 

USFWS/San Francisco Bay NWRC: In 
early 1997, Joelle Buffa, formerly of the 
U.S. Forest Service, took the Supervisory 
Wildlife Biologist position left vacant at 
the Refuge when Jean Takekawa moved 
to the Nisqually NWRC. 

The Apex Houston Seabird Restora- 
tion Project, led by Refuge biologist Mike 
Parker, in conjunction with Humboldt 
State University Foundation biologists 
Jennifer Boyce and Elizabeth McLaren, 
continued for a second year. With able 
boat assistance from Harry Carter, de- 
coys of Common Murres were again 
placed on Devil’s Slide Rock in late Janu- 
ary 1997. In early March, Virginia 
Collins, David Nothhelfer and Richard 
Young joined the team. Information on 
attendance patterns, behavior, productiv- 
ity, diet and anthropogenic factors was 
collected from Common Murre colonies 
at Point Reyes Headlands, Castle Rocks 
and Hurricane Point Rocks, in addition to 
Devil’s Slide Rock. 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. At the Devil’s Slide 
Rock colony, a total of 3 Common Murre 
chicks fledged in 1996 and 6 fledged in 
1997. The refuge is working coopera- 
tively on this project with Harry Carter 
(USGS-BRD), Rick Golightly (Humboldt 
State University Foundation), Steve 
Kress (National Audubon Society), and 
Bill Sydeman, Michelle Hester and 
Kelly Hastings (PRBO). 

Refuge biologist Joy Albertson and 
others are continuing efforts to monitor 
the recovery of California Clapper Rail 
populations in San Francisco Bay 
marshes. She is also monitoring Snowy 
Plovers breeding at the Refuge. Joelle 
Buffa is working with PRBO to develop 
and implement a design for predator ex- 


closures to protect Ashy Storm-Petrels 
from predation by Western Gulls on SEFI. 
Two exclosures will be erected this fall to 
test their effectiveness. Biologist Erin 
Fernandez continued her collaborative 
efforts with PRBO to monitor and protect 
Snowy Plover at the Salinas NWR and at 
other sites in Monterey County. Predator 
exclosures were again erected around 
nests in 1997. 

Other News 

The California Seabird Research Co- 
ordination Workshop was held in late 
January 1997 and hosted by D. Michael 
Fry at the Center for Avian Biology, UC 
Davis. The workshop was well-attended 
and served as an excellent way of ex- 
changing information about research ac- 
tivities and funding opportunities in Cali- 
fornia. The next workshop is scheduled 
for 14 November 1997 will again by 
hosted by Mike Fry at the Center for 
Avian Biology. For details on the January 
meeting or the upcoming November 
meeting, contact Mike at (916) 752-0753. 

By Elizabeth McLaren, Newark, Cali- 
fornia 


SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 
REGION 


Gene Fowler has returned from a 
sabbatical year and is back teaching con- 
servation biology and comparative endo- 
crinology at Pomona College. He spent 
part of the sabbatical continuing his stud- 
ies of stress responses in Magellanic pen- 
guins in Argentina. In one ecotourism- 
related study, he found that visitation rates 
of 3,000 - 5,000 tourists per year over the 
last 5 years have not resulted in habitua- 
tion at the hormonal level, even though 
the birds behave more calmly than those 
on a non-tourist island. He’s also cur- 
rently conducting discussions with 
USFWS about beginning ecotourism- 
stress studies on Midway Atoll NWR, 
targeting especially the albatrosses there. 

Judith Latta Hand is not currently 
involved in any ornithological research, 
but instead, is exercising her right brain 
with creative writing. She continues to 
write her thriller novels, using her vast 
knowledge in ecology and her years of 
travel as background. She is at present 
trying to publish her second novel in the 
series, with her female protagonist. Look 


for her books soon at your local bookstore 
and airport. 

Kathy Keane is Statewide Coordina- 
tor for California Least Tern monitoring 
for California Department of Fish and 
Game. She is working on publishing a 
paper that she presented at the Colonial 
Waterbirds meeting in 1996 on the sur- 
vival factors that enhance recruitment of 
least terns. She is still working for the 
Port of Los Angeles doing Least Tern 
monitoring at the San Pedro site. The Port 
created 10 acres for a new Least Tern site 
Vj mile from existing site, building chick 
shelters and putting out decoys. At this 
site there were more nests, over 100, than 
in last 1 0 years at the other San Pedro site, 
as well as 25 Caspian Tern nests. Few 
predators had good reproductive success. 
Kathy also did some population monitor- 
ing at Batiquitos. She is also still running 
every day in order to keep up her energy 
to do so many different things. 

John Konecny coordinated the 
monitoring of the California Least Tern 
colony at Mariner’s Point during the 
ESPN X Games. He was lead on the 
1997 bird monitoring study in the West- 
ern Salt ponds area in south San Diego 
Bay. Species he studied included the 
Black Skimmer, and Caspian, Elegant, 
Royal, Forster’s and Least terns. He also 
monitored the bird populations at Batiq- 
uitos Lagoon with Kathy Keane. Fi- 
nally, he was the USFWS coordinator for 
researchers from the Western Foundation 
and the Peregrine Fund who were study- 
ing Least Tern and Peregrine Falcon in- 
teractions in Long Beach and San Diego. 

Pat Mock has been busy, having 
taken on a number of new projects. He is 
overseeing a regional conservation plan 
for the Palos Verdes Peninsula (LA Co.); 
is the lead biologist for the San Marcos 
(San Diego Co.) subarea conservation 
plan; and is a principal biologist involved 
in regional multi-species conservation 
plans for northwestern San Diego Co. and 
the Lower Colorado River. Pat is also 
initiating a wildlife corridor-monitoring 
program for a CALTRANS highway proj- 
ect in western Riverside Co. In addition, 
he teaches an introductory ecology course 
at UCSD and has been providing Pat 
Baird moral support for her politically- 
charged least tern monitoring project at 
the Mission Bay ESPN X-Games site. 
Other than all that, he has tons of free 
time! 

Nancy Read is still monitoring the 
seabirds at Vandenberg Air Force Base. 
She found a total of 31 Brandt’s Cormo- 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1 997 • Page 98 


rant nests including one nest with depend 
young on August 26 th . There were also 
seven Pelagic Cormorant nests visible, 
and there may have been more in inacces- 
sible areas. There were successful nests 
of an unknown number of Pigeon 
Guillemots and Black Oystercatchers as 
well. Hopefully the question marks in 
these numbers will be cleared up iiext 
year when a longer-term study com- 
mences at the major colonies at Vanden- 
berg. 

Charlie Collins is finishing up many 
years’ worth of studies on California 
Least Tern at Seal Beach and Camp 
Pendleton, and now has the prodigious 
task of writing it all up and publishing it! 
He is administering other California Least 
Tern and Western Snowy Plover moni- 
toring projects, and is in his second year 
of a SeaGrant study on heavy metals in 
the tern ecosystem at Bolsa Chica wildlife 
preserve in the Huntington Beach area. 
He and Mike Horn are writing up that 
research. He is busy teaching and advis- 
ing his many many graduate students. 

Walter Wehtje is getting his Ph.D. in 
landscape ecology at the University of 
California Riverside. He is conducting 
research on patch dynamics and birds’ 
distribution. He is trying to find out if 
distribution is based on preferable habitat 
or on social aspects. He is doing most of 
the work on San Nicholas Island, on 
Cactus Wrens that inhabit the coastal sage 
habitat. He is also working for the 
USFWS, conducting a land bird census 
San Nicholas Island via point counts, mist 
netting, and banding. 

Pat Baird, as regional representative 
from PSG, commented on an EIR and an 
EIS for the City of Long Beach, and the 
U.S. Navy, regarding the destruc- 
tion/moving of the west coast’s largest 
colony of Black-crowned Night Herons 
on a decommissioned USN site being 
transferred to the City of Long Beach as a 
new port facility. This year, the majority 
of the colony did not return for reasons 
unknown, although at present there is a 
halt to cutting down the trees in which 
they nest. 

She is meeting with a Long Beach city 
councilman to try to prevent the paving 
over and creation of a shopping center on 
a temporary wetlands at the Long 
Beach/Seal Beach boundary. This area is 
a rich stopping-off or wintering area for 
numerous species including black-necked 
stilts, American Avocets, Herring Gulls, 
Heermann’s Gulls, Western Sandpipers, 
and many other species of shorebirds and 


REGIONAL REPORTS 

seabirds. She is also meeting with the 
same councilman in order to try to miti- 
gate an extension of a major highway 
through a wetlands area in Long Beach. 
So far, no final plans have been made, but 
we are working on a compromise plan for 
a small diversion of the highway around 
the wetlands. As regional representative, 
she commented on an Environmental As- 
sessment in support of the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife-sponsored South San Diego Bay 
Refuge, an overlay refuge in a very busy 
port. This area has a variety of shorebird 
and seabird species which nest and over- 
winter there, and which is very important 
to the greater San Diego ecosystem. 

Pat Baird also just completed a four- 
year foraging study on California Least 
Terns in the San Diego area. Since she is 
on a short sabbatical from teaching at 
California State University Long Beach, 
now she has the arduous task of writing 
up that research and earlier research that 
has sat in notebooks till the present. She 
also completed a detailed study on Least 
Tern behavior to disturbances caused by 
sports events in the Mission Bay area for 
ESPN. Her conclusion: “no wonder 
[L]east [Tjerns are endangered; they 
spend so much energy getting off and on 
their nests all day, they can’t make up the 
energy deficit from what they glean from 
the marine food web.” She is currently 
also working on other grants and exercis- 
ing her right brain by performing at vari- 
ous invited functions as part of a women’s 
frame drumming group, Lipushiau. 

K. David Hyrenbach is a graduate 
student in Biological Oceanography at 
Scripps Institute of Oceanography. This 
year he advanced to candidacy. His dis- 
sertation is on Black-Footed Albatrosses’ 
habitat use off Southern California. He is 
collaborating with Dick Veit on the 
monitoring of seabird abundance and dis- 
tribution within the CalCOFI grid. Dur- 
ing the July cruise he tagged five Black 
Foots with ARGOS satellite tags and he 
plans to conduct additional work next 
summer. In addition to surveys off Cali- 
fornia, he spent part of the summer up in 
the SE Bering Sea working on Short- 
tailed Shearwater on a cruise with George 
Hunt (his thesis co-advisor). 

Lisa Ballance and Bob Pitman, 
NMFS, Southwest Fisheries Science 
Center spent much of the last year sailing 
on dedicated marine mammal cruises, 
mostly in high latitudes: Bering Sea, Gulf 
of Maine, Antarctica, North Pacific gyre, 
but including two tropical areas: Southern 
Indian Ocean near Madagascar and in the 


northern Gulf of California. They have 
also continued to analyze seabird data for 
tropical systems, focusing on the foraging 
ecology of Dark-rumped Petrel in the 
eastern Pacific. They are preparing for a 
big field season in 1998 during which 
they will be returning to the eastern tropi- 
cal Pacific for an extensive four-month 
cruise in the fall. This will be the first of 
a three-year cruise. They will be watching 
for El Nino anomalies with respect to the 
seabird community at sea. Also planned 
is a visit to the Maldives in May. 

Tim Burr, Resources Management 
Branch of the USN, is now in charge of 
all the Navy-associated biology at Camp 
Pendleton (San Diego County CA). He is 
in the midst of preparing next year’s 
budget and trying to procure adequate 
money for research... no small task, akin to 
alchemy or viewing crystal balls. He at- 
tended the Wildlife Society meetings in 
Snowmass, Colorado in September. 

Mike Horn continues to do research 
on foraging ecology of terns at Bolsa 
Chica (Huntington Beach, CA) and the 
Saltworks (San Diego, CA). He is work- 
ing with Darryl Smith, a Sea Grant 
trainee, Waslia Dahdul, Nancy Tham, 
Gwen Carreon and Lize Eriguel, his 
students. He is also collaborating on tro- 
phic structure and heavy metal accumula- 
tion in Least Terns at Bolsa Chica and 
South San Francisco Bay with Zed Ma- 
son (California State University Long 
Beach) and Charlie Collins (California 
State University Long Beach). 

Mike McCrary and Mark Pierson, 
MMS, hosted the Southern California 
Seabird Research regional conference on 
6 June 1997. The meeting was well- 
attended. Linda Dye, Kate and Bill 
Faulkner, Sean Hastings and Dan Ri- 
chards represented the Channel Islands 
Marine Sanctuary of the NPS, Paul Kelly 
from California Fish and Game and Dan 
Robinette and Pat Baird from California 
State University Long Beach were pres- 
ent, as well as a contingency from the 
USGS - Bill Mclver, Harry Carter and 
Darrell Whitworth (BRD). The military 
was well-represented with Grace Smith 
and Tom Keeney (USN-Pt. Mugu) and 
Nancy Read (USAF-Vandenberg), and of 
course the USFWS-Ventura field office 
attended, represented by Carl Benz, Kirk 
Wain, David Pereksta, Jim Watkins, 
Robert Mesta, and Kate Symonds. 

The program was funded by the Naval 
Air Weapons Station (NAWS) at Point 
Mugu, and the main purpose was to re- 
view all seabird research in the Southern 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 99 


REGIONAL REPORTS 


California Bight which was funded by the 
NAWS. The program lasted till mid- 
afternoon and consisted of the following 
brief papers: cormorant monitoring on 
San Nicholas Island; population status 
assessment of Xantus’ Murrelets and 
Ashy Storm-Petrels; telemetry of Xantus’ 
Murrelets; Breeding biology of Ashy 
Storm-Petrels; and roosting studies of 
Brown Pelicans. After lunch we dis- 
cussed issues related to listing of the 


Xantus’ Murrelet and the Ashy Storm- 
Petrel, and other future research needs for 
all seabird species in the Southern Cali- 
fornia region. 

Michael McCrary and Mark Pier- 
son have completed a three-year study on 
the seasonal abundance and distribution of 
shorebirds which use the sandy beaches in 
Ventura County. Michael is writing up 
the data for publication . . . never easy ! ! He 
and Mark have also completed 12 aerial 


surveys of seabirds and marine mammals 
along the coast of southern California 
from northern Los Angeles County to 
southern San Luis Obispo County. These 
surveys are part of an ongoing research 
project that lasts through December 1998. 
Surveys will be flown every 6-8 weeks. 

By Pat Baird , Long Beach, California 



Pacific Seabirds » Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 100 


BULLETIN BOARD 


PH.D. STUDENT POSITION 
AT OREGON STATE UNI- 
VERSITY TO STUDY SEA- 
BIRD RESTORATION 


A Graduate Research Assistantship for 
a PhD. candidate is available for an indi- 
vidual interested in conducting research 
on factors influencing restoration of Pi- 
geon Guiilemots in the aftermath of the 
Exxon Valdez oil spill. 

Applicants must have a M.S. in biol- 
ogy or related field and be available by 
April 1997 to begin preparations for field 
work. The successful applicant will be 
enrolled in the graduate program in the 
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at 
Oregon State University in Corvallis. The 
Graduate Research Assistantship will 
provide tuition and stipend, in addition to 
covering costs of conducting research 
based at the Alaska SeaLife Center in 
Seward, Alaska. 

The candidate will be expected to 
conduct both laboratory and field research 
on the effects of diet and ingested pollut- 
ants on growth and health of young 
guillemots. The primary objectives of the 
research are to (1) assess the role of diet 
composition on chick growth and (2) 
identify blood biomarkers of individual 


health in the Pigeon Guillemot, a seabird 
species that has failed to recover from the 
direct effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez 
spill. The approach will be to conduct 
controlled experiments with nestling 
guillemots raised in captivity at the 
SeaLife Center. The candidate must be 
willing to cooperate, coordinate, and col- 
laborate with other scientists in the col- 
lection of lab and field data and the care 
of guillemots in captivity. Applicants 
must have a Masters degree in biology or 
related field. Individuals with previous 
field experience with seabirds and/or cap- 
tive rearing of birds are especially en- 
couraged to apply. 

To apply for this position, please send 
a copy of your C.V., a letter expressing 
your interest in the position and how it fits 
into your career goals, copies of your 
transcripts, a copy of your GRE scores, 
and the names, addresses, and phone 
numbers of 3 references to: 

Dan Roby, Assistant Unit Leader, 
Oregon Cooperative Wildlife Research 
Unit, Department of Fisheries and Wild- 
life, 104 Nash Hall, Oregon State Univer- 
sity, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-3803 USA; 
Phone: 541-737-1955; Fax: 541-737- 

3590; Internet: robyd@ccmail.orst.edu 


SCOTT JOHNSTON MOVES 
TO WASHINGTON, DC 


Scott Johnson has taken a job with the 
Endangered Species Division in the Fish 
and Wildlife Service's Washington DC 
office. He will be working in the listing 
department then moving on to the Recov- 
ery branch soon after. 

His last day in Hawaii was November 
6 and he started work in DC on November 
19. His email will remain the same. His 
new address is: USFWS, Division of 
Endangered Species, 4401 N. Fairfax 
Drive, Room 452, Arlington, Virginia 
22203, USA. Telephone number: 703- 
358-2171 


VOLUNTEER POSITIONS IN 
THE BARREN ISLANDS, 
ALASKA 


Two volunteers are needed to help 
with field work for a seabird study in the 
Barren Islands, Alaska, during 5 Jun - 20 
Sep, 1998. We will collect information 
on the productivity of Common Murres, 
Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Tufted Puf- 



Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 101 


BULLETIN BOARD 






fins and the diets, feeding frequencies, 
and growth rates of their chicks. Rock 
climbing and boating are involved. The 
islands are isolated, rugged, wet, and 
windy. Applicants must be in excellent 
physical condition and able to make care- 
ful observations over long periods of time. 
Experience in marine environments is 
useful. Transportation and a stipend are 
provided. 

If interested, please send a cover letter 
and resume to the field team leader: Ar- 
thur Kettle, Alaska Maritime National 
Wildlife Refuge, 2355 Kacbemak Bay 
Drive / Suite 101, Homer, Alaska 99603- 
8021 USA. Telephone: (907) 235-6546. 
E-mail: Arthur_Kettle@mailfws.gov 


PETREL BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A provisional bibliography of the Pro- 
cellariiformes or petrels, a fully key- 
worded listing of 12,830 papers and books 
on these birds is now available on the 
internet at: 

http://www.zool.canterbury.ac.nz/jwbibfh 

tm 

It is in ASCII format and intended to 
be down-loaded into the user’s PCs for 
searching by their own system. The work 
covers published material from Aristotle 
to 1995 inclusive. In due course a revised 


version will be incorporate some of the 
estimated 4,000 citations evidently with 
data on petrels but not yet seen by me. 
These will be listed in a "WANTS” file at 
the above address. The finished version 
will also include indexes tying each key- 
word to all the citations bearing that key- 
word - in the style of the Zoological Rec- 
ord. The bibliography is available with- 
out charge (by me, anyway). John 
Warham, Zoology Department, University 
of Canterbury, P.B. 4800, Christchurch, 
New Zealand. E-mail: 

j . war h am @ zoo 1 . c anterbury . as .n z 


ECOSYSTEM CONSIDERA- 
TIONS IN FISHERIES MAN- 
AGEMENT 


The Alaska Chapter, North Pacific 
International Chapter and Western Divi- 
sion of the American Fisheries Society 
will hold their 1998 annual meetings 
jointly with the Wakefield Symposium. 
The theme for the entire meeting is Eco- 
system Considerations in Fisheries Man- 
agement. The meeting will take place 30 
September — 3 October 1998 in Anchor- 
age, Alaska. To contribute an oral paper 
or poster submit abstracts by e-mail to 
FNBRB@uaf.edu by 15 January 1998. 


For more information contact Brenda 
Baxter, Coordinator, Alaska Sea Grant 
College Program, University of Alaska, 
P.O. Box 755040, Fairbanks, AK 99775- 
5040, Telephone (907)474-6701, FAX 
(907)474-6285, WEB 

http://www.uaf.edu/seagrant/Conferences/ 
symposium.html 


MARBLED MURRELET RE- 
COVERY PLAN 


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
released the final Marbled Murrelet Re- 
covery Plan in November 1997. The plan 
designated six Conservation Zones in 
Washington, Oregon, and California 
within which specific landscape-level 
management strategies need to be devel- 
oped. The plan does not establish specific 
delisting criteria because further informa- 
tion on the biology of the murrelet is 
needed. The plan outlines research pri- 
orities and data required for developing 
delisting criteria. For a copy of the Re- 
covery Plan contact Fish and Wildlife 
Reference Service, 5430 Grosvenor Lane, 
Suite 110, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, 
(800)582-3421 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 * Fall 1997 • Page 102 


OBITUARY 

IN MEMORIAM: DANIEL D. MORI ARTY 


Friends and colleagues of Dan Moriarty 
were shocked and saddened by the news 
of his unexpected and sudden death from 
massive heart failure at his home in 
Honolulu on April 24. He was 55. Dan 
was a member of the Pacific Seabird 
Group for many years, and had done 
much to conserve and protect seabirds in 
Hawaii during the past two decades. 
Dan’s catholic interests included all natu- 
ral history from insectivorous plants to 
endangered waterbirds to meteors, as well 
as a wide variety of interests throughout 
the tropica] Pacific, including Hawaii and 
New Guinea. 

Born in Boston, Dan moved to 
Hawaii in 1961. From 1979 to 1990, 

Dan was the refuge manager at the 
idyllic Kilauea Point National Wild- 
life Refuge, Kauai, having taken 
over that position when Vernon Byrd 
returned to Alaska. Dan and his 
wife Linda lived at the former U.S. 

Coast Guard station at Kilauea Point 
for over a decade. They raised their 
children Mary, Hannah and Donald 
to the backdrop of weird, gurgling 
cries of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, 
the wintertime clacking of Laysan 
Albatross beaks, the haunting jack- 
ass-like brays of nocturnal Newell’s 
Shearwaters, and the spectacle of 
White-tailed and Red-tailed 
tropicbirds soaring along the steep 
cliffs. 

Dan’s work as a restoration 
ecologist was exemplary. For years 
before Dan took up the reins, Laysan 
Albatross had unsuccessfully been 
attempting to nest in North Kauai. 

Dan removed exotic shrubs on a hill 
over-looking the Pacific to create a 
lawn, fenced Kilauea Point to keep 
out feral dogs and cats, and thereby 
set the stage for the spontaneous 
establishment of the first historical Laysan 
Albatross colony in the main Hawaiian 
Islands. He planned and implemented the 
complete restoration of over 40 acres of 
former alien weeds, using native species 
propagated in a refuge nursery which pro- 
duced over 300,000 potted plants each 
year. 

In the late 1980s, Dan worked closely 
with the Trust for Public Land to acquire 
Crater Hill and Mokolea Point. This ex- 


panded the refuge from 33 acres to more 
than 1 50 acres and added the nesting sites 
of Red-footed Boobies, tropicbirds and 
shearwaters. Dan quietly orchestrated a 
massive grass roots campaign, including 
PSG, to persuade Congress to fund the 
purchase. Among the unique problems 
that Dan overcame were roadblocks set by 
The Nature Conservancy, which then en- 
joyed a monopoly on brokering land ac- 
quisition projects in Hawaii and wanted to 
stymie the project of its competitor. Si- 
multaneously Dan founded the Kilauea 
Point Natural History Association, a 


flourishing non-profit group that gener- 
ated private funds for developmental and 
education programs, and a highly success- 
ful volunteer program. 

Dan’s work was often recognized both 
within the government and by private 
conservation organizations. He was a 
finalist for the Department of the Inte- 
rior’s “Take Pride in America” award in 
1987. He received the National Audubon 
Society’s National Conservation Award in 
1989, followed by the prestigious Chev- 


ron National Conservation Award in 1990 
when he was flown to Washington, D.C., 
to attend a national awards banquet. 

As is all too often the case, Dan’s ex- 
ceptional achievements were not always 
appreciated by his agency. When Dan’s 
children reached high school age, their 
educational needs required a move to 
Honolulu. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife 
Service assigned Dan, Hawaii’s best land 
manager in our generation, to the Hono- 
lulu Airport to inspect the luggage of 
tourists for wildlife products. In early 
1992, Dan resigned from FWS to become 
the natural resources officer at the 
Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station, 
where his work included managing a 
large red-footed booby colony. 

Since late 1993, Dan was respon- 
sible for natural resource conserva- 
tion and protection on all Navy fa- 
cilities in Hawaii, Japan, Korea, 
Guam and Diego Garcia. He over- 
saw the clean-up of Midway Islands 
before they were transferred to FWS 
as a wildlife refuge. Even in this 
position he enjoyed getting out in the 
field and doing land management 
tasks himself. For example, he re- 
cently built fences in the mountains 
encircling the naval magazine in 
Lualualei to keep feral goats and 
cattle from destroying endangered 
dry-lands plants. Just before his 
death, he had begun to ask me about 
restoring seabirds at Diego Garcia, 
Indian Ocean, whose populations 
have been ravaged by introduced 
rats. 

Dan was a hard-working, 
straight-talking man who was ad- 
mired by and inspired fierce loyalty 
from his colleagues. He was as loyal 
and as genuine a friend as can be 
found. He did not suffer the com- 
pany of fools, nor did he abide the petty 
games played by those in the natural re- 
source agencies who routinely swap per- 
sonal career advantage over protecting 
and conserving wildlife. Those who knew 
and worked with Dan miss him enor- 
mously, but the real losers are seabirds 
and other wildlife. 

By Craig S. Harrison , Washington, DC 



Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 103 


REPORT OF THE TREASURER - 1997 

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OCTOBER 1, 1996 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1997 


The gross income for the year was 
$72,524.24 of which $32,470.16 (44%) 
was income from the Portland annual 
meeting. A grant for $ 1 8,000 (24%) was 
received from the National Biological 
Service for the Seabird Monitoring Data- 
base project. Regular membership dues 
accounted for $8,099.21 (11%), life 
members contributed $1,100 which was 
deposited in the endowment fund, and 
library subscriptions to Pacific Seabirds 
garnered $565. Interest on our savings 
account was $3,036.15 and capital gains, 
interest and dividend income from the 
endowment fund accounts amounted to 
$2,569.52. Income from publication sales 
was $947. Fundraising activities (auc- 
tions, raffle and hat sales) at the Portland 
meeting totaled $4,677.20, fund raising 
expenses were $1,248.77 and as a result 
$3,428.43 was transferred to the PSG en- 
dowment. 

Expenses totaled $73,005.24 with 
the Seabird Monitoring Database project 
being our largest expense at $31,500 
(43%). The additional $13,500 expense 
for this project not covered in this year’s 
grant was paid from funds received by 
PSG in previous years. This additional 
fund outlay accounts for this year’s ex- 
penses being greater than our income. 
The annual meeting expenses were 
$30,918.96 (42%). The EVOS project 
expended $2,115.56 on production of the 


workshop proceedings. The cost of run- 
ning PSG was $8,267.09 (11%) with the 
biggest expense being the production of 
two issues of Pacific Seabirds, 
$5,884.16. Officer and committee ex- 
penses were low this year, $622.93; the 
institutions with which the officer’s are 
affiliated picked up many of the incidental 
expenses. Other expenses involved in 
running PSG were $1,050 for director’s 
insurance, $650 for dues to the Ornitho- 
logical Council and American Bird Con- 
servancy, and $10 tax filing fee. The ex- 
penses for running PSG this year 
($8,267.09) almost equaled our revenue 
from membership fees and library sub- 
scriptions ($8,664.21). 

Endowment Accounts 
On September 30,1997 the PSG endow- 
ment was worth $74,972.67. A total of 
$64,688.34 has been deposited in the en- 
dowment account since its inception. On 
a regular basis throughout the year the 
endowment committee (Malcolm Coulter, 
Craig Harrison and Jan Hodder, treasurer) 
have converted shares of Dean Witter 
U.S. Government Securities Trusts to 
shares in the Neuberger & Berman Man- 
agement Inc.’s Guardian Fund. The in- 
vestment objective of the no-load Guard- 
ian Fund is to seek capital appreciation, 
and secondarily current income. The fund, 
established in 1950, invests primarily in a 


large number of common stocks in long 
established, high quality companies in a 
diversity of industries. The average an- 
nual total return for the past three years 
has been 25.3%, and since inception 
13.5%. This past year the fund posted a 
39% return. This year we have transferred 
$37,000 from Dean Witter to the Guard- 
ian Fund leaving 731 shares which will be 
transferred in the new fiscal year. In ad- 
dition to these 731 shares (value on Sept 
30, 1997 was $9.04/share, totaling 

$6,608.24,) we own 2,099 shares in Neu- 
berger & Berman Management Inc.’s 
Guardian Fund (value on Sept 30, 1997 
was $32. 57/share, totaling $68,364.43). 

Membership 

As of September 30, 1996 PSG member- 
ship totaled 470, of which 57 are life 
members, 26 are family members and 69 
are student members. One hundred and 
twenty-three new members have joined 
PSG this year, 97 of these joined as a re- 
sult of attending the Portland meeting, 8 
people used the form from the back page 
of Pacific Seabirds, and 7 people used the 
form from the web page. A total of 81 
members did not renew his year. Fifty 
libraries receive Pacific Seabirds of which 
23 have paid subscriptions. 

Submitted by Jan Hodder , PSG Treasurer 


Pacific Seabirds ® Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 104 


REPORT OF THE TREASURER 


Table 1. Pacific Seabird Group Balance Sheet, September 30, 1997 

Account 


Balance 



September 30,1997 


September 30, 1996 

Annual Meeting - Portland 
Annual Meeting - Monterey 
Endowment Accounts 

Dean Witter US Gov. Securities 
Neuberger and Berman Guardian Fund 

$2,000.00 

$9,024.18 

$55,696.79 


$1,500.00 

$45,106.94 

$12,626.93 

Pacific Seabirds Account (S. Speich ed.) 
Savings Account - Dean Witter 

$3,210.16 

$17,603.85 


$168.20 

$32,416.77 

Special Projects Accounts 

EVOS Workshop and Publication 

$16,302.94 


$17,619.43 

Treasurer’s Checking Account 

$3,472.53 


$1,713.97 

2 United Kingdom Membership Account 

$449.36 


$225.29 

Total Assets 

$107,759.81 


$111,377.53 

Liabilities and Equity 
liabilities 

$16,302.94 


$29,619.43 

Equity 

$91,456.87 


$81,758.10 

Total Liabilities and Equity 

$107,759.81 


$111,377.53 


Footnotes 

1 Total reflects actual amount deposited and interest or capital gains earned. Deposits are made by purchasing shares, the dollar 
amount of which fluctuates with the market. Total value of deposits to the PSG endowment accounts on September 30, 1997 was 
$64 720.97. On September 30, 1997 we had 731 shares of Dean Witter U.S. Government Securities trust valued at $9.04 per share 
(value $6 608 24), and 2,099 shares of Neuberger and Berman’s Guardian Fund at $32.57 per share (value $68,364.43). Total value of 
shares on September 30, 1997 was $74,972.67. If assets and equity are calculated using these share prices instead of the dollars de- 
^i^d, the balance sheet totals for 1996/97 would be $117,562.15 and $101,259.21 respectively compared with the October 1 1995 - 
September 30, 1996 totals of $109,162.55 and $79,543.12 respectively. 

2 The United Kingdom account is managed by Mark Tasker and is used for deposits of membership dues paid in pounds sterling. A 
conversion rate of £1 .00 to $1.61 was used. 

3 $16,302.94 for the EVOS publication. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 105 


REPORT OF THE TREASURER 


Table 2. Pacific Seabird Group Cash Flow Report, 1 October 1996 - 30 September 1997 


Income 

Annual meeting - Portland 

Registration and banquet fees $30,853.31 

Fundraising $4,677.20 

Profit from the general meeting $1,616.85 

Capital Gains (Endowment account Neuberger & Berman) $1,220.12 

Grant from the USFWS for the Seabird Monitoring $18,000.00 

Database project 

Gifts for the PSG endowment $50.00 

Income dividend (Savings account Dean Witter) $2,187.08 

Income dividend (Endowment account Dean Witter) $1,088.09 

Income dividend (Endowment account Neuberger & Berman) $261.31 

Interest earned on checking accounts $849.07 

Life membership dues $1,11 0.00 

Loan Repayment from Portland meeting $1,000.00 

Membership dues $8,099.21 

Library Subscriptions $565.00 

Publication sales $947.00 

Total Income $72,524.24 

Expenses 

Annual meeting - Portland 

Meeting and banquet expenses $26,872.19 

Loan Repayment to PSG Savings account $1,000.00 

PSG Memberships $1,798.00 

Fundraising expenses $1,248.77 

Bank charges $50.00 

Director’s Insurance $1,050.00 

^ues $650.00 

EVOS Workshop $2,1 15.56 

Investment Expense (Endowment account Dean Witter) $87.44 

Officer and Committee expenses $622.93 

Pacific Seabirds $5,884.16 

Publications $116.19 

Seabird Monitoring Database $31,500.00 

Taxes $10.00 

Total Expenses $73,005.24 

Total Expenses over Income $481.00 


Footnote 

1 Ornithological Council $500, American Bird Conservancy $150. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 ® Page 106 


PUBLICATIONS 



A SYMPOSIUM OF THE PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 

BIOLOGY OF MARBLED MURRELETS: INLAND AND AT SEA 

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

in NORTHWESTERN NATURALIST, Volume 76, Number 1, 1995 


CONTENTS 

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

M^bfed 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 . A1 , , KT T M , v T Knl _ 7 M 

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 , w , , T ^ i 

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. Iordan 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. 

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

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

Use ofbSSS surveys^* determine coastal inland habitat associations of marbled murreiets in Prince William Sound, Alaska by 
D. K. Marks, K. J. Kuletz and N. L. Naslund , „ T D , , 

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

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

At-sea activity patterns of marbled murreiets adjacent to probable inland nesting areas in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British 
Columbia by M. S. Rodway, J.-P. L. Savard, D. C. Garner and M. J. F. Lemon , TT „ ^ f 

Decline of marbled murreiets in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia: 1982-1993 * J. D. Kelson, I. A. Manley and H. R. Carter 
Distribution of marbled murreiets along the Oregon Coast m 1992 by C. S. Strong 
Use of mist nets to capture murreiets 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 ! Qroup^ to 
Ian 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 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 107 


PUBLICATIONS 


Now Available To Pacific Seabird Group Members 

By Special Arrangement With The Publisher 

$30.00 USD 

(Send orders to the Treasurer) 

(Shipping and Handling Included) 


The Ancient Murrelet: 

A NATURAL HISTORY IN THE 
QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS 


by 

ANTHONY J. GASTON 

of the 

CANADIAN WILDLIFE SERVICE 


illustrated by 
Ian Jones 



T & A D POYSER 
London 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 108 




PUBLICATIONS 


PUBLISHED PROCEEDINGS OF SYMPOSIA OF 
THE PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 


At irregular intervals the Pacific Seabird Group holds symposia at its annual meetings. Published symposia are listed below. 
Available symposia may be purchased by sending a check or money order (in US Dollars, made payable to Pacific Seabird Group) to 
Jan Hodder, Treasurer, Pacific Seabird Group, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, University of Oregon, Charleston, Oregon 97420 
USA. Prices include postage (surface rates) and handling. See the following membership application/publication order form to order 
symposia. 


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

TROPICAL SEABIRD BIOLOGY. Ralph W. Schreiber (Editor). Proceedings of an International Symposium of the 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 

RELATIONSHIPS. David N. Nettleship, Gerald A. Sanger, and Paul F. Springer (Editors). Proceedings of an International 
Symposium of the Pacific Seabird Group, Seattle, Washington, January 1982. Published 1984 as Canadian Wildlife Service, Special 
Publication. Out of print. 

ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR OF GULLS. Judith L. Hand, William E. Southern, and Kees Vermeer (Editors). 
Proceedings of an International Symposium of the Colonial Waterbird Society and the Pacific Seabird Group, San Francisco, 
California, December 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, California, 
December 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 PACIFIC. 

Kees Vermeer, Kenneth T. Briggs, Ken H. Morgan, and Douglas Siegel-Causey (Editors). Proceedings of a Symposium of the Pacific 
Seabird Group, Canadian Wildlife Service, and the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Victoria, British 
Columbia, February 1990. Published 1993 as Canadian Wildlife Service, Special Publication, Ministry of Supply and Services, 
Canada, Catalog Number CW66-124-1993E. Free. Write: Publications Division, Canadian Wildlife Service, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 
OH3, Canada. 

BIOLOGY OF MARBLED MURRELETS - INLAND AND AT SEA. S. Kim Nelson and Spencer G. Sealy 
(Editors). Proceedings of a Symposium of the Pacific Seabird Group, Seattle, Washington, February 1993. Published 1995 in 
Northwestern Naturalist, Volume 76, Number 1 . $20.00. 


Pacific Seabird Group Symposia are initiated by one or more persons with interest in a particular topic area, resulting in a collection of 
papers usually presented at an annual meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group. Some symposia are further refined and then published as 
a Symposium of the Pacific Seabird Group. Individuals interested in promoting future symposia must first contact the Coordinator of 
the Publications Committee, and the appropriate annual meeting scientific program coordinator, prior to initiating the process leading 
to the actual symposium session and possible publication. The necessary guidelines outlining the steps and responsibilities for 
obtaining approval, organizing, holding and publishing Pacific Seabird Group Symposia will be provided. This opportunity is 
available to all members of the Pacific Seabird Group. 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 109 


PUBLICATIONS 

TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS 
OF THE PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP 


Now completed, the first Pacific Seabird Group Technical Publication 
Soon available on the Pacific Seabird Group web site to view and download 

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

Copies also may be requested from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Office: 1-800-283-7745 


Exxon Valdez Oil Spill 
Restoration Project Final Report 

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Seabird Restoration Workshop 

Restoration Project 95038 
Final Report 

Edited by: 

Kenneth I. Warheit 

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Habitat Management, 

600 Capitol Way N., Olympia, WA 98501-1091 

warhekiw@dfw.wa.gov 

Craig S. Harrison 

P.O. Box 19230, Washington, DC 20036 

charrison@hunton.com 


George J. Divoky 

Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska 
Fairbanks, AK 99775 
divoky@aol.com 


September 1997 



Pacific Seabird Group Technical Publication Number 1 


, ■ r tatvif* for tbp Pacific Seabird Group Technical Publuication series. Manuscripts, to 

[The Pacific Seabird Group seeks manuscripts suitable f bioloev or conservation of marine birds or their environment 

Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 1 10 


BOOK REVIEWS 

BOOK REVIEWS AND RECENT LITERATURE 


SEABIRD BYCATCH REDUCTION: 
NEW TOOLS FOR PUGET SOUND 
DRIFT GILLNET SALMON FISHER- 
IES: THE 1996 SOCKEYE AND 
CHUM SALMON TEST FISHERIES 
FINAL REPORT 

By Edward F. Melvin, Loveday L. Con- 
quest, and Julia K. Parrish. 1997. Wash- 
ington Sea Grant Program. Project A/FP- 
7. WSG-AS-97-01. University of Wash- 
ington, Seattle, Washington, USA. 

Washington Sea Grant, University of 
Washington, recently published a report 
entitled: Seabird Bycatch Reduction: New 
Tools for Puget Sound Drift Gillnet Fish- 
eries by Ed Melvin, Loveday Conquest 
and Julia Parrish. The report summarizes 
the results of our 1995-1996 research de- 
veloping methods that eliminate or sig- 
nificantly reduce the incidental capture of 
seabirds in salmon gillnet fisheries with- 
out significantly reducing the fishing effi- 
ciency of the nets. This work continued a 
university - industry research program 
begun in the 1994 in cooperation with the 
Washington Department of Fish and 
Wildlife. 

The report provides a summary of (1) 
the status of Common Murres and Rhi- 
noceros Auklets populations affected by 
Puget Sound gillnet fisheries (2) observa- 
tions of seabirds and marine mammals 
near nets during fishing activities and 
from seabird transects on the fishing 
grounds, (3) comparisons of salmon catch 
rates and seabird marine mammal entan- 
glement rates by gear type, time of day, 
and location, (4) comparisons of several 
management scenarios and their effect on 
seabird bycatch in these fisheries, and (5) 
recommendations for management. Man- 
agement recommendations include: 

• Make seabird conservation an 
objective of all fishery management agen- 
cies with jurisdiction over Puget Sound 
and its adjacent waters. 

• Implement seabird bycatch re- 
duction measures that are comprehensive, 
extending to all fishers regardless of 
country or treaty status. 

• Link seabird data from existing 
on-colony and outer coast and Puget 
Sound survey programs with seabird 
abundance data collected on the fishing 
grounds. 


• Pprioritize the development of a 
comprehensive seabird abundance data set 
and incorporate it into the fishery man- 
agement process via wildlife management 
agencies responsible for seabird conser- 
vation. 

• Manage the fishery interactively 
using real time seabird and fish abun- 
dance data. 

• Eliminate morning change-of- 
light sets in the gillnet fishery and restrict 
fishing to daylight hours in years of high 
murre abundance. 

• Require 20 Mesh nets (upper 20 
meshes replaced with white, highly visi- 
ble seine twine) to replace traditional 
monofilament drift gillnets in the Area 
7/7A Fraser River sockeye fishery, and 
allow time for full compliance. Several of 
these management recommendations were 
adopted by the Washington Fish and 
Wildlife Commission for management of 
the non-tribal sockeye fishery beginning 
in 1997. We hope to do additional work 
with acoustic alerts (pingers) if funding 
can be identified. 

The executive summary and ordering 
information is available on the Washing- 
ton Sea Grant Program Internet Home 
Page at: 

http://www.wsg.washington.edu/pubs/ 
acquisitions. html 

By Ed Melvin , Marine Fisheries Special- 
ist, Washington Sea Grant Program 3716 
Brooklyn Ave NE, Seatlle, WA 98105 
USA; on campus Box 355060. Voice: 
(206) 543-9968; FAX (206) 685-0380. 


A PROVISIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 
OF THE PROCELLARIIFORMES 
OR PETRELS 

By John Warham. [Aorticle reprinted from 
the John Warham, petrel bibliography 
web site: 

http://www.zool.canterbury.ac.nz/jwbi 

bpl.htm] 

This listing of publications in the style 
of ZOOLOGICAL RECORD (1864- ) on 
albatrosses, shearwaters and other petrels, 
is intended to be imported into the users' 
own PCs for searching by their own sys- 


tems. I have stopped adding papers from 
the journals later than 1995 unless in very 
v way-out’ periodicals, the time scale being 
from Aristotle to 1995 inch, but the user 
can add later publications as required. 
Some books and symposia volumes post- 
1995 have, however been included. The 
present is but a provisional fisting. 

Besides the present explanatory 
HTML file, TWO files are essential: 1) 
The main text file (AT.ZIP) fisting 12,830 
papers and books alphabetically by 
authors' names; 2) A file giving the key- 
words (KEYWORDS.ZIP) used to de- 
scribe the contents of each publication. 

To Download the bibliography and as- 
sociated feils can be ownloaded from the 
site (see above). 

Eventually c.4000 other references not 
presently available to me will be added as 
well as a series of indexes tying each 
keyword to all the publications carrying 
that keyword, e.g. CAMPBELL I.: Bailey 
& Sorensen, 334; Robertson, 10270; 
Sorensen, 5686, and so on. Some key- 
words may need changing and there will 
be other minor alterations. A fist will also 
be included of titles evidently containing 
data on tubenoses but still not seen by me. 
Main needs now are for many small notes 
in local natural history or scientific socie- 
ties (especially in France and the U.K.), 
some early Russian titles fisted by Bianchi 
(1913) and Scandinavian ones given by 
Sundevall (1885). 

Many hands have transcribed this 
material so typographic errors have crept 
in - hopefully most will be corrected in 
the revised version. 

Only published material is included. 
Unpublished theses are omitted (although 
published abstracts are if containing data), 
and so are most field guides. Scientific 
names mainly follow those given by 
Jouanin & Mougin in the 2nd edition of 
"Birds of the World” (vol. 2, 1979). Sub- 
specific names are not keyworded sepa- 
rately partly owing to past name-splitting 
and partly because of uncertainties about 
the validity and relationships of many 
taxa. To some extent subspecies refer- 
ences could be found from a combined 
search for the species name and an appro- 
priate geographical one. For example, a 
search of D.melanophrys and Campbell I. 
would throw up many, but by no means 
all, citations for D.m.impavida y as this 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 1 1 1 


bird only breeds there. In searching via 
keywords note spellings, e.g. FEED- 
ING BEHAVIOUR, and constructions, 
eg S. AMERICA [PACIFIC]: using 

S . AMERIC A[P ACIFIC] may not work. 

The fields used are: 

1. AUTHor; 

2. DATE; 

3. TITLe; 

4. SOIL (journal or book); 

5. SUB Ject keywords; 

6. GEOGraphical keywords; 

7. P ALAeontological keywords; 

8. SYSTematic keywords; 

9. VALUe (a rating on the scale of 
1-3 with 1 being a major contri- 
bution, 3 a minor one); 

10. Number. 

The VALUe gradings of a citations 
usefulness to today's zoologists have been 
allotted at the time of entry into the data 
base. This has been going on since 1980, 
so quite a few citations then graded as 1 
or 2 would have been downgraded had 
they been entered today (1997), more 


BOOK REVIEWS 

recent work having improved on the ear- 
lier studies. And as each citation was 
automatically numbered when entered 
into the databank, entries are not num- 
bered from start to finish. 

Little attempt has been many to assess 
the accuracy of the information in these 
various publications. In particular, it 
should not be assumed that identifica- 
tions, particularly of birds at sea, are al- 
ways correct. Many earlier papers were 
either not refereed or inadequately so by 
today’s standards. It is not always possible 
to determine to what species some early 
writers were referring. Here, and else- 
where where identification down to spe- 
cies was impossible, the keyword is 
shown as, e.g. Puffinus sp., etc. 

This bibliography has been assembled 
over about 15 years and many months of 
work have been involved. Many seabird 
workers, librarians and granting agencies 
have helped in amassing the material: 
they will be fully acknowledged in the 
revised version. Initially a Prime 250 
computer was used and in the result there 
are no diacritical marks and italics are 


indicated by lower case letters. The work 
is intended to be made available without 
charge (by me, anyway) and the reprints 
and xeroxes are being shipped to the Al- 
exander Library of the Edward Grey In- 
stitute housed in the Oxford University 
Zoology Dept. 

Please notify me of any errors you en- 
counter. Where papers or significant ma- 
terial in books have been missed PLEASE 
POST a photocopy to me at the address 
given below. With extracts from books 
please include the title page and ensure 
that the editor(s) are listed, also the pub- 
lisher's name, place of publication, and 
number of pages in the volume. Do not 
ask me about computing matters - I'm 
computer illiterate. (10 Aug. 1997) 

By John Warham , Department of Zool- 
ogy, University of Canterbury, PB 4800 
Christchurch, New Zealand. E-mail: 
j .warham @ zool .canterbury .ac.nz 
Telephone: +64 3 364 2029 Fax: 64 3- 
364-2024 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 112 


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, Number 1801, Arlington, VA 22203 
USA. Telephone (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, Office: Hokkaido Seabird Center, Kita 6-1, Haboro, Tomamae 078- 
41 Japan. Telephone: 011-81-1646-9-2080, Facsimile: 011-81-1646-9-2090. 
Home: 2-506, Sakaemachi 93-12 Haboro, Tomamae 078-41 Japan. Telephone 
& facsimile: 011-81-1646-2-1324, e-mail: kojiono@goI.com and John Fries, 
Laboratory for Wildlife Biology, University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi Bunkyo-ku, 
113 Tokyo, Japan. Telephone/Facsimile: 011-81-356-89-7254, e-mail: 

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


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

98273 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 and 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 

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

Seabird Monitoring Committee 

Scott Hatch, Biological Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska 
Sceince Center, 1011 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. O. 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. 

Telephone (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 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 113 


PSG 


LIFE 


MEMBERS 1997 


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 S. Harrison 
Scott A. Hatch 
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 
Monica H. Ziircher 


RECIPIENTS OF PSG’s LIFETIME 
ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 


James C. Bartonek 
W.R.P. Bourne 


Charles Guiguet 
Thomas R. Howell 
Karl W. Kenyon 


James G. King 
Miklos D.F. Udvardy 


RECIPIENT OF PSG’s SPECIAL 
ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 


Arthur L. Sowls 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 1 14 


Pacific Seabird Group 

Membership Application/Publication Order Form 


(Please Copy) 

Membership (includes subscription to Pacific Seabirds) 

Individual and Family $20.00 $. 

Student (undergraduate and graduate) $13.00 $. 

Life Membership 1 (optional payment plan, six $ 1 00 installments) $600.00 $. 

Sponsored Membership $20.00 $. 

Contributions 2 

To the Endowment Fund 2 $. 

Other (please specify) $. 

Back issues of Pacific Seabirds 
Yols. 1-8 (1974-1981 )@ $2.50/issue (two issues/year) 

Specify Vol. and No. . x $2.50 $. 

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

Specify Vol. and No. __ x $5.00 $. 


PSG Symposia 

Tropical Seabird Ecology x $12.00 $. 

Ecology and Behavior of Gulls x $1 8.50 $. 

Auks at Sea x $16.00 $, 

Status and Distribution of the Marbled Murrelet in North America x $20.00 $. 

Biology of Marbled Munrelets: Inland and at Sea x $20.00 $. 


Send check or money order (in U.S. Dollars, 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, e-mail: jhodder@oimb.uoregon.edu 

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

3 See front cover Tax Donations Status 

2 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 : 

Adress Address 


Telehone. 


Telephone 


FAX 


FAX 


e-mail. 


e-mail 


Pacific Seabirds * Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997 • Page 1 15 


PSG EXECUTIVE COUNCIL 1997 


Chair 

Officers . . 

S. Kim Nelson, Deparlment of Wildlife and Fisheries, 104 Nash. O re S°" S>ate Universit ; f 
Corvallis, OR 97331-3803 USA. Telephone: (541) 737-1962, Facsimile: (541) 737-1980, e-mai . 
neIsonsk@ccmaii.orst.edu 

Chair Elect 

Alan Burger, Departmenl of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria British Columbia, V8W 
3N5 Canada. Telephone: (250) 721-7127 or 479-2446, Facsimile: (250) 721-7120, 
e-mail: aburger@uvvm.uvic.ca 

Vice-Chair for Conservation 

Craig S. Harrison, 4001 North 9th Street, Number 1801, 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 Mendenhall, USFWS, 1011 E. Tudor Road, Anchorage, AK 99503 USA. Telephone: 
(907) 786-3517, Facsimile: (907) 786-3641, e-mail: vivian_mendenhall@fws.gov or acar- 
said@alaska.net 

Editor 

Steven M. Speich, 4720 N. Oeste Place, Tucson, AZ 85749 USA. Telephone: (520) 760-2110; 
Facsimile: (520) 760-0228 (call first), e-mail: sspeich@azstarnet.com 

Past Chair 

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 

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: 

afdcdl @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: tony.gaston@ec.gc.ca 

Washington and Oregon 

Roy 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, USFWS, 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 Wyoming, Laramie, WY 
82071 USA. Telephone: (307) 766-6100, Facsimilie: (307) 766-5625, e-mail: lovvorn@uwyo.edu 

Pacific Rim 

Scott M Johnston USFWS, Division of Endangered Species, 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Room 452, 
Arlington, VA 22203 USA. Telephone: (703) 358-2171, e-mail: scottjohnson@fws.gov 

Old World 

Mark Tasker JNCC Dunnet House, 7 Thistle Place, Aberdeen AB10 1UZ, Scotland, UK. Tele- 
phone: 011-44-1224-642863, Facsimile: 011-44-1224-6214-88, e-mail: tasker_m@jncc.gov.uk or 
mltasker @ aol .com 


Pacific Seabirds • Volume 24, Number 2 • Fall 1997