Monitoring Breeding Seabirds

The Alaska seabird monitoring program initiated by the Alaska Maritime Refuge is designed to keep track of selected species of marine birds that could point to changes in the marine environment and signal conservation problems.

Long-term, Time-series Data

The monitoring program provides long-term, time-series data. When the data reveal biologically-significant changes, scientists can test hypotheses about the causes of those changes.

Defining "Normal"

The monitoring program is an integral part of the management of the Alaska Maritime Refuge. The information it provides is used to define "normal" variability in demographic parameters and identify patterns that fall outside norms, thereby signaling conservation issues.

Strategy for Data Collection

The strategy for colony monitoring includes estimating timing of nesting events, reproductive success, population trends, and prey used by representative species of various foraging guilds (e.g., murres are offshore diving fish-feeders, kittiwakes are offshore surface-feeding fish-feeders, auklets are diving plankton-feeders, etc.) at geographically dispersed breeding sites along the entire coastline of Alaska.

Monitoring Sites

A total of 10 sites on Alaska Maritime Refuge (see map), located roughly 300 to 500 km apart, are scheduled for annual surveys, and at least some data is available from all of these in most years. In addition, colonies near the annual sites are identified for less frequent surveys to "calibrate" the information gathered at the annual sites. Data provided from other research projects (e.g., those associated with evaluating the impacts of oil spills on marine birds) also supplement the monitoring database.

Annual Monitoring Field Stations

(from north to south around the coast)
Cape Lisburne
Bluff
St. Paul
St. George
Buldir
Kasatochi
Aiktak
Chowiet
E. Amatuli
St. Lazaria

Examples of Target Species for Seabird Monitoring
Method of feeding	Diet	Feed Nearshore	Feed Offshore
Surface	Fish-eating	Gull	Kittiwake
	Plankton-eating	Fork-tailed storm-petrel	Leach’s storm-petrel
Diving	Fish-eating	Guillemots	Murres
	Plankton-eating	Whiskered auklets	Least auklets

Seabirds as Indicator Species

– parameters –
population trends
reproductive success
timing of nesting events
chick growth rate
adult survival
prey used by species of various foraging guilds
geographically dispersed breeding sites

Time-series Monitoring Data
1 - Archived in the Pacific Seabird Monitoring Database
2 - Summary present in annual report

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