Seabirds

by Nate Jones, Vertebrate Ecology Lab

(Note:  I last posted about my Alaskan surveys  loooong ago in October, with a post about how stormy it’d been out on the Bering Sea…)

10 June, 2008: Today has been marvelous.  The storm had passed, and wildlife was everywhere! My seabird surveys are keeping me very busy, but the whales are stealing the show.

The ocean is impossibly calm, like glass; when I got up to the bridge to look out over the surroundings, it was difficult to tell even if the boat was moving – so smooth was its progress, and so monotonous is the gray sea surface.  Spotting birds today has been a treat.  Lots of little auklets, looking like buzzing avocados, their stubby wings flapping furiously.  We also have had some good whale sightings.  At least three Fin Whales… and two groups of Killer Whales have passed within viewing distance.  It’s so peaceful here today.  The ship’s engines just rumbling along, and only a very slight rocking under me to bring water to mind.

(Photo: NOAA/NMML)

And, then, this evening I had one of those peak life moments that I feel so privileged to experience: a feeding symphony of birds and whales

We had slowed for a trawl to try to catch some pollock (fish) to sample.  It was going on about 10:30pm, and still plenty of dim light left in the day.  Marty and I don’t survey for birds during trawls because the flocks of scavenging fulmars and gulls present during fishing exercises confound our estimates of what free-ranging birds are “normally” doing.  So, I was done for the night.

But, we were fishing right on the north side of Unimak Pass, one of the larger gaps in the eastern Aleutian chain, and a major funnel through which water and animal life move between Pacific and Bering waters.  There is often an abundance of marine life at these Aleutian passes, so I stuck around upstairs on the bridge to see what might show up…

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Soaring in “flight formations” above the ocean on its 6-foot wingspan, plunging straight down into the water in a spectacular dive, swallowing fish its large pouch of a bill –  these are all very normal behaviors expected of a brown pelican.  But wandering alone around inland parking lots, back alleys and farmfields, appearing skinny and sickly, or even turning up dead –  most decidedly not normal behavior.  Which is why  record numbers of sick and dead brown pelicans since late December, which have been filling wildlife rehabilitation centers along the California coast to their capacity since late December,  have many researchers puzzled and worried.  The California population of these great  birds are federally listed as endangered, having been nearly wiped out by DDT before the pesticide was banned in 1972.  They have since made a successful recovery, but the recent spike of birds exhibiting odd behaviors and turning up dead has scientists scrambling to find a cause.  Some birds tested positive for domoic acid, a neurotoxin produced by photosynthetic algae, but their symptoms do not include the seizures normally triggered by domoic acid poisoning, leading scientists to believe this may only be part of larger problem.

People are reporting that affected pelicans  look emaciated and disoriented, and the usually-social birds are showing up alone in unusual places far from home.  If you see any sick or dead pelicans, please contact WildRescue at 866-WILD-911.