The North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database (NPPSD) is an online resource compiling the results of 40 years of surveys by Canadian, Japanese, Russian and USA biologists.  It documents the abundance and distribution of over 17 million individuals of 160 seabird species (and of 235 545 marine mammal records) over 27 million square kilometres of the North Pacific by including more than 350 000 survey transects undertaken between between 1973 and 2012.  The area covered includes more than 80% of U.S. continental shelf waters, the most productive U.S. commercial fisheries, all Pacific U.S. marine sanctuaries, and many offshore oil wells and lease areas (click here).

“The database offers a powerful tool for analysis of climate change effects on marine ecosystems of the Arctic and North Pacific, and for monitoring the impact of fisheries, vessel traffic and oil development on marine bird communities over a vast region.  It also creates an unprecedented opportunity to study the biogeography and marine ecology of dozens of species of seabirds and marine mammals throughout their range.

Coverage of the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database

Scientists and observers conducted surveys ranging from the Channel Islands of southern California westward to the coast of South Korea, and from the Hawaiian Islands northward to the North Pole.  The majority of data collection occurred over the U.S. continental shelves stretching from California to Arctic Alaska, where concerns over the possible impact of human activities at sea have long fueled wildlife research and monitoring efforts.

Recent analyses using NPPSD data included  a risk analysis of shipping traffic on seabirds in the heavily traveled Aleutian Islands conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a study commissioned by the National Audubon Society to identify Important Bird Areas from California to Alaska."

Black-footed Albatross, photograph by Vicki Miller 

Click here to access the database.

Reference:

Drew, G.S., Piatt, J.F. & Renner, M. 2015.  User’s Guide to the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database 2.0.  Open-File Report 2015-1123.  Reston: U.S. Geological Survey.  52 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 27 July 2015

Bioacoustics, including play-back of calls, have been used to assess the presence  and population sizes of burrowing seabirds, including the ACAP-listed Procellaria petrels. An opportunity now exists to support such research by applying for a product grant from Wildlife Acoustics.

“Wildlife Acoustics’ mission is to support efforts in conservation and environmental stewardship.  We want to enable those involved in animal biology, research and conservation to do their best work easily and quickly.  To that end, Wildlife Acoustics has established a grant program to support bioacoustics research efforts from chiropteran, avian, terrestrial, amphibious and marine wildlife, to everything else in between.”

A White-chinned Petrel rests at the mouth of its burrow, photograph by Fabrice LeBouard

Every quarter, Wildlife Acoustics will be giving away up to US $5000 of product to grant recipients worldwide.  Grant recipients must be biologists, researchers, conservationists or students associated with a charitable, educational or other tax-exempt/non-profit organization.

Consideration will be given to projects that meet the following criteria:

Project makes significant use of bioacoustics for data collection and/or analysis.

The work advances scientific knowledge and contributes to long-term conservation.

The grant award would have significant impact on the success of the project.

The grant request provides adequate information to evaluate the project, including detailed expected outcomes and use of bioacoustics data to support those outcomes.

The project should begin in the year that the application is submitted, or in the following year if the application is submitted in the off-season.”

Click here for more details and information on how to apply: the next application deadline is 31 August.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 July 2015

Jaime Ramos (MARE–Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Portugal) and colleagues have written in the journal Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers on foraging changes by Macaronesian shearwaters Puffinus baroli during a North Atlantic Oscillation.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Changes in oceanographic conditions, shaped by changes in large-scale atmospheric phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), alters the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems.  Such signals are readily captured by marine top predators, given that their use of foraging habitats and diets change when the NAO changes.  In this study we assessed sexual, seasonal and annual (2010/11–2012/13) differences in diet, trophic and isotopic niche (usingδ15N andδ13C values of whole blood, 1st primary, 8th secondary and breast feathers), foraging locations and oceanographic variation within foraging areas for Macaronesian shearwaters' (Puffinus baroli) during two years of contrasting NAO values, and between two sub-tropical islands 330 km apart in the North Atlantic Ocean, Cima Islet and Selvagem Grande.  These two locations provide contrasting oceanographic foraging regimes for the birds, because the second colony is much closer to the African coast (375vs650 km), and, therefore, to the upwelling area of the Canary Current.  There was a marked environmental perturbation in 2010/2011, related with a negative NAO Index and lower marine productivity (lower concentration of Chlorophylla).  This event corresponded to the Macaronesian shearwaters feeding farther north and west, which was readily seen in change of both δ15N and δ13C values, and in a higher intake of cephalopods.  Diet and stable isotopes did not differ between sexes.  Regurgitation analysis indicate a dominance of cephalopods in both islands, but prey fish were important for Selvagem Grande in 2012 and cephalopods for Cima Islet in 2011. Bothδ15N andδ13C values were significantly higher for Cima Islet than for Selvagem Grande, irrespective of year, season and tissue sampled.  SIBER analysis showed smaller isotopic niches for the breeding period.  Our study suggests that during years of poor environmental conditions Macaronesian shearwaters shift their foraging location to more pelagic waters, take more cephalopods and overall present a narrower isotopic niche.”

Macaronesian Shearwater, photograph by Luis Ferreira

With thanks to Jaime Ramos.

Reference:

Ramos, J.A., Fagundes, A.I., Xavier, J.C., Fidalgo, V., Ceia, F.R., Medeiros, R. & Paiva, V.H. 2015.  A switch in the Atlantic Oscillation correlates with inter-annual changes in foraging location and food habits of Macaronesian shearwaters (Puffinus baroli) nesting on two islands of the sub-tropical Atlantic Ocean.  Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 104: 60–71.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 July 2015

Joshua Hatch (Integrated Statistics, Inc., Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA) and colleagues have published in the journal Conservation Letters on tracking Great Shearwaters Puffinus gravis in the Gulf of Maine.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Identifying the overlap of commercial fishing grounds and seabird habitat can suggest areas of high bycatch risk and inform management and mitigation measures.  We used Bayesian state space modeling to describe the movements of 10 satellite-tagged Great Shearwaters and a bivariate kernel density technique to investigate spatial overlap with commercial fishing effort to predict areas of high bycatch in the Gulf of Maine.  We then used contemporaneous fishery observer data to test the validity of our predictions, highlighting an area constituting 1% of the Gulf of Maine as having the highest bycatch risk that accounted for 50% of observed takes.  Fishery observer data also provided insights into characteristics of the seabird-fishery interactions.  Our results indicate that a relatively small number of satellite-tagged seabirds, when combined with fishery-dependent data, can lead to identifying high-bycatch areas, particular fishing practices that might increase risk, and fishing communities that could be targeted for education/mitigation.”

Click here for the unedited version of the manuscript.

Great Shearwater, photograph by John Graham

Reference:

Hatch, J.M., Wiley, D., Murray, K.T.& Welch, L. 2015.  Integrating satellite-tagged seabird and fishery-dependent data: a case study of Great Shearwaters (Puffinus gravis) and the U.S. New England sink gillnet fishery.  Conservation Letters DOI: 10.1111/conl.12178.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 July 2015