In previous years, nonbreeding guillemots tend to roost by the pond. Image Credit: Katie Morrison
In previous years, nonbreeding guillemots tend to roost by the pond. Image Credit: Katie Morrison
The Black Guillemots on Cooper Island
continued to show signs of a turnaround from the poor breeding season of 2018
as egg laying and incubations have occurred in over 75 nests this year,
compared to only 25 last year. The breeding population saw the recruitment of
20 birds that had fledged from the island in past years but had yet to breed. This
is important since it shows that even with the decreased reproductive success
and poor ice conditions of recent years, some birds are surviving to breeding
age (typically 3-years of age) and returning to their natal colony, Cooper
Island. A major surprise was the return of a bird that fledged from the colony
in 2012 and had not been seen since.
Breeding oair on nest cast. Image Credit: George Divoky
Unlike last year when daily nest checks found recently laid eggs being abandoned by parents, this year has found all eggs being regularly incubated. Incubation is the least energetically demanding stage of breeding as the parent birds, which both incubate, take shifts of approximately 12 hours each day, having the remainder of the day to forage for fish. Last year’s large-scale desertion of nests with eggs indicated birds were either starting incubation in poor condition or encountering low availability of prey during incubation. Discovering the potential reasons for the differences between the last two years will have to wait until the fall when I have internet access to environmental data.
While our daily nest checks have provided hope for high hatching success this year, other observations while we walk around the colony are causes for concern. Most noticeable is the almost complete lack of guillemots sitting outside near nest sites or at the edge of the pond in the center of the colony, where guillemots have typically roosted when not incubating eggs or feeding young. The daily period of colony attendance, approximately midnight to noon, used to have birds throughout the colony, while this year we see only the occasional lone bird or nonbreeding pair. There is little visual evidence that the island supports a colony of over 150 birds. Additionally, in early July we experienced a rapid disappearance of sea ice with the island being nearly surrounded by ice to no ice in sight in 2-3 days. Both of these factors suggest that, despite the positive indicators seen in breeding effort and nest attendance, there are reasons to be concerned about the upcoming period of nestling growth and survival.
This field report is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 45th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
Cooper Island has provided me with a place to conduct a long-term study of an Arctic seabird and also a place where I have been fortunate to establish some long-term friendships. In June 2001, photographer Joe McNally visited the island to obtain images to accompany the New York Times story Darcy Frey was writing about the Cooper Island research. Joe’s week on the island in 2001 started with him being sick in his tent for the first two days but, after he and I had spent a week walking through the guillemot colony and chatting back at camp, ended with a friendship that has lasted 18 years.
Joe McNally and George Divoky on Cooper Island in 2019, 18 years after McNally’s first visit to the island to document Arctic change. Image Credit: Joe McNally
While Darcy’s story and Joe’s photos were scheduled to appear in the autumn of 2001, events in mid-September altered that scheduling, as the Times and the rest of the media focused on stories about 9/11 for the remainder of the year. To have 2002 begin with a break from events of the fall of 2001, the New York Times Magazine ran the Cooper Island story the first Sunday of the new year with Joe’s picture of me standing on sea ice as the cover photo.
Over the past 18 years, whenever Joe and I have been able to
meet, I told him I hoped he could return to Cooper Island someday to document how
continuing warming has changed the Arctic since 2001. That all seemed like a
pipe dream until recently when Joe arrived by boat from Utqiaġvik to spend a
few days on the island to revisit the Black Guillemot colony and discuss my
observations and thoughts about my 45 years of study.
Joe’s career in photography has taken him to many amazing places and his choosing to return to Cooper Island meant a great deal to me. This year’s visit came after almost four weeks alone on the island and the camaraderie of Joe and crew was an excellent way to end my solitude. Observing and documenting a melting Arctic can be disheartening but Joe’s desire to help me tell the Black Guillemot’s story – and the chance to renew our long-term friendship – raised my spirits as I approach the midpoint of this field season.
This field report is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 45th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, please visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
Mandt’s Black Guillemots roosting on roof of Cooper Island cabin, which was added to the field camp in 2003 when polar bear encounters were on the rise. Image Credit: Mike Morrison
Mandt’s Black Guillemots roosting on roof of Cooper Island cabin, which was added to the field camp in 2003 for additional protection from polar bears. Image Credit: Mike Morrison
Polar bears caused me to get a cabin on Cooper Island in 2003. After a rapid retreat of sea ice in August 2002, bears trashed our tents, which required making a hasty departure from the island with the help of a North Slope Borough Search and Rescue helicopter. The first week of the 2019 field season found me again living in a tent as I cleaned up after a polar bear was able to remove the board covering the cabin door and rearrange much of the gear and supplies I store on the island overwinter. Damage was not major but making my 8- by 12-foot summer home habitable took time.
Polar bears are frequent visitors on the island, requiring a range of protective measures from bear fences to a small cabin added in 2011. Video Credit: George Divoky
Luckily the first week’s tedium of camp housekeeping was
balanced with daily indications that the Black Guillemot’s 2019 breeding season
would not be a repeat of last year, when colony size and productivity had major
decreases related to the poor survival and breeding condition of adults. Of the
75 nest sites occupied last year, only 25 had pairs that incubated eggs. This
year a similar number of nests are occupied but all of those have birds diligently
attending eggs.
The reasons for the difference in the two years is not yet clear. Both breeding seasons were preceded by a previously unprecedented lack of sea ice in the Bering Sea wintering area. Geolocation data loggers I am retrieving from some of the birds will allow comparison of the overwinter movements and distribution for the two years and may provide an answer.
Another indication of the health of the colony in 2019 is
the number of first-time breeders. Long-term annual mortality of established
breeders is approximately ten percent, and a stable population requires enough
new recruits each year to occupy the vacancies. Unlike many recent years, this
year saw a substantial number of previously nonbreeding local birds (individuals
fledged from Cooper Island) and immigrants occupying those vacancies and even pairing
up with each other to breed in sites not occupied last summer – something that
has been rare in the period of colony decline in recent decades.
Another major highlight of the
first week of censusing was the sighting of a bird fledged in 2017, a year when
the colony experienced large-scale nestling mortality. The season was documented
by Hannah Waters in Audubon
magazine. The two-year old bird sighted this year was raised in the nest featured
in the Audubon cover image by Peter
Mather; it shows a female parent about to enter a nest with a sculpin. The story
emphasized how the colony’s survival in a melting Arctic would require a few individuals
to be able to provision young from ice-free waters and for those young to
return to breed. While the 2017 offspring sighted this year is not breeding,
few birds breed earlier than three years of age, its return to Cooper combined
with the other positive signs of colony health in 2019, provide reasons for some
early season optimism.
This field report is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 45th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, please visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
A lone Black Guillemot and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
A lone Black Guillemot and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
Black Guillemots and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
Mandt’s Black Guillemots. Image Credit: George DIvoky
George Divoky frets–with good reason. In 2016, CNN Correspondent John D. Sutter called him the man who is watching the world melt. The description is as distressing as it is apt.
George sends us regular dispatches from a small field camp on Cooper Island, about 25 miles east of Utqiaġvik, where he has studied a colony of nesting Mandt’s Black Guillemots for the last 44 years. Since his work began in 1975, the research has morphed into one of the longest-running studies of seabirds, sea ice, and climate change.
Guillemots look like small penguins headed off to a fancy party replete with ice sculptures and all-night dancing. Unlike other seabirds that migrate out of the region seasonally, they live out over the frigid waters year-round, only returning to land to breed and fledge their young–this makes them an excellent indicator of how climate change is impacting the Arctic.
Weather delayed the start of this research season in early June. While warm temperatures in the Arctic have made headlines in recent months, unusually late snow and ice kept the guillemots from reaching their nesting boxes until mid-June; the first egg was laid on June 24.
His communications are tinged with an effort to buoy spirits–I’m guessing his own more so than ours. This week, the bad news came first: a 29-year-old female died. He wrote that she had been banded during the first George Bush administration. (While many humans rely on a simple Gregorian calendar, George’s memories appear to be synchronized according to a timeline rooted firmly in geopolitics.)
Bad news was followed with happy; two siblings from the 2014 cohort returned and recruited partners for breeding.
Otherwise, it’s been a stormy week on the island. On July 20, he wrote that the wind was finally dying down. A bad week for the infrastructure, the camp’s weather station was blown over and part of the heavy-duty WeatherPort tarp separated from the frame, which caused a number of things to get wet. On Wednesday he saw record high rainfall for that date.
Egg laying hit an all-time low this year, with fewer breeding pairs than any previous year.
He’s asking questions about how changing ice conditions will impact these seabirds – his seabirds. In his most recent field report, he spoke at length about the relationship between the guillemots and nearshore sea ice. The location of the sea ice impacts how far parents will have to fly to access suitable prey for their chicks. Increased travel time means greater energy expended by parents – for seabirds that live predominantly out in open waters, it’s all about balancing resources and energy. The presence or absence of sea ice combined with the temperature of the ocean waters impacts the availability of Arctic Cod, the small nutritious fish the guillemots prefer.
George hopes the slowly departing nearshore sea ice will keep ideal prey in foraging range for the seabirds. He wrote, the cod is “urgently needed for the colony to reduce its current population decline.”
A MODIS image from July 11; snow and ice are cyan color while clouds tend to be more grayish. Image Credit: NASA Worldview
A MODIS image from July 16; snow and ice are cyan color while clouds tend to be more grayish. Image Credit: NASA Worldview
David Douglas is a research wildlife biologist for United States Geological Survey (USGS) Alaska Science Center; he and George are frequent collaborators. This week he emailed the MODIS images displayed above and wrote that Cooper Island was pretty well surrounded until July 16 when the persistent ice immediately around the island broke up and melted.
Studies like George’s will help scientists to better understand the ramifications of long-term warming and less sea ice for wildlife in the region. Impacts to wildlife will directly affect the lives of the people who depend on subsistence fishing and hunting for survival.
Warming Arctic conditions have persisted with 2018 reaching record lows for sea ice extent, according to a report published by NOAA and University of Alaska Fairbanks’s International Arctic Research Center.
Late ice formation and early retreat in the Chukchi and Bering Seas impacted local communities by making travel for subsistence hunting and fishing dangerous and, at times, impossible. Storm damage and erosion was worsened by exposed shorelines, left unprotected by a lack of sea ice. Island villages and coastal communities experienced flooding and property damage as well. You can read more about the storm impacts here and here.
The report attributes late and minimal ice coverage to warmer temperatures, particularly over the last four years. Increased temperatures combined with stronger storms helped break up weaker ice.
In 2018, there was less sea ice in the Bering Sea than any year since 1850, when commercial whalers began recording this data. Experts agree, loss of sea ice is a result of climate change. Continued warming creates a feedback loop where warming temperatures melt ice; without a reflective snow and ice covering, the ocean absorbs more of the sun’s warming rays and temperatures continue to rise.
Sea ice since 1850. Image Credit: NOAA and University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center (UAF-IARC).
As for future winters, what can people expect to see if warming continues at current rates?
“Communities need to prepare for more winters with low sea ice and stormy conditions. Although not every winter will be like this one,” concludes the report, “there will likely be similar winters in the future. Ice formation will likely remain low if warm water temperatures in the Bering Sea continue.”
And for George’s seabirds? How many birds will successfully fledge this year? How many will return next?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
This piece is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 44th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
A rare Nazca Booby sighting brought joy to the team of wildlife observers on the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Precious moments are abundant at sea, but, like most things, there are challenges. Gorgeous sunsets and getting close to wild creatures most people will never witness also comes with long hours, bouts of seasickness, and being away from loved ones.
California Group Director for Point Blue Conservation Science Jaime Jahncke went on his first science expedition in 1994; it was a cruise to assess anchovy stocks off the coast of Peru where he grew up. “Being at sea is fantastic. You can see things that no one else can see like a breaching whale or a rare bird,” said Jahncke. “But if you are sick it is pretty awful because there’s nothing you can do to escape the thing that’s making you sick.”
We’re off the north-central coast of California on the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada for a marine mammal and seabird survey. A team of scientists has spent the last week logging wildlife sightings and collecting water and biological samples as part of a long-term effort to monitor National Marine Sanctuary ecosystems.
A humpback whale with the North Farallon Islands. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Brown Pelican off the coast of north-central California. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Three Mola mola, or ocean sunfish, spotted near the Farallon Islands. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
On the last day of this cruise, members of the wildlife observation team spoke a little bit about this work and why they think protected places like our National Marine Sanctuaries are important. The following is written in their own words, which have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Jan Roletto
She is chief scientist and research coordinator for Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; Roletto has been going out to sea regularly since the late 90s.
I miss my husband, dog, and cats, but I live near where I work so you’re never really that far from home. That is one of benefits of place-based monitoring; with species-based monitoring, you have to go to where the animals are.
My job is really diverse. I like being able to put the pieces of the puzzle together for an unknown question. As research coordinator, my job is to find researchers who are doing work relevant to the sanctuary – people like Carina Fish who are studying the impact of ocean acidification on deep sea corals.
Long-term monitoring data isn’t exciting – it’s doesn’t get the “oohs and aahs” but it is really important. You can’t identify what’s really special or different without long-term monitoring data. For example, we can do rapid damage assessments because we have this data. Long-term monitoring is like a savings account. You put the data aside – you put a little away and when the need arises you have it. We wouldn’t be able to talk about climate change, about long-term change, if we didn’t have that long-term monitoring data.
It’s satisfying to have all this data when there’s an event like an oil spill incident – a leaky vessel or an accident – and be well prepared to respond. We’ve used ACCESS and Sanctuary data so it’s satisfying to be able to say, “This is what it looked like before; this is what it looks like now; and, this is what it will take to make to restore it to that previous state.”
Sanctuaries are important because U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service protects populations; sanctuaries protect habitats. You can’t have good populations of whatever is out there without homes – can’t have one without the other. We take care of the grocery store and the apartment building and fisheries takes care of the things that live there.
Kirsten Lindquist
Lindquist is the ecosystem monitoring manager for the Greater Farallones Association (GFA); she’s the birder for this cruise and has been going out to sea for 18 years.
I think the long days with no breaks (in terms of working 10 or 30 days straight) are hard. You get some intermittent weather breaks, but nothing you can plan for. You do get tired.
I love being in the ocean wilderness and the extreme environment — seeing all the different faces of it. On shore, people go to national parks and they can be there and experience them in a way that people don’t have the chance with oceans 40-plus miles off shore. I think if people did, they would understand why [National Marine Sanctuaries] are so special and why they should be protected.
Dru Devlin
Devlin is a research associate for Greater Farallones Association and wildlife observer on this cruise; she has been working on programs at sea like ACCESS since 2005.
The break in the normal routine is challenging. I love to come out here and then it’s great to get back home, but when I’m home, I can’t wait to be back out here.
It’s physically hard standing in weather and sun for the long hours – the change in diet and exercise too, but I love it. I miss my family, but I think it’s important for my son to see his mom do something that’s important to her and something that is important to others.
I like being part of a team and part of something that contributes to the knowledge base. Being out on the ocean is a touchstone of who I am – it inspires me to keep doing this work. It’s gratifying over the years to see what we’ve contributed to the knowledge base and how much more there remains to do.
Marine sanctuaries protect valuable resources like the biodiversity of life we see here – from the rich basis of life, the phytoplanktonic stuff all the way up to the largest mammals on Earth. If we don’t study it, we won’t know what we have – hopefully others see the value in that.
Taylor Nairn
She is the data manager for Greater Farallones Association and the data logger in this expedition; this is Nairn’s fourth year at sea.
Every cruise is different. The weather is pretty hard, but you can get through it and that feels good. The lack of privacy is hard too – after a while I need to turn inward, but it’s also good to be forced to get out of it.
I love the sense of adventure and independence. The sea is one of the last wildernesses and getting to experience that is really magical. Wild spaces have intrinsic value. True wild spaces and ecosystems are valuable in and of themselves.
ACCESS Cruise Science Team, July 2018. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
Black-Footed Albatross. Image Credit: Sophie Webb/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
The sun is shining, but strong winds and high seas keep conversation to a minimum on the flying bridge of the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. Perched three decks above, the bow of the boat seems at times to bounce on the water below as she comes up over the crest of the whitecaps. Waves regularly explode over the bow, some freckling the glass windshield with droplets of icy cold water.
The wind roars.
Wildlife surveys such as this one are dependent on visibility, sea state, wind, and light. Yesterday afternoon’s transect from east to west pointed the observers into the sun, so glare and high seas made sightings challenging. Their goal is to sample as much wildlife as possible, but it isn’t realistic to count everything, so they collect subsamples.
It’s Sunday on day seven of a cruise monitoring seabirds and marine mammals off the coast of North-Central California National Marine Sanctuaries (Cordell Bank, Greater Farallons, and Monterey Bay). These Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) cruises take place three to five times each year.
There are two methods used for surveying wildlife on this cruise: line-transect and strip-transect. Jan Roletto, chief scientist and research coordinator for the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, explains that the marine mammal observers use a line-transect method.
Wildlife observers Taylor Nairn(right) and Dru Devlin (left). Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Chief Scientist Jan Roletto on the flying bridge of the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada with Kirsten Lindquist. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
The location of the wildlife in the ocean is determined with relative precision using: height, which is based on eye-level from atop the flying bridge; distance, which is measured using the reticle markings on the binoculars; and, the seabird or mammal’s bearing relative to the bow of the ship.
“It’s all just basic geometry,” Roletto said.
The ship maintains a consistent speed during transect lines, and the computer logs GPS coordinates frequently. Wildlife are logged by Taylor Nairn, data manager for Greater Farallones Association (GFA) and data logger on this cruise. Then, the calculations are automated using software developed by NOAA Fisheries.
Roletto monitors the 90-degree quadrant from the bow to the port side of the vessel and Dru Devlin, research associate for GFA, observes from the bow 90 degrees to the starboard side.
While Roletto and Devlin count the mammals, Kirsten Lindquist uses a strip-transect method and counts 100 percent of the seabirds in a 200-meter strip in front of her. “We use strip-transect lines for things that are numerous and line-transects for things that are more scarce,” said Roletto.
By monitoring population densities, prey availability, and their locations, the team can help identify trends over time and look for locations where human activities might be harmful to the wildlife.
Black-Footed Albatross. Image Credit: Sophie Webb/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Earlier in the week, Lindquist has counted thousands of seabirds during one transect line. Several of the species observed, such as Common Murres and Sooty Shearwaters, tend to float out in the open water together in very large numbers.
Today and yesterday, the weather is keeping sighting numbers low. They’ve spotted a few Northern Fulmars and Rhinoceros Auklets alongside a small number of unidentified whales, Risso’s dolphins, Dall’s and harbor porpoises.
Black-Footed Albatross. Image Credit: Sophie Webb/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Black-Footed Albatross are more abundant than previous days. They are built for this weather. It is mesmerizing to watch them float and soar on winds that make it challenging for humans (at least for this human) to walk the distance from the top of the stairs to the shelter of the windshield on the upper observation deck.
Albatross are very large, with wingspans up to 85 inches. They are classified as tubenoses, because they have very large tubes above their beak; these tubes are connected to salt glands over their eyes which enables them (and all other seabirds) to drink saltwater. These seabirds have an incredible sense of smell, aiding in the detection of prey at great distances.
Wildlife often travel great distances to feast in nutrient-rich waters along the California Coast. Image Credit: Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary
The albatross we are seeing here off the coast of California have traveled from their nesting colony in the atolls of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The almost 6000-mile roundtrip journey will take up to two weeks by the time that they fly here, gorge, and then return home to feed their chicks.
Albatross ride these powerful winds in a process called dynamic soaring, flying up to 80 miles an hour without flapping their wings, therefore conserving energy for their long journeys. Engineers have studied these birds in order to design better aircrafts.
These constantly changing waters—smooth and glassy one day, powerful and fierce the next—seem to offer something for all who come here.
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
Pigeon Guillemots are a coastal species that are locally common, meaning they are common in areas suited to their needs. You won’t spot them on sandy beaches, but in places with rocky outcrops and where they like to nest in inaccessible rocky crevices. To Lindquist, this speaks to the different survival strategies adopted out here: Common Murres nest in large colonies, seeking protection as group; Cassin’s Auklet's are nocturnal and nest in burrows; and, Pigeon Guillemots use the rocky crevices for protection while breeding. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Pigeon Guillemots are a coastal species that are locally common, meaning they are common in areas suited to their needs. You won’t spot them on sandy beaches, but in places with rocky outcrops and where they like to nest in inaccessible rocky crevices. To Lindquist, this speaks to the different survival strategies adopted out here: Common Murres nest in large colonies, seeking protection as group; Cassin’s Auklet’s are nocturnal and nest in burrows; and, Pigeon Guillemots use the rocky crevices for protection while breeding. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
The Western Gulls are residents of Farallon Islands and they’re quite abundant. Unlike the other birds out here, they forage in the wild, but they also come very close to human activities and interact with people. Western Gulls are much less isolated than the other species studied on the islands. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Kirsten Lindquist is the ecosystem monitoring manager for the Greater Farallones Association (GFA); she is also the birder for this ACCESS cruise. She’s awestruck by ocean creatures that live in such extreme environments. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Common Murre are ubiquitous here, nesting by the thousands. While cruising through the area, we’ve encountered large rafts of them floating out in the open and the cry of a father Common Murre searching for his baby chick can be heard frequently. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
The Cassin’s Auklet live offshore, you won’t see them as they are not a coastal or near-shore species. They come on land at night to breed and nest in burrows underground. The rest of the year they live out in the open ocean. They are fans of krill, the small shrimp-like crustacean that lures so many critters to the region. “Since Auklets are a lot more abundant than Blue Whales, we can use Cassin’s as indicators,” says Kirsten Lindquist, birder on this ACCESS cruise. They are underwater flyers; some birds swim with their feet and keep their wings retracted underwater. Using their wings, Cassin’s and Common Murres fly underwater. Image Credit: Point Blue Conservation Science
Rhinoceros Auklet are similar to Cassin’s Auklet in foraging and nesting, but they are less abundant in the area. They eat fish, not krill, primarily what’s available. Juvenile rockfish are the preferred food choice, but they will eat larger anchovies, which can be problematic because they may be too large for chicks to consume. Image Credit: Farallon Islands Foundation
Click on the captions to expand and read more.
The sound is deafening — a symphony composed of 350,000 seabirds screeching and calling to each other. Ask a table full of scientists in the mess hall what it sounds like when you first set foot on the Farallon Islands and they answer in unison: cacophony.
The islands are home to the largest nesting colonies of seabirds south of Alaska.
Competition for real estate on the Farallons is minimal because each species has different needs. Pigeon Guillemots nest in rocky crevices and talus slopes, while the Common Murres find safety in numbers, perched atop steep cliffs and outcrops by the thousands. Rhinoceros and Cassin’s Auklets come on land at night and burrow underground to lay their eggs.
After decades of observations, scientists have learned a great deal about these creatures, but much of the research only occurs when the birds come ashore to breed in the summer. How do we know about birds that spend the vast majority of their lives out in the open ocean where few humans visit?
Some information is gleaned by sending teams on scientific expeditions like this ACCESS cruise, undertaken via a partnership between North-Central National Marine Sanctuaries and Point Blue Conservation Science. Wildlife observers spend most of each day conducting visual surveys, counting seabirds and marine mammals with a level of precision that is impressive to a non-scientist watching from the sidelines.
At various points each day, the ship stops to collect water and biological samples to understand food distribution in the region. By comparing the visual counts of animals with the samples collected, scientists can help determine predictable locations where food in the ocean lead to birds and mammals aggregating. Identifying where these hotspots overlap with human activity may help reduce negative impacts such as ship strikes and entanglements.
Adding tagging technology to these data sets enriches the picture even more.
A short sample of a time-depth recorder (TDR) dive profile of a single Cassin’s auklet. The different depths and durations of dives can tell scientists about prey availability and dive success. Image Credit: Point Blue Conservation Science
Researchers can combine tracking and dive patterns to show when birds are going to forage and where they’re finding food. The types of dives and how deep they’re going can tell you how deep the prey is, according to Kirsten Lindquist.
Lindquist is the ecosystem monitoring manager for the Greater Farallones Association (GFA); she is also the birder for this cruise and has conducted field work on the islands. “We only know food conditions when they are breeding,” she said.
According to Lindquist, data gathered over the years has revealed details such as clutch size, diet, nesting timing and success, but this information only reflects what is happening during the summer.
In Far from Land: The Mysterious Lives of Seabirds, Michael Brooke writes, “It can be quite rare for observers to see the birds actually feeding. Is this because the birds manage to catch enough food to last, say, a couple of days during infrequent bouts of gorging, or is it because much feeding happens at night when they cannot be seen?”
“How do you tell the story of fledging on into the next spring? Where are these birds going?” Lindquist asks. Breeding season is one window – it’s just a snapshot in time, she explains.
In other words, the lives of seabirds remain a bit of a mystery.
Geolocator (GLS) position estimates of a single Cassin’s auklet over an 8-month period, which made a movement south to Southern California in the winter of 2017-18. Image Credit: Point Blue Conservation Science
Jaime Jahncke, California Current Group director for Point Blue Conservation Science, points out that data from GLS tags on Cassin’s Auklets during the non-breeding season has shown that birds from the Farallon Islands disperse much farther than the scientists on the Point Blue team originally thought.
“A single bird can go as far south as Baja, California and others have gone as far north as Oregon,” said Jahncke. “This makes conservation efforts a real challenge.”
While breeding on the islands the birds are protected by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Refuge. When foraging, they’re protected within the Sanctuaries. Discovering the birds range is extended after the breeding season puts these conservation scientists in uncharted territories, because they don’t know what threats these birds face beyond the protected boundaries previously studied, said Jahncke.
Elsewhere, observations are also captured in the field by scientists like George Divoky. Each summer, he lives alone on a barrier island in the Arctic with a small colony of breeding Mandt’s Black Guillemots. He visits all the nests daily, weighing chicks and collecting data. In spite of the longevity of his 44-year study, each season seems to bring new insights, especially as the technology aiding this work gets smaller, faster, and smarter.
When unexpected snow and cold in Alaska delayed the arrival of Divoky’s Black Guillemots in June, he looked at previous year’s data from geolocators and determined that they were most likely waiting in nearby Nuvuk and would arrive as soon as their nesting boxes were clear of snow, which they eventually did.
Every spring when the guillemots return, he removes the geolocators to download data about where the birds have been spending time over the winter. In addition to aiding his own research, this data is being used by several graduate students and organizations such as SENSEI (a French research group funded by BNP Paribas) seeking to better understand the impacts of climate change in the Arctic.
GPS track of a single Rhinoceros Auklet over a 4-day period, part of a collaborative project with Scott Shaffer from San Jose State. Image Credit: Point Blue Conservation Science
Using GPS or Geolocator (GLS) tags reveal different information. The GPS used on a Rhinoceros Auklet from the Farallon Islands offered a very detailed map of where the seabird traveled during one four-day period, whereas a GLS tag helped researchers map the places seabirds traveled from month to month during the non-breeding season. “One is more fine scale movements in a foraging area and one is less fine scale trying to get data over winter,” said Lindquist.
To scientists like Divoky, Jahncke, and Lindquist, technology may hold the key to a deeper understanding of the lives of seabirds where they spend most of their time — at sea.
Lindquist said, “I’m drawn to deep, untouched wilderness and the wild things that make their home there. The ocean has a lot of that close to shore.” She explained that they can leverage the number of years of seabird data and new information from technology to tell the story of the species and the pressures they are facing in a rapidly changing world.
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
The deck crew works to return the CTD rosette to the side deck. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
We’re on the fourth day of an Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies, or ACCESS, cruise — a long-term effort, now in its 15th year, to monitor and understand the oceanographic conditions, prey availability, and abundance and distribution of seabirds and whales in the region. The data collected on these cruises, which take place three to five times per year, are used to help inform decision-making and research priorities in North-Central California National Marine Sanctuaries. ACCESS is a partnership between NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries and Point Blue Conservation Science.
On the flying bridge, the observers and data logger are bundled for what is shaping up to be the coldest and windiest day of the expedition so far. The radios many of us wear, click and buzz in unison, “Bridge to flying bridge, 15 minutes to the end of the line.”
“Copy that, thank you,” Data Logger Taylor Nairn replies.
Yesterday, the ocean merged into the sky at the horizon point with rich shades of blue, but today grey blends into grey. The quiet is peaceful.
Once we reach the end of this transect line, we will be “on station.” At set points along each transect line, there are five to six stations where the ship stops so a team can collect samples using a variety of equipment and techniques. As the wildlife observers’ work for the morning concludes, the wet lab team and deck crew spring into action.
Jamie Jahncke is the director of the California Current Group for Point Blue Conservation Science. He selected these points along the transect for sample collection. To Jahncke, the greater number of sampling locations allow his team to paint a more accurate portrait of what is happening where the warm, surface layer of water rests on top of the cold nutrient-rich layer.
He explains, when people look at water, everyone thinks it all looks the same, but it’s not. There are all these points where tiny differences in temperature will impact the distribution of food and prey. “We’re looking for places where critters tend to aggregate, attracting seabirds and whales,” says Jahncke.
Down on the side deck, the Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) rosette is deployed. The CTD carries 12 Niskin bottles with levers that allow the team to open them strategically, collecting water samples at various depths up to 500 meters. (A detailed explanation of this can be found here and here.)
According to Jahncke, measuring how well a water sample conducts electricity, also known as conductivity, is directly related to salinity. Salinity is the concentration of salt and other inorganic compounds in seawater. Salty seawater is heavier than freshwater, as is cold water. Combined with temperature data, scientists are able to better understand how water properties and nutrients are distributed throughout the water column.
While crew and wet lab team are out on the side deck, Grace Kumaishi is inside prepping labels and materials for the samples that will come in. There’s a great deal of labeling and packaging to do, so it is clear when and where the materials were gathered. Additionally, the findings will be shared with least 10 different federal, state, and non-government research institutions.
Kumaishi was really nervous for this, her first big cruise. She’s a research assistant at Point Blue. Having just completed her bachelor’s in ecology, behavior, and evolution at University of California Los Angeles, she’s in that nebulous period between undergraduate work and grad school. She’s debating the pros and cons of masters and Ph.D. programs. This internship with Point Blue offers her the opportunity to build relationships with mentors, watch graduate students conduct their research, and see firsthand what a career in ocean science might look like.
Most days for Kumaishi are spent in the lab processing samples collected on cruises such as this one. “It’s really nice to get out of the lab and do some field work,” she says.
Carina Fish collects water samples for her research on the ways climate change is altering ocean chemistry. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Outside, the CTD is back on the deck and Carina Fish collects her samples first. Fish is doctoral candidate in marine biogeochemistry at University of California Davis’s Bodega Marine Laboratory. Using a small tube from the bottom of the bottle on the rosette, she rinses out a small brown glass bottle with seawater to make sure there are no contaminants. Then, she gives it a good shake, dumps the contents, and collects her sample. When Fish finishes she calls out, “Ryan, you ready?” He is there in a flash, using same process as Fish.
Ryan Anderson is working on a master’s in marine science with an emphasis on physical and chemical oceanography at San Francisco State University. The samples he gathers will be sent to a San Francisco State University lab to determine the amount of nutrients in the water.
Once Fish fills all her bottles, she adds mercuric chloride to each one; the chemical halts growth of any biological materials in the water without interacting with the carbonate chemistry that interests her.
Yesterday, Fish and I were up on the bow looking at a massive bloom of Chrysaora, or sea nettles. I asked her about the jellies; laughing loudly, she joked that she doesn’t know anything about “the living stuff.” Fish studies aragonite saturation states, which are used to track ocean acidification, a condition caused by climate change.
There’s a constant hum from the winch overhead and the deck vibrates beneath our feet. Everyone is wearing brightly colored foul weather gear, life jackets, and hard hats. On the side deck, we’re only about 12 feet above the water with heavy machinery and the ever-present threat of rough seas — safety is key.
Grace Kumaishi and Meredith Elliott retrieve zooplankton collected in a hoop net from the side deck of the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
After the CTD is pulled in, the hoop net is carefully lowered over the side. Ship speed and the amount of cable released impact the success of this process, so there’s a great deal of coordination between the bridge, the winch operator, the deck crew, and the wet lab team. If the cable is not at the correct angle, the net will drag at a depth that doesn’t pull in the zooplankton.
Once retrieved, Point Blue Senior Scientist and Program Biologist for ACCESS Meredith Elliott and Kumaishi rinse the hoop net to direct everything captured down into a container at the bottom of the net called a cod end. The contents are dumped into a sieve and filtered. Elliott carefully rinses everything several times to make sure she gets all the biological samples.
The nets are used to measure the quantity and variety of food sources available for the wildlife being observed and counted on the flying bridge. This process will be repeated at each station on the transects completed every day.
People mill; everyone has to wait for the moment when it’s time to perform their individual part in the production. Since timing is of the essence, no one leaves until the deck ops are complete, in spite of the aroma of pulled pork and warm spices wafting from mess.
It is time for lunch, but not until the work is done.
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
Jenny Woodman in Gumby suit after an abandon ship drill. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Pelicans flying near Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco just before 11 a.m. on July 3. Anyone without immediate tasks to perform worked on finding their sea legs while we transited to our first location.
For me, this included several hours becoming one with my berth as this was the only place where I didn’t feel as if my stomach was planning on making our cabin’s head a permanent home. The bunks are incredibly comfortable with curtains for privacy and a mattress that envelops – something I genuinely appreciated when the ship really started rolling. We are zigzagging along predetermined paths from east to west, and then west to east. When traveling west, the going can get pretty rough because we’re moving against the swells.
I heard the waves slapping the side of the ship with a ferocity that made the vessel seem much smaller than she is. The seas were actually quite calm, but there were still moments when it felt as if we were perched on a cork, bobbing in a boiling caldron of water.
Jenny Woodman in a “Gumby” suit after an abandon ship drill. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
My queasy, but cozy respite was interrupted by an abandon ship drill before lunch. This required mustering in predetermined locations with our life vests and immersion survival suits. Each of us donned our own unwieldy orange neoprene “Gumby suit,” which is designed to keep the wearer floating and dry in cold water while awaiting rescue. The NOAA officer in charge of my assigned life boat, Lieutenant Jesse Milton, was kind and didn’t laugh at my ineptitude. Nonetheless, after attempting to stand and zip the suit on the back deck of the ship, I suspect I wouldn’t fare too well if anything were to actually go wrong.
The expedition is part of a project, now in its 15th year, to better understand and monitor the marine ecosystems off the coast of Northern and Central California. The Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) cruises happen three to five times each year.
The transect lines on the map show the locations visited multiple times each year by scientists studying how oceanography and prey distribution impacts wildlife in the region. Image Credit: ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Each cruise returns to specific locations and travels along what are called transect lines; there are a total of 21 lines in the area being studied, which stretches from Northern to Central California. Jaime Jahncke is the California Current Director for Point Blue Conservation Science, the organization collaborating with NOAA to conduct the ACCESS work. He explains that repeat visits to the same locations help scientists assess change over time, from season to season and year to year.
With the data collected on these cruises, the team is able to compare warm years like 2014-2015 to previous warm periods and see that there were fewer krill, the preferred food source for many of the wildlife feeding here, and more gelatinous zooplankton, which are less nutritious. When appropriate food sources are less abundant, observers see wildlife feeding closer to shore and subsequently, closer to shipping lanes, which increases the chances of ship strikes and entanglement.
We completed our first transect by mid-afternoon. While traveling along these lines, a group of scientists stay on the upper deck of the ship, which is called the flying bridge. Each person has a specific job.
Wildlife observers on the flying bridge from right to left: Taylor Narin, Dru Devlin, and Kirsten Lindquist. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Kirsten Lindquist is the birder on this cruise and the ecosystem monitoring manager for the Greater Farallones Association (GFA). (You can read more about GFA’s efforts to support NOAA and the Sanctuaries here.)
Lindquist says, “Common murre, six, at three-two-zero, flying, zone two, with fish.” Then, Taylor Nairn, the data manager for GFA, logs the observations in a laptop.
Then, the Research Coordinator for Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and Chief Scientist for this cruise Jan Roletto calls out mammal sightings, “Blow . . . unknown whale, traveling.” She is working alongside Dru Devlin, a wildlife observer with a long history conducting surveys for ACCESS and GFA’s citizen science program, Beach Watch.
The highlight for me was seeing my first Tufted Puffin, which was beautiful.
Mola mola in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: Julie Chase/ACCESS/NOAA/Point Blue
Spotted on July 3:
Common Murres
Western Gulls
Red-necked Phalaropes
Sooty Shearwaters
Pink-Footed Shearwaters
Black-Footed Albatross
Northern Fulmar
Rhinoceros Auklets
Cassin’s Auklets
South Polar Skua
Tufted puffin
California Sea Lions
Fin Whales
Blue Whales
Humpback Whales
Unidentified Whales
Mola molas
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. She writes about ocean health, technology, and climate change; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow for the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus. Her work can be found in Atlantic Monthly, IEEE Earthzine, and Ensia Magazine.
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