One of Alaska\u2019s most common seabirds is dying off in unusually high numbers, and though the majority of common murres found dead have been in Southcentral Alaska, Southeast Alaska also is affected. <\/p>\n
The most striking change is that Southeast Alaska is seeing a lot more murres than normal this winter, though dead birds also have been found.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually this time of year, you shouldn\u2019t really be seeing murres on coastal waters,\u201d said Robb Kaler, seabird specialist and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. \u201cOver the winter, they go out on the continental shelf and winter out there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Juneau birder Gus van Vliet, who lives in Auke Bay, counted between 3,000 and 5,000 of the birds in the area in November and December, when vast numbers of birds, sea lions, seals and even two whales gathered in the bay and harbor to hunt large numbers of herring and juvenile pollock. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to say \u2018unprecedented,\u2019 but it certainly has been a long time since anyone has seen that, especially at that time of year,\u201d van Vliet said. <\/p>\n
People in Gustavus, around Glacier Bay National Park, are reporting thousands of live murres and some dead ones, Kaler said, with some dead birds also reported in Sitka. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s a spot in Southeast Alaska, I think, that is closest to what has been occurring in Southcentral, it seems to be there at the mouth of Glacier Bay,\u201d van Vliet said. <\/p>\n
In Alaska, Sitka is the farthest Southeast and Unalaska is the farthest west the USFWS has documented the event. They\u2019ve also documented an increase in die-offs in California and the rest of the Pacific Coast, Kaler said. <\/p>\n
Though he emphasizes that researchers have two main goals \u2014 assessing the geographic scope of the problem, and figuring out why the birds are starving \u2014 Kaler suspects it may have to do with sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska, where the birds normally spend the winter. <\/p>\n
This is chalking up to be an extreme El Ni\u00f1o year, likely one of the top three since 1950, according to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center.<\/p>\n
That combined with the warm \u201cblob,\u201d an unexplained patch of warm water in the gulf, has made for a different set of circumstances where the birds usually find their food. <\/p>\n
In more than 100 birds the U.S. Geological Survey autopsied, no signs of damage were found but the birds weighed anywhere from about half to three-quarters what they should, with very little fat and empty stomachs, Kaler said. <\/p>\n
Though murres are the most common, they\u2019ve also autopsied other birds, like puffins, found dead.<\/p>\n
Murres need to eat the equivalent of about 30 percent of their body mass each day, Kaler said, and don\u2019t plunge for food, but rather chase fish while \u201cflying\u201d underwater. That means tight schools of fish are much more efficient sources of food for them. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it\u2019s changes in the distribution of their food, changes in the abundance of their food, or changes in the behavior of their food\u2026 there\u2019s a point at which the schooling of fish might not be concentrated enough for the murre to efficiently forage. These warmer ocean temperatures might be having an effect on the behavior of their prey. There are quite a few different factors going on that might be driving this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some alga blooms, which increased last year, may also be affecting the birds\u2019 ability to consume food, he said. <\/p>\n
The Bird Treatment and Learning Center (Bird TLC) in Anchorage, which has received an influx of murres, offers guidelines on its website, depending on whether the bird is found near water, near Anchorage, or farther inland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re encouraging people to let nature take its course,\u201d Kaler said. \u201cThey\u2019re going back into an ocean that doesn\u2019t have any more food in it than when they left it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact Juneau Empire Outdoors editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@juneauempire.com. <\/p>\n
To read an article about the unusually warm Gulf, go here: http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/outdoors\/2015-07-17\/sea-changes-warm-gulf-leads-unusual-happenings-worried-scientists <\/p>\n
To read about Auke Bay\u2019s end-of-the-year profusion of wildlife, go here: http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/outdoors\/2015-12-04\/auke-bays-wild-kingdom<\/p>\n
To read an Associated Press article about the seabird die-off, go to http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/state\/2016-01-12\/starvation-suspected-die-seabirds<\/p>\n
Check out Bird TLC\u2019s website here: http:\/\/www.birdtlc.net\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Alaska\u2019s most common seabirds is dying off in unusually high numbers, and though the majority of common murres found dead have been in Southcentral Alaska, Southeast Alaska also is affected. The most striking change is that Southeast Alaska is seeing a lot more murres than normal this winter, though dead birds also have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":13002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13001"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}