Sea Birds

June, 2016

• 22 June

  Feral cats continue to kill endangered seabirds on Kauai

  

  Researchers last week discovered the bodies of six endangered Hawaiian Petrels at a remote breeding colony in Hono o Na Pali Natural Area Reserve, Kauai. All had been dragged from their breeding burrows by feral cats and partially eaten, including one incident that was caught on a monitoring camera….
• 2 June

  Shifting bird distribution indicates a changing Arctic

  

  Shifts in the distribution of Spectacled Eiders, a predatory bird at the top of the Bering Sea’s benthic food web, indicate possible changes in the Arctic’s marine ecosystem, according to new research in The Condor: Ornithological Applications….

January, 2016

• 13 January

  Mysterious mass deaths of Alaskan birds an ominous sign

  

  Tens of thousands of dead birds are washing up on the beaches of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, an unexplained mass die-off that some experts say may be related to the changing climate…

December, 2015

• 31 December

  State investigating albatross deaths in Kaena Point reserve

  

  The Department of Land and Natural Resources announced Wednesday that it is investigating the deaths of three Laysan albatross and numerous destroyed nests in the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve…
• 31 December

  Gough Island mice eat chicks alive

  

  The seabird chicks just sit on their nests and get gnawed. They are not evolutionary-wired to deal with mammalian predators,as there were none on Gough Island until seal-clubbers accidentally brought them ashore in the 19th century…

September, 2015

• 2 September

  Scientists warn almost all seabirds will ingest plastic by 2050

  

  The CSIRO is warning 99 per cent of the world’s seabirds species will be ingesting plastic by 2050 if current marine pollution trends continue…

July, 2015

• 23 July

  African penguins face short lives, numbers plunge by 90% because of fish shortage

  

  The African penguin only breeds on 25 islands and at four mainland sites in South Africa and Namibia and government data shows the number of breeding pairs has plummeted to less than 25,000, from about 1 million in the 1920s…
• 15 July

  Seabird population drops 70%, signals bigger problem

  

  In an alarming new “canary in the coal mine” study, researchers from the University of British Columbia have found that a significant segment of the world’s seabird population has dropped 70 percent since the 1950s….

March, 2015

• 30 March

  Plastic pellets found in puffin tummies

  

  The seabirds typically feed on sand eels, according to the organization Fauna and Flora International. But in the process of picking up their prey, the puffins are also gobbling up bits of plastic that are polluting the water, beaches and an estuary called Firth of Forth…
• 20 March

  U.S. government documents seabird loss in North Pacific waters

  

  The number of seabirds, including gulls, puffins and auklets, has dropped significantly in the Gulf of Alaska and northeast Bering Sea, a possible consequence of warmer waters…
• 19 March

  How to avoid seabird bycatch in the Mediterranean

  

  Globally, bycatch in longline fisheries kills between 160,000 and 300,000 seabirds every year. In one day, around one hundred seabird individuals can be captured…

January, 2015

• 4 January

  Hundreds of dead birds wash up on Pacific coast shores

  

  Since October, hundreds and hundreds of dead seabirds known as Cassin’s aucklets have been washing up on the Pacific Coast of the United States…