PICES Scientific Report No. 14 2000 PREDATION by MARINE BIRDS

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PICES Scientific Report No. 14 2000 PREDATION by MARINE BIRDS PICES Scientific Report No. 14 2000 PREDATION BY MARINE BIRDS AND MAMMALS IN THE SUBARCTIC NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN Edited by George L. Hunt, Jr., Hidehiro Kato and Stewart M. McKinnell August 2000 Secretariat / Publisher North Pacific Marine Science Organization c/o Institute of Ocean Sciences, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, B.C., Canada. V8L 4B2 E-mail: [email protected] Home Page: http://pices.ios.bc.ca i ii Table of Contents 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Marine Birds ................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Marine Mammals............................................................................................................ 3 1.3 General Remarks............................................................................................................. 3 2 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 5 2.1 Participation .................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Terms of Reference......................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Overview......................................................................................................................... 5 2.4 Division of North Pacific into Sub-regions .................................................................... 5 2.5 Limitations on temporal coverage .................................................................................. 6 3 FOOD CONSUMPTION BY MARINE BIRDS IN THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN........ 7 3.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 7 3.2 Methods........................................................................................................................... 8 3.2.1 Defining marine bird stocks and populations ......................................................... 8 3.2.2 Marine bird abundance ........................................................................................... 8 3.2.3 Distribution and seasonal movements of marine birds......................................... 10 3.2.4 Marine bird diets used in the model...................................................................... 10 3.2.5 Marine bird energy requirements.......................................................................... 10 3.2.6 Energy content of marine bird prey ...................................................................... 11 3.2.7 Food utilization efficiency of marine birds........................................................... 11 3.3 Model output................................................................................................................. 11 3.4 Discussion of prey consumption by marine birds......................................................... 13 3.4.1 Reliability of estimates of prey consumption by marine birds ............................. 13 3.4.2 Regional variation in numbers and biomass of marine birds supported............... 15 3.5 Regional variation in consumption by marine birds..................................................... 16 3.5.1 Regional variation in marine bird diets................................................................. 16 4 FOOD CONSUMPTION BY MARINE MAMMALS IN THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN 19 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 19 4.2 Methods......................................................................................................................... 20 4.2.1 Defining marine mammal stocks and populations................................................ 21 4.2.2 Marine mammal abundance.................................................................................. 21 4.2.3 Distribution and seasonal movements of marine mammals ................................. 21 4.2.4 Marine mammal diets used in the model .............................................................. 22 4.2.5 Marine mammal energy requirements .................................................................. 22 4.2.6 Energy content of marine mammal prey............................................................... 22 4.2.7 Food utilization efficiency of marine mammals ................................................... 22 4.3 Model Output................................................................................................................ 23 4.4 Discussion..................................................................................................................... 23 4.4.1 Reliability of estimates of prey consumption by marine mammals...................... 23 iii 4.4.2 Regional variation in numbers of marine mammals............................................. 24 4.4.3 Regional variation in consumption by marine mammals ..................................... 25 4.4.4 Data gaps............................................................................................................... 25 4.4.5 General remarks.................................................................................................... 25 5 REFERENCES CITED – SEA BIRDS ................................................................................ 27 6 REFERENCES CITED – MARINE MAMMALS............................................................... 35 7 TABLES ............................................................................................................................... 42 8 APPENDICES ...................................................................................................................... 54 Appendix 1. Membership of PICES Working Group 11...................................................54 Appendix 2. Marine birds of the pelagic North Pacific Ocean..........................................56 Appendix 3. Seabirds as predators of marine organisms: Prey captured within PICES sub-regions........................................................................................61 Appendix 4. Proposed trophic structure for marine communities in the North Pacific with special reference to marine birds and mammals ............76 Appendix 5. Assumptions, baseline data and calculations for deriving estimates of seabird populations in the North Pacific...................................77 Appendix 6. Abundance, occupancy and daily energy requirements of marine birds ......81 Appendix 7. Marine bird prey preferences........................................................................96 Appendix 8. Estimates of the amount of prey consumed by marine birds......................106 Appendix 9. Marine mammal abundance and energy requirements in PICES marine ecosystems ..........................................................................114 Appendix 10. Marine mammal prey preference ................................................................127 Appendix 11. Marine mammal prey consumption in summer ..........................................140 Appendix 12. Bibliography of prey use by seabirds of the North Pacific Ocean..............153 iv 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Marine birds and marine mammals are important To make comparisons and summarizations easier components of the North Pacific ecosystem. The and more comprehensible, the PICES region amount of food consumed by marine birds and (30°N to the Bering Strait) was subdivided into mammals can be considerable. In some areas, the regions based on oceanographic domains (Fig. 1). prey of marine birds and mammals are important These regions varied in size from about 7 million commercial species or are important prey for km2 to over 100 million km2. The quality and harvested species, so there can be conflicts quantity of information was not uniform across the between human and bird/mammal use of regions, making comparisons difficult. resources. Declines in some mammal and bird populations have raised concerns about possible At least 47 marine mammal species and 135 sea competition with commercial fisheries. Because bird species inhabit the PICES region. Estimates of the importance that marine birds and mammals of abundance exceed 10,000,000 marine mammals have in the North Pacific, it is important to bring and 200,000,000 marine birds. Seabirds and together and summarize available information on marine mammals are widely distributed the food habits and consumption by these throughout the PICES region. The mean size of important predators in order to understand their individuals ranges from 28 kg to over 100,000 kg role in the ecosystem. for marine mammals and from 20 g to 8,000+g for marine birds. Fig. 1. Sub-regions in the PICES region (north of 30°N and including the marginal seas) of the North Pacific Ocean. ASK - Gulf of Alaska Continental Shelf; BSC - Bering Sea Continental Shelf; BSP - Bering Sea Pelagic; CAN - California Current North; CAS - California Current South; ECS - East China Sea; ESA - Eastern Subarctic; ETZ - Eastern Tropical Zone; KM/KL - Kurile Islands Region; KR/OY - Kuroshio/Oyashio Region; OKH - Sea of Okhotsk; SJP - Sea of Japan; WSA - Western Subarctic; WTZ - Western Tropical Zone. 1 1.1 Marine Birds Metabolic rates in birds vary with body mass to a power between 0.6 and 0.8 since metabolic Marine birds occur throughout the PICES region, activity per gram
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