Offshore Pacific Highlights in Summer–Fall 2005: Just Another Year PETER PYLE • INSTITUTE FOR BIRD POPULATIONS • P.O. BOX 1346 • POINT REYES STATION, CALIFORNIA 94956 • (EMAIL:
[email protected]) Increasing Our Knowledge of Ocean was that seabird productivity had been average more a question of bad timing than of whole- Events, One Year at a Time to well above average in the period 1999-2004. sale disaster. By early fall, the word had spread: 2005 was For a burgeoned population of younger Seabird population sizes and productivity an unusual year for seabirds off the Pacific coast seabirds, this was a first real test of their forag- provide excellent barometers of the state of of North America. But was it that unusual? ing abilities, and it is neither surprising nor our marine ecosystems, helping us keep a fin- Many years ago, David Ainley concluded that unhealthy (at the population level) that a die- ger on negative anthropogenic effects such as there was no such thing as a “normal” year in off should have ensued. Furthermore, offshore climate change, oil contamination, and over- the California Current, and it would fishing. But we must be patient to follow that there may not be “un- understand such large-scale process- usual” years either. Rather, seabird es. For these reasons, the National dynamics in the Pacific Ocean are Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis- best explained in terms of overlap- tration (NOAA) is increasing sup- ping climatological and oceanic cy- port for a wide variety of long-term cles, which influence complex ma- ocean-monitoring programs for rine ecosystems and result in chaotic seabirds, marine mammals, and oth- and somewhat unpredictable patchi- er organisms off the Pacific Coast.