Summary of resul~s Anthony R. DeGange USFWS, OBS-CE Anchorage, Alaska

During the summer of 1978, I participated on 2 one month cruises aboard the University of Hokkaido's Training Vessels OSHORO Y~U and HOKUSEI HARU. The OSHORO MARU cruise, from 5 June to J July concerned itself with fishery and oceanographic studies in the southern Bering Sea. The HOKUSEI :1\RU cruise, although of similar purpose, was confined to the Emperor Seamount area south of the Aleutian Islands The purpose of my work aboard the vessels was two-fold: 1) to study the problem of seabird entanglement in Japanese high seas gillnets, and 2) to study the distribution and abundance of seabirds in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. Densities of seabirds in the Bering Sea study area Nere variable, ranging from 0- 149 /Km2 (X= 11.3, Sx = 1.4)(see Fig.) The variability was due primarily to the presence or absence of Short-tailed , a southern hemisphere breeder wintering in northern waters. Four gillnec sets, each involving 130 tans (6.5km) of variable mesh monofilament net (see Table 1) were made in the Eering Sea. The following seabirds were captured: 31 Short-tailed ShearNaters ( tenuirostris), l.Fork- tailed Storm (Oceanodroma Eurcata), 6 Thick-billed Murres (Uria lomvia), 1 ~~cient Murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquum) and 3 Tufted Puffins (Lunda cirrhata). In aGdition 4 Sooty Shear.oTaters (Puifinus griseus) were captured during an additional 13 gillnet sets made south of the Aleutian Islands • Densiciies of seabirds in the Emperor Seamount area were even more variable than in the southern Bering Sea, ranging from 0 - 2034 birds/Km2. (X= 36.9, Sx = 16.2). (see Fig.). Again, such variability was due to the patchy distribution of Sooty and Short-tailed Shearwaters. Shearwaters, Laysan Albatross and Northern Fulm