IOffshoreSummer-Fall Pacific 2005.Hig.hlights JustAnother in Year PETERPYLE ß INSTITUTEFOR BIRD POPULATIONS ß RO. BOX 1346 ß POINTREYES STATION, CALIFORNIA 94956 ß (EMAIL:[email protected]) IncreasingOur Knowledge ofOcean wasthat seabird productivity had been average morea questionof badtiming than of whole- Events,One Year at a Time towell above average in theperiod 1999-2004. sale disaster. By earlyfall, the wordhad spread:2005 was For a burgeonedpopulation of younger Seabirdpopulation sizes and productivity an unusualyear for seab•rdsoff the Pacific coast seabirds,this was a firstreal test of theirforag- provideexcellent barometers of the stateof of NorthAmerica. But was it that unusual? ing abilities,and it is neithersurprising nor ourmarine ecosystems, helping us keep a fin- Manyyears ago, David Ainley concluded that unhealthy(at thepopulation level) that a die- geron negativeanthropogenic effects such as therewas no suchthing as a "normal"year in off shouldhave ensued. Furthermore, offshore climatechange, oil contamination,and over- the California Current, and it would fishing.But we mustbe patientto follow that theremay not be "un- ß '=•,--L• CSCAPE2005 understandsuch large-scale process- usual"years either. Rather, seabird es. For these reasons,the National dynamicsin the PacificOcean are • "•C'13 r/•ie Co3sr NMS Oceanicand Atmospheric Adminis- Washin,on bestexplained interms of overlap- tration(NOAA) is increasingsup- pingclimatological and oceaniccy- Le• d•es portfor a widevariety of long-term cles,which influencecomplex ma- •a: 06•I13 lb: 07•5•7•4 ocean-monitoringprograms for rineecosystems and result in chaotic • 2:08•1•8/17 seabirds,marine mammals,and oth- andsomewhat unpredictable patchi- J •' 3: •121• er organismsoff the PacificCoast nessin prey resources.Distribution 4: •12•1• Theseinclude several programs con- of theseresources has everything to N42ø 5:101•-10•23 ducted within National Marine Sanc- do with interannual variation in 6:10•9-11/13 tuaries(NMS): Winds-to-Whalesop- seabirdproductivity and dispersal, eratedin MontereyBay NMS by the andour understanding of it all is as Co•ell 8• NMS Centerfor IntegratedMarine Tech- yet too meagerto characterizeany nologyand the University of Califor- one seasonwith such generalized •' Fore• NMS niaat SantaCruz; OCPS (see the Fig- terms as "normal" or "unusual." urecaptions for full programtitles) To be sure.productivity of breed- • Mo•y•yN• in theOl•qnpic Coast NMS; CBOMP ing seabirds, such as those in ,. Califo[n,a in the Cordell Bank NMS; and SFAS colonies on the Farallon Islands off in the Gulf of the Farallones NMS. SanFrancisco, was below average in Researchprograms conducted at 2005,and for some species--notably broaderspatial scales include sur- PelagicCormorant (Phalacrocorax Pac•hc veys during annualrockfish (Se- pelagicus)and Cassin'sAuklet (Ply- N :32ø Ocean bastesspp.) cruises off centralCali- choramphusaleulicus)--it bordered fornia and intermittentsurveys of on completefailure. Spring north- HecetaBank, Oregon, by H. T. Har- westerliesand accompanyingup- vey& Associates;quarterly CalCOFI welling were late, resulting in crumesoff southern (and now cen- warmer,less-productive waters and tral) Californiaby the ScrippsInsti- wi34 o w13o o w126 o vV122o Wit8 o reducedprey (especially krill) when tutionof Oceanographyand PRBO adultsneeded to feedchicks in May ConservationScience; and periodic Figure1. Planned(dashed line) and completed (colored solid lines) transects andJune. By late summer, dead Com- surveyedduring the Collaborative Survey ofCetacean Abundance andthe (onceevery 3-5 years)assessments of marine mammal stocks and mon Murres(Uria aalge)and cor- PelagicEcosystem (CSCAPE) Cruise, undertaken bythe Southwest Fishedes Sci- morantswere washing up on Pacific enceCenter and the National Maline Sanctuary Prog[am aboard NOAA research seabirddislribution along the U.S. Coast beaches in substantial numbers vesselsinJune-Decembe[ 2005.Fine-scale t[ansects were su[veyed inthe Pacificcoast by the SouthwestFish- (North AmericanBirds 59: 645, 651), OlympicCoast, Cordell Bank, Gulf of the Farallones, andMonterey Bay National eries Science Center (SWFSC) of leadingto muchspeculation on the MarineSanctuaries, eachof which conduct year-round surveys aswell. Stars in- NOAA I wasfortunate Io takepart decliningstate of our oceans."Un- dieatelocations ofhigh productivity, from north to south: off Cape Blanco, over in this last project in 2005, the usuallywarm conditions off theWest Perpetua/HecetaBank,the outer reaches ofthe Mendocino Escarpment, and CSCAPE cruise, which covered Pa- Coast this year are hammering CordellBank (see also Figure 2). These cruises occu[ once eve[y three to five cific watersout to 552 km (300 nau- wildlife, and scientistsdon't know years.For more information onCSCAPE, including weekly summaries ofbiolog- tical miles [nmi]) off Washington, why---orwhat it bodesfor the fu- icaland oceanographic observations aswell as photographic highlights, see Oregon,and California(Figure 1). ture,"began a storyin the 23 July <http://swfscnmfs.noaa.gov/PRD/PROJECTS/CSCAPE/defauk.htm>. This research program takes an 2005 SanJose Mercmy News. This ecosystemapproach, attempting not and similararticles predicted long-term de- monitoringprograms (see below) found ex- only to monitorvertebrate populations but clinesand gave the impression that global cli- ceptionalfish prey and marinemammal and alsoto correlatetheir temporal and spatial dy- matechange had begunin earnestin 2005. seabirdabundance off Californiain July-Au- namicswith thoseof prey communitiesand What thesereports failed to note, however, gust,indicating that the poor productivity was the physicaland biologicaloceanography of 4 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS OFFSHOREPACIFICHIGHLIGHTS INSUMMER-FALL 2005 theregion. over these features, internal It has been tempting to • tides and waves create oceanic equate warmer ocean tempera- flux, invectingcold, nutrient- tureswith increasesin thc ap- rich water to the surface and cre- pearanceof unusualseabirds. atingbiological "hotspots" (see Certainly,2005 was a banner x0.00Figure 2). Thanksto the yearfor observations of pelagic CSCAPEcruise, a 25-yeardream rarities:as manyas threenew of mine was realized this fall, to seabird species[or North obtain a glimpseof a hotspot Americaand California, up to over the outer reaches of the [our new state records for Ore- L•0 MendocinoRidge. gon,as well asgood numbers On 8 August2005, the NOAA anddiversity o[ theelusive and shipDavid Star• Jordan covered enigmaticPtoodroma petrels about 212 km (115 nmi) in a were detected. But I would north-northeasterlydirection, questionany suggestionthat 0.10 from positionsabout 394 km 2005 was an unusuallygood (214 nmi) southwest of Point yearfor vagrants,or that the Garda, California, to 313 km newrecords necessarily related (170 nmi) westof CapeMendo- to this season's oceanic anom- cino,directly above the Mendo- alies,which actually were clos- cino Ridge. For 12 hours, we • 0.01 er to "average"for mostof the staredat seeminglylifeless seas, fall. Rather, I believe that in- with few fluctuations in the Figure2. Satelliteimagery showing levels of chlorophyll-a, on21 June 2001, indicating con- creasingreports of vagrant centrationsofphytoplankton andproductive waters. Note the upwelling plumes off Cape 18.3ø C temperature,as is typical seabirds has more to do with Blanco,Cape Mendocino, Point Arena, and Point Reyes, and the counter-clockwise eddiesex- of offshore waters, recording increasedcoverage, enhanced tending westward from each plume. These whorls ofproductivity appear tobe created via the roughlytwo birds per hour, pri- knowledgeof seabirdidentifi- bisectionofthe California Current bysubsurface features (e.g., Heceta Bank, Gorda Escarp- marily Leach'sStorm-Petrels cation criteria, and recent ad- ment,and Cordell Bank), attracting pelagic species such as gadfly petrels totheir westward ( Oceanodroma leucorhoa) and vances in digital imagery, reaches.Forgood discussions ofthis and related topics, see <http://www. mbari.org/staff/ Cook's Petrels (Pterodroma whichcan providesubstantial ryjo/cosmos/it/ite.html> and<http://ono.ucsd.edu/pages/pubs/eos_miller. et.al_1999/ cookii). But in the last hour of assistancewith speciesconfir- CCS_final.text.html>.Imagecourtesy ofRaphael Kudela, University ofCalifornia Santa Cruz. the day,the surfacetemperature mation.Although several un- Originaldata from the SeaWiFS Prolea (NASA) and ¸ Orbimage,Inc. dropped to 16.2ø C, and the usualspecies were observed horizon bas suddenlydotted during the CSCAPEcruise in 200% these Perpetua,Heceta, and Cordell Banks further with albatrosses,petrels, phalaropes, and recordswere made during 145+ full dayso[ swizzle the waters,giving us spectacular jaegers,all milling over scatteredblows of sampling,which included near-constant scan- oceanproductivity that attracts marine mam- SpermWhales (Physeter macrocephalus). We ningof the horizonwith 25-power,mounted mals and seabirds from both near and far. campedon the ridgefor the nightand the binoculars;on thevast majority of thesedays, Theclosest point of U.S.land to thesouthern next morningwere treated to moreof the nothingunusual was noted. In additionto ex- andtropical Pacific Ocean is notin southern same:Sperm Whales and birds lined the pandedcoverage by trainedobservers aboard California,as one might expect,but Cape ridgefrom the westernto the easternhori- scientific cruises, there has also been an in- Mendocinoin HumboldtCounty, which pro- zon. As we continued on our