PACIFIC SEABIRD GROUP Melinda Nakagawa PaciFORTYfc-SECOND Seabird ANNUAL MEETING: Group A FUTURE FOR SEABIRDS San Jose, California, USA Annual Meeting 2015 ABSTRACT BOOK 18 - 21 February 2015 San Jose Airport Garden Hotel http://www.pacificseabirdgroup.org/ Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21 February 2015 San Jose, CA STANDARDIZED MONITORING OF ASHY STORM-PETREL CAPTURE–RECAPTURE RATES IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK 1Josh Adams * 1US Geological Survey Western Ecological Research Center, 400 Natural Bridges Dr., Santa Cruz, CA 95060, [email protected] Channel Islands National Park (CINP) provides essential nesting habitat for greater than half the world’s population of breeding Ashy Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma homochroa). Currently, information is required to maintain, enhance, and standardize Ashy Storm-Petrel monitoring to determine trends in relative population size. Since 1975, capture-recapture efforts using mist-netting methods were conducted sporadically using varying techniques (i.e., mist-netting with and without broadcast vocalizations). No formal guidelines exist describing a standardized, repeatable approach. During 2004-07, I conducted mist-netting surveys (47 site-nights) targeting Ashy Storm-Petrels at three colony sites: Scorpion Rock off Santa Cruz Island, Santa Barbara Island, and Prince Island off San Miguel Island. I recorded 1,178 unique Ashy Storm-Petrel captures with 35 (2.9%) recaptures of previously banded storm-petrels. Power to detect 30% lesser mean standardized catch per unit effort (CPUEs) at equivalent sample size and alpha = 0.15 (85% CI), was variable across islands and years, from 39% (Prince Island 2005) to 87% (Santa Barbara Island 2005). Overall, based on, I estimated power = 96% to detect a 30% lesser CPUEs. Five to 42 site-nights at individual islands/years, or a minimum 21 site-nights across islands would be required to achieve 80% power to detect a 30% lesser CPUEs. Among relatively dark nights, we found that moon index did not significantly affect capture rate. Proxy wind-speed also did not significantly affect capture rate. CPUEs can be further improved and used for evaluating trends in relative abundance— essential for tracking conservation status and restoration efforts aimed at providing a future for Ashy Storm-Petrel. Talk Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21 February 2015 San Jose, CA 2 BIOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION OF ASHY STORM-PETREL 1David Ainley* and 2Harry Carter 1H.T. Harvey & Associates, 983 University Ave, Los Gatos CA. 2Carter Consulting, Vancouver, Canada, [email protected] Current knowledge on the colony and at-sea distribution of the Ashy Storm-Petrel will be presented, with much new information. The issue of source vs sink populations will be discussed with regard to the two large colonies at the Farallones and Channel Islands, and dozens of smaller colonies along the coast. Talk ASHY STORM-PETREL RANGEWIDE SCIENCE AND CONSERVATION: INTRODUCTION 1David G. Ainley*, 2Harry R. Carter, 3Shaye G. Wolf, 4Anna M. Weinstein 1H.T. Harvey and Associates, 983 University Ave., Los Gatos, California 95032 USA. 2Carter Biological Consulting, 1015 Hampshire Rd., Victoria, British Columbia V8S 4S8 Canada. 3Center for Biological Diversity, 351 California St., Ste. 600, San Francisco, California 94104 USA. 4California Audubon, 220 Montgomery St., Ste. 1000, San Francisco, California 94104 USA, [email protected] The Ashy Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma homochroa), similar to most other storm-petrels in the region (8 forms), is endemic and relatively rare (<15,000 breeding birds) occurring from northern California to central west Baja California (51 known breeding locations). Nesting habitat is limited, and at certain colonies may facilitate ‘floating populations’ of mature non-breeders. Five geographically-separated population concentrations contribute disproportionately to the total breeding population. The largest concentration is at the South Farallones off central California but similar numbers are spread through 4 smaller concentrations in the southern California Channel Islands (San Miguel Island Area, NW and NE Santa Cruz Island, Santa Barbara Island area). Little is known about small populations in Baja California and parts of the central and northern California coasts. This special paper session has been developed to share recent information about status, biology and conservation in different parts of its range. Talk Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21 February 2015 San Jose, CA 3 MEXICAN SEABIRDS: THE WAY FORWARD 1Yuri Albores-Barajas*, 1Alfonso Aguirre-Muñoz, 1María Félix-Lizárraga, 1Julio Hernández-Montoya, 1Antonio Ortiz-Alcaraz 1Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, Avenida Moctezuma 836, Zona Centro, Ensenada, B.C., Mexico, [email protected] Mexico occupies the third place in the world in number of seabird species breeding or using the territorial waters and second regarding endemics, with 115 and eight species respectively. In the country there are more than 4000 islands, many of them with seabird colonies. However, there is a general lack of information about the current status of seabirds and it is necessary to prioritize where to focus the conservation efforts. In this talk we identify the main information gaps and where knowledge is urgently required, especially in the Mexican North Pacific, Tropical Pacific, Gulf of California, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Urgent research is needed to determine the population trend of the Alcids and Procellariids, as the last estimate for many species was done more than a decade ago. There is also a gap in the knowledge of the interaction of seabirds and fisheries in Mexican waters. We also present data of the status of seabirds in Mexico. Finally, it is important to work on the social aspect of seabird conservation. Many communities are located in the breeding grounds of the seabirds, and it is necessary to make these communities to adopt and make them feel as their own, in order to preserve and protect them. Talk Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21 February 2015 San Jose, CA 4 WHY DO SEABIRDS YAWN? STRESSORS AND YAWNING IN NAZCA BOOBIES 1David Anderson*, 1Amy Liang, 2Jacquelyn Grace, 1Emily Tompkins 1Wake Forest University, 1834 Wake Forest Rd. Winston-Salem, NC 27106. 2Centre d’E'tudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Villers-en-Bois, F-79360 Beauvoir sur Niort, France, [email protected] Yawning is a familiar and phylogenetically widespread phenomenon, but no consensus exists regarding its functional significance. We tested the hypothesis that yawning communicates to others a transition from a state of physiological and/or psychological arousal (for example, due to action of a stressor) to a more relaxed state. This arousal reduction hypothesis predicts little yawning during arousal and more yawning (above baseline) during and after down-regulation of arousal. Experimental capture-restraint tests with wild adult Nazca boobies (Sula granti), a seabird, increased yawning frequency after release from restraint, but yawning was almost absent during tests. Natural maltreatment by non-parental adults also increased yawning by nestlings, but only after the maltreatment ended and the adult left. CORT (corticosterone) was a logical a priori element of the stress response affecting the stressor-yawning relationship under the arousal reduction hypothesis, and cannot be excluded as such for adults in capture-restraint tests but is apparently unimportant for nestlings being maltreated by adults. The arousal reduction hypothesis unites formerly disparate results on yawning: its socially contagious nature in some taxa, its clear pharmacological connection to the stress response, and its temporal linkage to transitions in arousal between consciousness and sleep. Talk Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21 February 2015 San Jose, CA 5 WIDESPREAD BREEDING FAILURE IN GULF OF CALIFORNIA BROWN PELICANS IN 2014 1Daniel Anderson* and 2Franklin Gress 1Univ. California, Davis, 501 Isla Place, Davis, CA 95616. 2Calif. Inst. Environ. Studies, 3408 Whaler Ave., Davis, CA 95616, [email protected] Did a 2014 breeding failure of California Brown Pelicans (CABRPE) and other seabirds in the Gulf of California (GOC) portend a coming El Niño event, or was there more involved? A GOC seabird breeding failure in 2014 was essentially similar to negative responses observed in past ENSO events; yet, the intensity of breeding failure in 2014 was the most extreme observed in 46 years of CABRPE monitoring. Age-ratio data in post-breeding, dispersing pelican aggregations corroborated range-wide lack of fledged young in the GOC. An extreme, local warming event in the east-central region of the Pacific (GOC and western Baja California) was, interestingly, described and coined by oceanographic researchers as a California El Niño event and described as having begun in the spring and summer of 2014. But extensive warming did not develop into a more typical, Pacific-wide ENSO event (although developing conditions were still predicted by NOAA as an ENSO event for 2015). Southern California Bight CABRPE breeding effort in 2014 was extremely poor, as well, but the best in CABRPE range. Broader, wide-scale warming in the Pacific, extending from Hawaii to the Gulf of Alaska also developed during this period and has likely exacerbated the expected large-scale effects expected of a more typical ENSO event. Talk Pacific Seabird Group 42nd Annual Meeting 18-21