Second North American Sea Duck Conference - Patuxent Wildlife ...

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SECOND NORTH AMERICAN SEA DUCK CONFERENCE THE AUTUMN MOLT AND SPRING MIGRATION PATTERN OF ARCTIC COMMON EIDER IN WESTERN GREENLAND AND EASTERN CANADA BASED ON SATELLITE TELEMETRY Anders Mosbech¹, H. Grant Gilchrist 2 , Flemming R. Merkel 3 , Christian Sonne¹, Annette Flagstad 4 , Helene Nyegaard¹, and Myra O. Wiebe Robertson 5 ¹Arctic Environment, National Environmental Research Institute, Department of Arctic Environment, P.O. Box 358, Frederiksborg; amo@dmu.dk ² Canadian Wildlife Service, 1125 Colonel By Drive (Raven Road), Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1A 0H3, Canada 3 Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 570, DK-3900 Nuuk, Greenland 4 Copenhagen Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Department of Small Animal Science, Dyrlægevej 16, DK-1870 Frederiksberg, Denmark 5 Canadian Wildlife Service, Suite 301 5204-50th Avenue, Yellowknife, NT X1A 1E2, Canada We used implanted satellite transmitters to track northern common eiders (Somateria mollissima borealis) during migration from breeding grounds in West Greenland and eastern Arctic Canada, and from molting and wintering areas in West Greenland. We compared distances moved, timing, duration, and patterns of movement for the spring and autumn migration. The common eiders used two main wintering areas and three major migration flyways. Eiders tracked from a colony in West Greenland migrated south to winter and back north to breed following the West Greenland coast. Some of the eiders tracked from a colony in Arctic Canada similarly migrated south to winter and back north to breed following the eastern Canadian coast. However, 60% (n=25) of the eiders we tracked from a colony in Arctic Canada, and 7 of 8 eiders from a wintering area in West Greenland, followed an east - west flyway instead of a north-south route. They migrated across the Davis Strait to winter in Southwest Greenland and back to breed in Canada, thus linking the two northsouth flyways. More females than males from the Canadian colony (14 of 18 females and 1 of 6 males) followed the shorter east-west flyway. Although both in the Arctic, the climatic conditions in eastern Canada and western Greenland is very different due to the relatively warm Irminger Current maintaining open water during winter at the southwest Greenland coast, and also influencing the climatic conditions at the breeding grounds. This study showed a clear segregation in the Greenland wintering area linking local hunting areas to different eider breeding regions, and we found that this segregation corresponded to structural differences in the tracked birds. Distances moved for the tracked birds ranged from sedentary birds, breeding in the wintering area in southwest Greenland, to routes exceeding 3000 km including molt migrations along the eastern Canadian coast. The migration speed during spring migration averaged about 60 km/day, which was less than half of the migration speed during autumn. The slow spring migration put emphasis on the importance of undisturbed high quality foraging areas en route where eiders put on body reserves for a successful breeding season. 36 ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND, USA NOV. 7-11, 2005
SECOND NORTH AMERICAN SEA DUCK CONFERENCE SPRING MIGRATION CHRONOLOGY AND BREEDING AREAS OF SURF SCOTERS: A SYNTHESIS OF PACIFIC COAST POPULATION STUDIES Susan Wainwright-De La Cruz 1 , Matthew Wilson 1 , John Takekawa 1 , Dave Nysewander 2 , Joe Evenson 2 , Daniel Esler 3 , Sean Boyd 4 , David Ward 5 , and John Eadie 6 1Western Ecological Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey,Vallejo, CA; susan_ wainwright@usgs.gov 2Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia, WA 3Centre for Wildlife Ecology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC 4Pacific Wildlife Research Centre, Canadian Wildlife Service, Delta, BC 5Alaska Science Center, U. S. Geological Survey, Anchorage, AK 6 Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, University of California, Davis, CA Surf scoters (Melanitta perspicillata) are distributed along the Pacific coast from Southern Alaska through Baja California, Mexico during winter. Very little is known about the migration chronology, migratory corridors, and ultimate breeding areas of individuals from major wintering areas. Over the past 3 years, we have been examining spring migration and breeding area affiliations of surf scoters wintering along the Pacific coast, including those from Baja California, Norte, Mexico, San Francisco Bay, California, Puget Sound, Washington, and Strait of Georgia, British Columbia. We compiled telemetry data from PTT-marked and VHF-marked scoters captured in 2003-2005. The spring departure period extended from mid March through early May and varied depending on wintering area. Most birds spent only brief periods at stopover sites along the lower Pacific coast. Some birds from Mexico and California used areas in the Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia area for extended periods before they continued to southeast Alaska, where birds from all wintering sites staged for prolonged periods before moving inland to breeding areas. We examined variation in routes, travel rates, and duration of stay at key stopover sites related to marking location, age, sex, and mass. Breeding areas of most marked birds were located in between Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes in the Northwest Territories; however, some birds from Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia were found in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. We evaluated timing of arrival on breeding areas related to marking location and sex. We will present results from nearest-neighbor analyses examining breeding distributions of birds from different wintering populations. By integrating telemetry datasets from several concurrent studies we achieved the most comprehensive view of Pacific coast surf scoter migration ecology possible. Such information will be crucial for the future management of this declining species. NOV. 7-11, 2005 ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND, USA 37
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Allard, Karel 5, 62 Anderson, Eric
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