Interim report of the HELCOM CORESET project

46
Sampling
It is suggested to include surveys of wintering seabirds with special emphasis on shallow offshore areas into
the HELCOM Waterbird Monitoring which should fall under the COMBINE regulations.
As a minimum requirement for a Baltic-wide monitoring programme for wintering waterbirds key habitats
which may be regarded as holding signifi cant proportions of the European wintering populations should
be assessed. Monitoring should take place at times of highest occurrence (mid-winter) following standard
procedures.
In additional to surveying (principally transect surveying) individual animal tracking could be applied to
explore distribution. While the fi rst provides large scale information the latter may provide important additional
background information for the interpretation of detected changes in distribution. Habitat association
can be inferred by comparing the animal’s locations with available habitat within the bird’s potential
range or directly by use of data loggers providing environmental data on prevailing oceanographic conditions.
Moreover, animal tracking delivers high quality information on the individual, such as its activity and
status which are important variables aiding in the interpretation of distribution and habitat association.
Weaknesses/gaps
As pointed out above, besides the naturally occurring spatio-temporal variation, also multiple pressures can
be identifi ed as playing an important (either negative or positive) role in the distributions of most species of
waterbirds. Teasing out the relative infl uence of natural determinants and each pressure on the distribution
and conservation status of every species requires detailed statistical analyses, which could not be developed
within the scope of this report. The proposed core indicator requires further work, but can be used
tentatively in environmental assessments. In addition, the paper at hand aims at promoting a Baltic wide
spatially explicit monitoring of seabirds especially in the offshore areas.
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