Observation: On Sunday November 22nd I received a text from Ms. Payton who counted 13 dead Murres on the outside beach. I went out and walked the beach and counted 19 dead Murres and took a picture of each dead bird or whatever was left of it. I also received a text from Ms. Philpot who was walking the Inside Beach and she found one dead Murre. I went in after I got done at the outside beach and walked the Inside Beach and counted 2 dead Murres and took pictures of them. Just out of curiosity I went to the Church beach and walked it and found 3 more dead Murres and took pictures. We have never seen such a die off of birds hitting our beaches. We do not know if this is something that is going to affect just the Murres or other wildlife that we eat and depend on. How much of a food chain event this is we do not know yet. No one has been able to answer that.
LEO says: We do not have any indication at this point that the bird die-off is effecting the safety of any marine birds as a subsistence resource. It is however, effecting the quality of the birds as they are emaciated, and also food confidence and availability. Is we hear anything about potential food safety with marine birds, we will alert the network. M. Brubaker
Alaska Department of Fish & Game Supplemental: Briefing Statement, 6 Dec 2015 - Since spring (31 March 2015), seabird mortality events (mainly common murres) have been recorded throughout the northern Gulf of Alaska, including beaches on the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak, Homer, Kenai Fjords, Seward, Prince William Sound (PWS), and Kayak and Wingham islands (southeast of PWS). Numbers of carcasses on any one beach have ranged from a dozen to several hundred. Region 7 Migratory Bird Management (MBM) has been networking with USFWS offices and Refuges, US Geological Survey (USGS), University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Alaska SeaLife Center, and the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) to monitor beaches and test carcasses for disease or toxins. Coordinating with the USGS National Wildlife Health Center (Madison, WI), to date we have sent 85 carcasses (62 common murres, 23 other species) for necropsies and tests. Nearly all dead birds were emaciated, indicating starvation. Only one tufted puffin has tested positive for saxitocin (associated with paralytic shellfish poisoning).
Beginning 11 November 2015, there has been a significant increase in reports of dead and dying murres from the northern Gulf of Alaska. Stranded live murres have been found on roads and trails many miles inland (Wasilla, Palmer, Talkeetna, Sutton, etc.). Based on information received in the past two weeks, approximately 500 dead murres have been recorded on beaches in the Gulf of Alaska. Additionally, observations of “100s of murres” in PWS are being reported in large floating aggregations (raft of murres) and appear lethargic and exhibit minimal avoidance behavior. At this time we do not have an estimate of total mortality, nor do we have a clear picture of what age groups have been most affected (adults, sub-adults, juveniles).
We anticipate the die-off events to continue into the winter and spring and are developing an aerial beached bird survey protocol to document the geographic extent and duration of this seabird mortality event. With internal and external partners, we hope to conduct beached bird surveys (aerial, boat-based) with some intensive sampling areas to collect demographic data (age, sex) and body condition. Overall, we will use survey data and demographic information to extrapolate an estimate of total mortality and to model the impact to Alaska’s murre populations, and how this might affect future trends.” Prepared by Robb Kaler, Kathy Kuletz and Liz Labunski.
Media: (2015-11-23) Alaska Public Media - Starving sea birds pop up in Anchorage, Mat-Su.
