Shearwater (genus Puffinus) Bird Die-off

Observation by Shayla Shaishnikoff:

Environmental staff of the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska investigated reports of a bird die-off at Humpy Cove on August 28, 2019. Upon arrival and inspection of approximately 1/4 mile stretch of beach, we identified and counted 18 dead shearwater birds that seem to have washed ashore. Other tribal members also reported finding dead shearwaters at Wide Bay and Morris Cove.

This event follows an unusual presence of the shearwater in Unalaska Bay. While these birds usually stay far from town, we noticed a very large presence of them accompanying the whales in the bay this summer. We speculate that they might have been following a food source of krill that may not have been present in their regular summer location.

Kathy Kuletz, Sea Bird Coordinator with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), writes:

Thanks for sending the report via the LEO Network. The second picture caught my eye because the beak looks more the size of a sooty shearwater - but it could be the angle and its very hard to tell without a measurement, and the picture doesn't show the top of the head or forehead. All other pictures and identified dead shearwaters have been short-tailed shearwaters. Do you know if Shayla or others took additional pictures, or placed any kind of measurement tool near the beak in other pictures? Hillary - with your team's experience in identifying dead birds - what do you or your team think? I might show this picture to others.

Hillary Burgess, Science Coordinator for the Coastal Observation & Seabird Survey Team (COASST), writes:

Gosh, it's tough for me without a sense of scale. Attached photo of Pyle's description.

I've added this to the opportunistic dataset that we use to generate the die-off maps. Thank you.

The is a great observation, noting the beach length and number of carcasses counted along with context of unusual presence of live shearwaters nearby. For (sooty vs short-tailed) shearwater ID, it's really tough without a scale near the bill.

Comments from LEO Editors:

The National Park Service has issued a press release describing the 2019 Alaska Seabird Die-off. Beginning in May 2019, US FWS received reports of dead or dying seabirds along the coast, from the northern Bering Sea and Chuckchi coasts, to the Alaska Peninsula, and Gulf of Alaska. Bird necropsys showed that the birds had starved. In Southeast Alaska, Arctic tern deaths were linked to saxitoxin from a harmful algal bloom. Testing of other tissue samples to understand whether harmful algal blooms factored into the deaths of birds elsewhere is ongoing. Erica Lujan