Project Information

Title: LTM Program: Long-term Monitoring of Marine Bird Abundance and Habitat Associations during Fall and Winter in Prince William Sound 21120114-E

Project Year and Number: 2021: 21120114-E

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: 2020: 20120114-E, 2019: 19120114-E, 2018: 18120114-E, 2017: 17120114-E, 2016: 16120114-C, 2015: 15120114-C, 2014: 14120114-C, 2013: 13120114-C, 2012: 12120114-C

Principal Investigator (PI): Mary Anne Bishop (Prince William Sound Science Center)

Managing Agency: NOAA

Assisting Personnel: None

Project Website: https://gulfwatchalaska.org/monitoring/pelagic-ecosystem/long-term-monitoring-of-seabird-abundance-and-habitat-associations-during-late-fall-and-winter-in-prince-william-sound/

Research Location: Prince William Sound

Restoration Category: Monitoring, Research

Injured Resources Addressed: Not Specified

Abstract:

The fall-winter marine bird surveys in Prince William Sound (PWS) will continue to build upon a 13-year time series (2007-2020) of marine bird abundance and habitat associations. Surveys occur onboard research vessels conducting oceanographic, fisheries, or marine mammal surveys, thereby increasing opportunities for cross-project collaboration and reducing project costs. Our September surveys are integrated with Gulf Watch Alaska (GWA) pelagic component’s forage fish assessments of prey availability (21120114-C) and humpback whale monitoring (2120114-O) with all three projects sharing logistics, timing, and location of sampling. These integrated surveys allow us to estimate forage biomass at the same locations in which marine birds and humpback whales are feeding, thereby providing comparable information on both predator density and prey availability. This is the one survey that may be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in fall of 2020. Our November and March surveys are in conjunction with the GWA project monitoring of oceanographic conditions in PWS (21120114-G) and enable us to extend our long-term dataset of marine bird observations within juvenile herring bays of PWS. For all surveys we use established protocols employed by all other GWA marine bird survey efforts (Kachemak Bay/Cook Inlet, Seward Line/Gulf of Alaska, PWS summer). Of the marine birds that overwinter in PWS nine species were initially injured by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, including three species that have not yet recovered or have unknown recovery status. By monitoring marine birds during fall and winter, we will improve our predictive models of species abundance and distribution across PWS in relation to biological and physical environmental factors. Our long-term monitoring has shown that the nonbreeding season cannot be characterized as a single time period when describing marine bird distribution and suggests that multiple surveys are required to quantify wintering populations and understand changes in distribution. Finally, with new funding from the PWS Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, we will conduct additional and complementary marine bird surveys in the tanker escort zone and adjacent bays during February. Survey data will be combined with GWA data. We are proposing no major changes to this project in FY21.


Proposal: View (1,057 KB)

Reports:
FY17-21 Final Report: View (7,427 KB)

Publications from this Project: None Available