PRBO's new SF Bay Research Center at Shollenberger Park

Discovery of breeding Least Bell's Vireo by PRBO biologist

Marine research on the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge

Hungry Seabirds on the Farallon Islands

Salmon, Seabirds, and the State of the Ocean

Link to Santa Rosa Press Democrat article

By JENNIFER ROTH
March 23, 2008
Santa Rosa Press Democrate

Jennifer Roth is a biologist with the Marine Ecology Division at the Petaluma-based PRBO Conservation Science.

Chinook salmon returns are low. Coho salmon returns are low. The breeding success of seabirds is low, too. Together, this suggests that this year's sharp drop in the salmon population is the result of recent, dramatic changes in ocean conditions.

We recently completed analyses that demonstrate the connections between seabirds and chinook salmon. Our work shows that seabird breeding success and salmon abundance tend to be high (or low) in the same years and supports the idea that seabirds and salmon are affected by the ocean environment in similar ways.

This means that we may be able to use seabirds to help guide fisheries management. Specifically, we may be able to use seabirds as indicators of the ocean conditions that are affecting salmon, which could help us predict future salmon returns.

The ocean along the central California coast is one of the most productive -- and most variable -- in the world.

In most years, spring winds force surface waters offshore and cause the upwelling of nutrient-rich waters that are well below the surface at other times of the year. Those waters then support the growth of phytoplankton (small marine plants) that feed krill and small fish that both salmon and seabirds rely on for food. In 2005 and 2006, delays in spring upwelling had negative impacts at all levels of the marine food web.

As researchers at the nonprofit PRBO Conservation Science, we saw the impacts of delays in upwelling on the Farallon Islands, where many of the nesting seabirds experienced poor breeding success or complete breeding failure.

Cassin's auklets (small, diving seabirds) feed almost exclusively on krill and apparently could not find enough food to successfully raise chicks. Research cruises in the waters surrounding the Farallones confirmed that krill were scarce in those years.

Other seabirds that feed primarily on fish showed changes in their diets. Fewer juvenile rockfish -- normally found near the Farallones -- were seen in chick diets.

Some seabird species turned to other prey, including anchovy, that occur farther away from the breeding colony and require adult seabirds to fly farther to find food.

The increased time and energy that this requires may have made it more difficult for the adults to feed and care for their chicks.

We may now be seeing similar impacts on chinook and coho salmon. Low salmon returns in 2007 (and projected for 2008) may indicate that salmon survival at sea has been low for the last several years. Salmon leave the freshwater environment as juveniles and spend several years at sea before returning to their natal rivers and streams to spawn.

Salmon are most sensitive to ocean conditions as they leave the freshwater environment to spend their first year at sea. The salmon that should be returning to Central California rivers this year entered the ocean at the same time that we were seeing drastic reductions in seabird breeding success on the Farallones. Salmon rely on some of the krill and small fish that support seabird populations and may not have been able to find the food that they needed to survive.

There has been some debate about whether the current reductions in local salmon returns are due to problems in the freshwater or marine environments.

Salmon are certainly threatened by a myriad of forces, including freshwater habitat degradation and low river flows. However, low returns are being seen in rivers and streams all along the coast.

The widespread nature of the phenomenon and the other evidence of problems in the marine system suggest that the declines seen this year are largely due to altered ocean conditions.

Understanding the changes we are seeing in the marine environment, and the connections between different species, may ultimately help to protect vulnerable salmon stocks and the commercial fisheries dependent on them.

The ability to scientifically predict wildlife abundance is crucial for keeping fish stocks viable. Fisheries managers currently use jack (2-year-old male) returns to predict salmon abundance in the next year. Our analyses to date indicate that data on seabird breeding success can also be used to predict salmon abundance.

Finding ways to use seabird data in predictive fisheries models may allow us to incorporate information on ocean conditions into the models, thereby providing us with new tools for predicting salmon abundance that will contribute to the sustainable management of the salmon fishery.

Modbee.com

Discovery of yellow warbler nest has experts chirping

By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
mmooney@modbee.com

It's a bird so small you could cradle it in the palm of your hand.

But it was big news when a pair of yellow warblers and their nest were discovered in Stanislaus County, about 20 miles west of Modesto on privately owned property adjacent to the San Joaquin River.

The diminutive songbirds once abounded in the Central Valley.

No more.

Yellow warblers only nest in riparian (streamside) habitat.

As that habitat was gobbled up — by gravel and farming operations, as well as rapid urbanization — the valley's population of yellow warblers dwindled to a precious few.

Eventually, the bird was placed on the state's "species of special concern" list to prevent it from becoming a full-fledged endangered species.

The Stanislaus County land where the warbler nest was discovered last month was restored with help from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, federal Department of Agriculture and California Department of Fish and Game.

The three government agencies offer programs to assist landowners with habitat restoration.

"It's very exciting," said biologist Ryan DiGaudio of PRBO Conservation Science, "and also gratifying to see the positive results of all the time and investment in restoring habitat."

PRBO is a nonprofit conservation and education group specializing in bird and ecosystem research. Founded in 1965 as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, today the group is based in Petaluma.

It was DiGaudio, an ornithologist, who found the nest last month while conducting field research.

"I heard warblers singing and followed the birds for about a week," he said, "before I discovered the nest. We're hoping to see a lot of these birds return."

The yellow warbler migrates to the Western United States from the tropics of Central America, following a route covering a thousand miles or more.

Melissa Pitkin, PRBO director of education and outreach, said finding a yellow warbler nest on privately owned land in the San Joaquin Valley is extremely rare.

Pitkin said biologists believe the pair discovered by DiGaudio came from a population that recently established itself at the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, also west of Modesto.

"Yellow warblers are making a comeback in the valley," Pitkin said. "PRBO biologists have been studying songbirds in riparian habitats throughout the Central Valley since 1995."

She said warblers have been reappearing at PRBO study sites in the past few years in small but gradually increasing numbers.

"This time of year they are not easy to find in the valley," she said. "During the spring and summer they can be seen easily along the creeks in the Eastern Sierra (Lee Vining area) or along the Sacramento River and its tributaries near Redding, Chico and Shasta."

Perhaps the best time of year to spot them is September, Pitkin said, "when they can be seen on migration, from other parts of the West, at any public place where there are willows and a healthy riparian area."

Pitkin said other "species of special concern" found breeding on restored private lands this year include tri-colored blackbirds, least bitterns (a wading bird) and redheads (a duck).

Shawn Milar, easement program manager at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, said public-private partnerships are critical to riparian habitat restoration.

"Without our partners none of this would be possible," he said. "It takes an entire community of landowners, restoration, conservation, and research professionals to protect and restore habitat."

For more on PRBO Conservation Science visit the group's web site at www.prbo.org.

Bee staff writer Michael G. Mooney can be reached at mmooney@modbee.com or 578-2384.

Posted on 07/22/07 00:00:00
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13815356p-14391696c.html

Effects of giant icebergs on two emperor penguin colonies in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Since 1970, PRBO biologists have worked in Antarctica in cooperation with partners from around the world. Since 1996, we have participated in studies of Ross Sea Adélie and Emperor penguin population dynamics in collaboration with researchers from H.T. Harvey & Associates, Landcare Research, New Zealand, Oregon State University, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and several others. From this long-term study, more than 20 scientific publications have been produced, ranging from topics such as climate change effects, intra- and inter-specific competition for food, and micro-evolution. This most recent publication summarizes the dramatic affects of the movement of two large icebergs which destroyed nesting habitat, caused nest abandonment, and large-scale reproductive failure. The paper was published in the journal Antarctic Science, the abstract is below and the full text is available here.

Authors:
GERALD L. KOOYMAN 1, DAVID G. AINLEY2, GRANT BALLARD3,4 and PAUL J. PONGANIS1
1Scholander Hall, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093-0204, USA
2 H.T. Harvey & Associates, San Jose CA 95118, USA
3 PRBO Conservation Science, Bolinas, CA 94924, USA
4 School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Publication Abstract:
The arrival in January 2001 in the south-west Ross Sea of two giant icebergs, C16 and B15A,subsequently had dramatic affects on two emperor penguin colonies. B15A collided with the north-west tongue of the Ross Ice Shelf at Cape Crozier, Ross Island, in the following months and destroyed the penguins’ nesting habitat. The colony totally failed in 2001, and years after, with the icebergs still in place,exhibited reduced production that ranged from 0 to 40% of the 1201 chicks produced in 2000. At Beaufort Island, 70 km NW of Crozier, chick production declined to 6% of the 2000 count by 2004. Collisions with the Ross Ice Shelf at Cape Crozier caused incubating adults to be crushed, trapped in ravines, or to abandon the colony and, since 2001, to occupy poorer habitat. The icebergs separated Beaufort Island from the Ross Sea Polynya, formerly an easy route to feeding and wintering areas. This episode has provided a glimpse of events which have probably occurred infrequently since the West Antarctic Ice Sheet began to retreat 12000 years ago. The results allow assessment of recovery rates for one colony decimated by both adult and chick mortality, and the other colony by adult abandonment and chick mortality.

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PRBO Wins Senator Barbara Boxer's Conservation Champion Award

Point Reyes Bird Observatory Conservation Science has received the 2006 Conservation Champion Award from Sen. Barbara Boxer for outstanding contributions to biodiversity conservation.

Boxer established the Conservation Champion Award in January 2000 to recognize individuals and organizations working to promote a safe and healthy environment.

"For more than 40 years, the Point Reyes Bird Observatory has provided Californians with the opportunity to learn about and appreciate our state's native bird population," Boxer said. "Today, PRBO is still leading the way by educating us on the best way to conserve bird species and their habitats so that Californians will be able to share these experiences for generations to come."

PRBO Conservation Science is a nonprofit conservation and education organization dedicated to advancing conservation through bird and ecosystem research. It was founded in 1965 as Point Reyes Bird Observatory.

Marin IJ, March 8, 2006

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New San Francisco Bay Research Center at Shollenberger Park, Petaluma

Wildlife group migrates to new home SF Chronicle, June 1, 2006

Renowned bird conservation group moves to Petaluma Press Democrat, May 13, 2006

Press Democrat, Jan. 14, 2005. Download pdf (0.2 MB)

Learn more about PRBO's Lasting Legacy Campaign

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After a 60 year absence, first breeding Least Bell's Vireos found by PRBO biologist at San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge

Modesto Bee, Jun 26, 2005. Download pdf (0.07 MB)

New York Times, Jun 17, 2005. Download pdf (0.02 MB)

USFWS Press Release, June 15, 2005. Download pdf (0.25 MB)

Learn more about PRBO's work on the San Joaquin R. NWR.

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Marine research at the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge

Northern Fur Seals on the Farallon Islands
Click here for September 11, 2006 SF Chronicle story

"Sea life in peril - plankton vanishing..."
San Francisco Chronicle, July 12, 2005

San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 2005

San Francisco Chronicle, Editorial, Feb.22, 2005. Download pdf
(0.1 MB)

San Francisco Chronicle, Feb.19, 2005. Download pdf (0.1 MB)

San Francisco Chronicle, Letters to the Editor, Feb.18, 2005. Download pdf (0.1 MB)

San Francisco Chronicle, Feb.17, 2005. Download pdf (1.8MB)

Farallon National Wildlife Refuge & Public Access Backgrounder, Feb.18, 2005. Download pdf (0.1MB)

Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2004. Download pdf (0.3 MB)

The Mercury News, July 23, 2005.

Learn more about PRBO's Farallon Research Program

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FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

A rocky laboratory of ecosystem science

FARALLON ISLANDS: Researchers study how warmer waters impact marine life habits Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2007/02/19/BAGEVO78S31.DTL&type=science

Monday, February 19, 2007

The whale-watching boat Superfish drifted up and down with the surging waves that crashed over the rocky shore of the Farallon Islands, an ancient archipelago 27 miles off San Francisco's coast.

Derek Lee, a 35-year-old biologist who has spent the past five winters on the islands, puttered up in a small motorized raft the other day, tied up to the side of the boat and grabbed baggage handed down from the vessel.

Lee's little raft is the only way for people to get onto Southeast Farallon Island in this 211-acre chain of craggy rocks that is part of the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge. Storms and rough waters have consistently destroyed all landing docks that were built, so Lee has to ferry passengers over to a diesel-fueled crane that lifts them on, or off, the island.

It can be rough going for the small band of biologists who live in a 120-year-old Victorian house on the cold, weather-beaten rocks. But this isolated outcropping jutting out of the often stormy sea is where some of the world's most important marine wildlife research is now taking place.

"It definitely is a laboratory of ecosystem science," said Lee, a specialist in species demography for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, now called PRBO Conservation Science. "Absolutely we are reaping a huge harvest of information about the ecosystem and about the Pacific Ocean, which is the single largest factor in global climate after the sun."

The studies on marine mammals, birds and the ocean ecosystem at the Farallon Islands are as important as any research going on anywhere in the world, especially given the recent findings of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which predicts lasting ecological impacts from an ocean that is heating up and rising fast.

Data from Farallones researchers are already showing how changing ocean climate conditions are devastating the Cassin's auklet, a small North American seabird that feeds on krill. Lee said the species' population has declined about 80 percent over the past three decades, and disaster has struck in the past two years.

"The species has had an absolute and complete breeding failure," he said. "Not a single egg has hatched for the last two years. That's unprecedented in the last 35 years of our data."

Studies on the islands are showing that the reproductive and dietary habits of other seabirds are also changing with ocean temperatures.

Lee's team established a connection between El Niño weather conditions and the migration of California sea lions from their usual home on the Channel Islands to the Farallones. Climate also has a mysterious effect on marine mammal reproduction, he said.

"We just started analyzing the elephant seal population and how climate affects how many males and females are born," Lee said. "We've determined that El Niño causes more males to be born. We don't know why, but we are trying to figure it out."

Even during these changing times, the archipelago and the water surrounding it are teeming with life, including five species of seals and sea lions, 13 species of seabirds and one of the largest concentrations of great white sharks in the world. Dolphins, humpback whales and blue whales are regular visitors, and fur and elephant seals are beginning to thrive on the islands after being absent for nearly two centuries.

The common murre is also making a big comeback after egg collectors nearly wiped them out a century ago. A pod of killer whales from Washington state was recently spotted near the Farallones, and a prominent computer scientist and his sailboat vanished, adding a touch of mystery to the place.

All of which contributes to a bounty of information about the health of what researchers call the California Current, the band of coastal water from Baja California to British Columbia that flows past the islands. In fact, this forlorn-looking collection of rock is one of the richest marine environments on the globe, thanks to its proximity to the continental shelf, which provides deep upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich water.

"The ocean provides a huge portion of the protein humans eat, and the California current is a big part of that productivity," Lee said. "We're talking about the food on our plate and how global climate change may affect that. The ecosystem knowledge that we provide from this natural laboratory definitely has fisheries management implications."

The current status of the Farallones as a weathervane for global climate change represents a historic new era for a place that 19th century sailors dubbed "the devil's teeth." For hundreds of years, the archipelago was used to harvest food, not information.

American Indians called these rocks the "Islands of the Dead," an earthly hell where bad spirits lived, according to historians. The Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was said to be the first European to see them in 1542, but he never went ashore. Sir Francis Drake was the first to do that, gathering seabird eggs and killing sea lions for meat in 1579, after his five-week stay on the Point Reyes peninsula. The islands were a source of food for passing seafarers and egg hunters for the next three centuries.

Drake named the archipelago the Islands of St. James. Although the name didn't stick, one tiny island six miles north is still called the Isle of St. James.

In 1769, the explorer Juan Francisco de la Bodega renamed the islands Los Farallones de los Frailes, in honor of the Franciscan friars who were busy at the time enslaving California's natives. The islands fared better than the Indians until 1810, when a New England vessel called the O'Kain arrived with four sealing boats.

During the next 22 months, between 75,000 and 150,000 Northern fur seals and Northern elephant seals were slaughtered, their pelts sold as far away as China. When the New Englanders left, Russians from Fort Ross moved in, using Aleuts and Pomo Indians to help collect bird down, eggs, sea lions, fur seals and otters, according to various accounts.

By the time the Russians left in 1841, fur seals and elephant seals had been wiped out on the California coast, including the Farallones.

The common murre was the next victim of human gluttony. A shortage of eggs in San Francisco during the Gold Rush prompted entrepreneurs to begin collecting murre eggs on the islands. The eggs reportedly sold for $1.75 a dozen, prompting the formation of the Farallon Egg Co. and later the Pacific Egg Co.

The business was so profitable that rival gangs of eggers were formed and pirates began to ply the waters, hijacking egging vessels. A gunbattle reportedly broke out on the islands between rival eggers in 1863, leaving one man dead.

One tactic of the egg collectors, according to historians, was to break all the existing eggs, forcing the birds to lay new ones, ensuring fresh eggs for the trip back to the mainland.

As many as 600,000 eggs were taken annually from the islands. In all, an estimated 14 million eggs were removed from nests before the California Academy of Sciences and the American Ornithological Union halted commercial egg collecting some 40 years after it began. By 1900, the Farallon murre population, which was once well over a half million, had been reduced to only a few thousand.

By 1909, the North and Middle Farallon Islands had been declared a national wildlife refuge, but that wasn't the end of the trouble. Human habitation on the southeast island, which began with a lighthouse in 1855, meant the introduction of non-native animals like rabbits, mules, cats, turkeys, goats, chickens, house mice and children.

The invaders trampled nests and preyed on wildlife; ships regularly pumped out their bilges near the Farallones before entering San Francisco Bay.

The government, at various times, considered building military air strips, a harbor, a prison and a gas station for passing oil tankers on the islands. During World War II, more than 70 people lived in some 20 homes on the southeast island, which the residents referred to as Farallon City. There were movie nights, dances and even an island newspaper.

In 1969, South Farallon was declared a national wildlife refuge. The lighthouse was automated in 1972, ending 117 years of continuous occupation. The last rabbit and cat were removed from the islands in 1974. Mice, however, still scurry around the two houses.

The government established the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in 1981, protecting the surrounding waters. Elephant seals returned to the islands to breed for the first time in 1972. In 1996, the first Northern fur seal pup was born on the islands, ending an absence of more than 150 years.

Monica Bond, a volunteer biologist, climbed from the Superfish into Lee's skiff. She would spend the next five weeks on the island monitoring elephant and fur seals.

The 36-year-old biologist, who has had two previous stints on the archipelago, said elephant seals have the longest migration and can dive deeper than any other mammal. The females have the richest milk, she said.

"Now's the time to study them," she said. "The females are giving birth and will be sexually receptive after a few weeks of nursing. The males are fighting."

In early January, the last time she was on the island, Nero, the alpha elephant seal, was killed in a fearsome battle with another bull named Don Francisco, throwing the seal hierarchy into chaos. She said fur seals are even more aggressive toward people than their bigger cousins.

"The reappearance of fur seals will definitely change how we do business out here, because they are so aggressive," said Bond, the only Farallon worker since seal hunters left the islands to contract "seal finger," a rare bacteria that infects the digits of people who handle the pinnipeds. "We stay really far away from them."

The work is done amid constant noise and bombardment from the 300,000 seabirds flying overhead, prompting some biologists to wear ear plugs and hardhats. Bond said elephant seals make a metallic drumming sound at night, while the endangered stellar sea lions growl like bears, a combined cacophony that can make sleep difficult.

"I love it," Lee said after another long day counting and monitoring animals. "It's a living spectacle of nature every day."

E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com.

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Songbirds Flourish on the Sacramento River

Along the Sacramento, songbirds flourish again Scientists credit the restoration of thousands of acres of habitat with resurgence of wildlife population

Glen Martin, Chronicle Environment Writer Monday, November 27, 2006

(11-27) 04:00 PST Phelan Island, Glenn County -- It may have been doing its part for science, bu