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Seabird Ecology in the Bering Sea

Hi Tom! My daughter and I have been reading your journals. We are in the last few days of our own AK vacation and visited the Ocean and Island Center today in Homer. We learned about the boat the Tiglax that studies birds off of the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge. It so nice to see pictures of a lot of the birds that they have been talking about. So far I have only seen seagulls, ravens/crows and a few eagles. What are the main predators of the auklets and kitiwakes that you are studying? Can you take a picture of puffin for me? Keep up the great journals. You are making bird lovers out of all of us! Betsy Wilkening

Thu, 07/30/2009 - 02:30

Thomas Harten

webmaster@polartrec.com wrote:Hi Betsy,
Great to hear from you! Actually part of this island is managed by the
Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and some of the staff work
closely with our team. I hope that you're enjoying Homer, we went there
last year during our vacation as well.
One of the advantages that the birds have here is that there are few
predators. If a bird built its nest too close to the ground or in a
location that an arctic fox could reach, then that bird would likely be
preyed upon. There are couple of ravens out here that would take a
seabird egg, chick or an adult bird if they could catch it.
It is likely that a few are taken by any birds of prey that may wander
over here. The only other predator for seabirds would be the small
number of birds and eggs that are taken through subsistence hunting by
the Aleut people that live here.
I'll make a point of taking and posting a puffin picture soon!
Enjoy the rest of your trip, it's probably nice to get away from Tuscon
at this time of year!
Take care,