Declining survival of black brant from subarctic and arctic breeding areas

• Published in: The Journal of Wildlife Management
• Main Authors: Leach, Alan G., Ward, David H., Sedinger, James S., Lindberg, Mark S., Boyd, W. Sean, Hupp, Jerry W., Ritchie, Robert J.
• Other Authors: National Science Foundation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Environment and Climate Change Canada
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2017
• Subjects: Branta bernicla; Kuskokwim; Subarctic; Alaska; Yukon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21284; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fjwmg.21284; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/jwmg.21284; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/jwmg.21284; https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/am-pdf/10.1002/jwmg.21284

ABSTRACT Since the mid 1990s, the number of black brant ( Branta bernicla nigricans brant) nests on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim Delta (YKD), Alaska, USA, the historically predominant breeding area of brant, has declined steadily. This has caused researchers and managers to question if arctic breeding populations can compensate for the reduction in brant nests on the YKD. An important component of the assessment of brant population dynamics is having current estimates of first‐year and adult survival. We banded brant at 4 locations in Arctic Alaska and western Canada, and at 1 location in the subarctic, the Tutakoke River (TR) colony on the YKD, 1990–2015. We used joint live and dead mark‐recapture models to estimate first‐year and adult (≥1 yr old) survival of brant. We also used band recovery rates from a Brownie model to assess temporal trends in band recovery rates of adult brant. First‐year survival of brant hatched at TR declined from approximately 0.60 to <0.20 and, although first‐year survival generally was higher for goslings marked in the Arctic, their survival declined from approximately 0.70 in the early 1990s to ≤0.45 in the 2010s. Annual survival of adult females decreased from an average of 0.881 (95% CI = 0.877–0.885) to 0.822 (95% CI = 0.815–0.829) at TR and from 0.851 (95% CI = 0.843–0.860) to 0.821 (95% CI = 0.805–0.836) in the Arctic, from 1990 to 2014. Band recovery rates of adults generally were <1.25% until the last several years of study, when they reached ≤3.5%. Although the current harvest rates may be partially additive to natural mortality, we do not believe that harvest is the main influence on the declines in survival. The general decline in survival rates of brant breeding across a large geographic area may be influenced by a reduction in the quality of migration and wintering ground habitats. We suggest an analysis of seasonal survival of brant to test the hypothesis that declining habitat quality on wintering or spring migration areas is reducing survival. Our results suggest that ...