Restoration

Pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba) are medium-sized seabirds in the Family Alcidae, close cousins to auklets, murres, murrelets, and puffins. The pigeon guillemot nests along rocky coastline from California to Alaska in the North Pacific and along eastern shores of Siberia. 1 Other members of the g...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: J. Kuletz, U. S. Fish, Wildlife Service
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1998
Subjects:
fledge at 350-550 g
Bering Sea
Okhotsk
Pacific
North Atlantic
Alaska
Siberia
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.369.6080
http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/Universal/Documents/Publications/RestorationNotebook/RN_pguillem.pdf
Description
Summary:Pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba) are medium-sized seabirds in the Family Alcidae, close cousins to auklets, murres, murrelets, and puffins. The pigeon guillemot nests along rocky coastline from California to Alaska in the North Pacific and along eastern shores of Siberia. 1 Other members of the genus Cepphus are: black guillemots (C. grylle), which inhabit the North Atlantic and the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, and spectacled guillemots (C. carbo), in the Sea of Okhotsk and Japan. 1 Pigeon guillemots, like all auks, forage by swimming underwater in pursuit of their prey. They nest mostly in small scattered colonies or in solitary pairs. The estimated world population of pigeon guillemots is about 235,000 and most (50%-80%) breed in Alaska. Surveys conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife since 1989 estimated the population of pigeon guillemots at 3,500 in Prince William Sound (PWS), 2 9,000 in lower Cook Inlet, 3 [FIG.1] and 19,000 in southeastern Alaska. 4 In PWS the guillemot population has declined by 67 % since the 1970s. 2 Detailed counts at study colonies confirm this decline. Pre-spill counts of about 2,000 guillemots breeding at the Naked Island complex in central PWS were twice as high as post-spill counts. 5 Although guillemots in PWS show clear spill-related effects, the reason for the magnitude of the decline is not well understood, and counts in 1985 suggest that the decline began prior to the spill. 5 Local threats to guillemots include gillnet bycatch mortality, oil pollution, and predation. Changes in marine ecosystems could affect food availability and regional population trends.

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