Dr. Tony Gaston recently conveyed lessons learned and best practices gleaned from over 35 years of Canadian seabird monitoring. He addressed international researchers and managers at the biannual meeting of the Norwegian SEAPOPs group, a monitoring and mapping program designed to provide information for Arctic marine management.

Dr. Gaston focused on the value of long-term monitoring of seabirds as indicators of overall ecosystem change. For comparatively low expenditures in time and money, annual seabird monitoring helps unravel the causes of population and environmental change, which may otherwise be difficult to determine.

Dr. Gaston reviewed 30 years of data from three seabird colonies in Nunavut, Canada. Monitoring annually at these selected sites, combined with use of new technologies including data loggers, has provided information on why some seabird colonies have experienced sharp population downturns, and how birds are adapting in a warming Arctic environment.

This address was part of a broader Environment Canada collaboration with other research institutions and communities united under the Arctic Council. Through the international CBird group, organized by the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna, a collective of experts from circumpolar countries promote, facilitate, coordinate and harmonize seabird conservation, research and management, and improve communication among seabird scientists and managers in and outside the Arctic. Environment Canada is working in CBird to help lead the development of a circumpolar colony database, and on conservation strategies and action plans for murres, eiders and ivory gulls.

Dr. Gaston is also working on the foraging behaviour of auks, and the movements of kittiwake and murres throughout the Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean.

Contact: Dr. Tony Gaston, 613-998-9662, Wildlife Research