Whelan (2024)

Research and Monitoring on Middleton Island

A large, international team of researchers had a productive season of seabird research and monitoring on Middleton Island in 2023. Scott Hatch, Martha Hatch, and Shannon Whelan (Institute for Seabird Research and Conservation; ISRC) opened the field station in early April. The core research team, consisting of camp leader Katelyn Depot (McGill University), ISRC volunteers and university students David Jadhon (Alaska), Sam Darmstadt (Vermont), Kate Burns (Texas), Chinatsu Nakajima (University of Tsukuba), Futoshi Ujiie (Tsukuba), Flynn O’Dacre (McMaster University), Léa Ribeiro (University of Toulouse), Tony Rinaud (Toulouse), and Justine Leaute (Toulouse), stayed from early May until mid-August. Éliane Miranda (McGill) joined the team for RFID system work from May until late June. For three weeks in spring, Shannon Leone Fowler (University of Roehampton), Kyle Elliott (McGill), and Emily Choy (McMaster) deployed heart rate loggers while Mélanie Guigueno and Elena Tranze-Drabinia (McGill) conducted cognitive assays. Akiko Shoji (Tsukuba) and Chris Boccia (Queen’s University) joined for two weeks in August. A wide breadth of movement, physiology, behaviour, contaminant, and diet studies were completed for several species. With respect to long-term monitoring, Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) and Pelagic Cormorants (Urile pelagicus) showed moderate breeding success, while Rhinoceros Auklets (Monocerata cerorhinca) and Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) had low breeding success. The Middleton team saw a noteworthy but muted return of capelin to the seabird diets for the first time since the 2014–2017 North Pacific marine heatwave.