Whelan et al. (2025)

RESEARCH AND MONITORING ON MIDDLETON ISLAND

The 2024 field season on Middleton Island marked the 30^th year of tower-based research and monitoring. Scott Hatch (Institute for Seabird Research and Conservation (ISRC)), Éliane Miranda (McGill University), Paul Solmon (Université Bourgogne), Marie Desbois (Quebec), Emmylou Kidder (Virginia), and Shannon Whelan (ISRC) opened the field station in early April. The core research team, consisting of camp leader Katelyn Depot (McGill), ISRC volunteers and university students Helen Li (Washington), Juliette Malaniak (Michigan), Isaac Fournier (Tennessee), Chinatsu Nakajima (Nagoya University), Jumpei Okado (Nagoya), Abby Eaton (McMaster University), and Cassandra Ciafro (McGill) stayed from early May until mid-August. Flynn O’Dacre (McMaster) and Maria Pisciotta (Bucknell University) supported the team for much of the summer. Shannon Leone Fowler (University of Roehampton) and Emily Choy (McMaster) deployed heart rate loggers, and were accompanied by Dan Costa (University of Santa Cruz), Laurie Allen-Requa (Peralta), and Griffin, Brennan and Devon Dolder (United Kingdom). Kyle Elliott (McGill) and Morgan Benowitz-Fredericks (Bucknell) joined to support student work mid-season, and Martha Hatch (ISRC) assisted in closing the field station. 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), Rhinoceros Auklets (Cerorhinca monocerata), and Pelagic Cormorants (Urile pelagicus) showed near-average breeding success, while Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) had high breeding success. In seabird diets, the Middleton team observed a continuation of the muted return of Capelin (Mallotus villosus), which dropped out of the diets during the 2014-2017 North Pacific marine heatwave.