Wilson et al. (2025)
Author Information
Laurie Wilson, Alice Domalik, Vivian Pattison, Patrick O’Hara, Doug Bertram, Kerry Woo, Wendy Easton, Meaghan Leslie-Gottschligg, Xiao Jun Song, and Glen Keddie: Environment and Climate Change Canada
Pete Sinkins, Elin Price, Charlotte Huston, and Chavonne Guthrie: Parks Canada
Laurie Wilson (Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) – Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS), Delta, British Columbia (BC)) coordinated the Pacific CWS Seabird Colony Monitoring Program. In 2024, population trends of breeding Ancient Murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) and Cassin’s Auklet (Ptychoramphus aleuticus) at 3 colonies (George Island, East Copper Island and West Rankine Island in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage).
While on George Island, Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices were deployed on breeding Ancient Murrelets (Pathtrack Nanofix Geo) and non-breeding Ancient Murrelets (Lotek Argos Pinpoint 75) to compare movement and habitat-use patterns of both age categories and compare data for breeding adults across years (GPS tags were deployed on breeding Ancient Murrelets on George Island in 2019). Tagging field work was led by Alice Domalik (ECCC-CWS, Delta, BC). Vivian Pattison (ECCC-Wildlife Research Division (WRD), Sidney, BC), Patrick O’Hara (ECCC-CWS, Sidney, BC), Doug Bertram (ECCC-WRD, Sidney, BC) and Kerry Woo (ECCC-CWS, Delta, BC) will assist with analyzing the tracklogs.
The trip was conducted by ECCC-CWS staff in collaboration with Parks Canada to help strengthen interagency partnerships & help build on-island capacity to conduct seabird colony research in the future.
Field crew included Laurie Wilson, Alice Domalik, Kerry Woo, Wendy Easton (ECCC-CWS, Delta, BC), Meaghan Leslie-Gottschligg (ECCC-CWS, Delta, BC), Xiao Jun (Jim) Song (ECCC-CWS, Delta, BC), Pete Sinkins (Parks Canada, Skidegate, BC), Elin Price (Parks Canada, Skidegate, BC), Charlotte Huston (Parks Canada, Skidegate, BC), Chavonne Guthrie (Parks Canada, Skidegate, BC), and Glen Keddie (ECCC-CWS contractor, Smithers, BC).
Finally, Laurie continues with her monitoring of seabird bycatch in commercial salmon gillnet fisheries. Reports of bird entanglements from Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) test fisheries with observer programs and bycatch events reported by fishers are tallied; these data will be used to derive seabird bycatch estimates.
