Abstract

The overall goals of SEANET are to:

• Form a network of researchers and citizen scientists
• Perform beached bird surveys:
• Volunteers, school science class participation
• Compile a database of seabird information
• Population estimates
• Seasonal distribution patterns
• Disease outbreaks
• Mortality events
• Ecological and anthropogenic threats
• Patterns of environmental contaminants in birds
• Pollutant source locations (heavy metal, petroleum)
• Regional oil shipping and distribution patterns
• Oil spill locations
• Formulate GIS maps of above patterns (searchable on internet, with NBII, US EPA)
• Maintain an on-going web-based strandings reporting system (with NBII)
• Hold annual workshops (Northeast Regional Fish and Wildlife Conference)
• Dissemination of information to network participants
• Development of regional plans for seabird and habitat protection (with NAWCP)

Conservation Medicine, SEANET, and Human Health

Conservation medicine is a relatively new discipline, focusing on the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems. Human development, population growth, and modern technologies inevitably lead to altered landscapes, increased demands on limited resources, and decreased air and water quality. The human influence on the environment has health implications for wildlife, domestic animals, and ourselves in the form of emerging disease, species extinctions, and the loss of ecosystem services upon which we rely.

The Seabird Ecological Assessment Network (SEANET), a project of the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine, the Lloyd Center for Environmental Studies, the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Wildlife Trust and several other collaborators, aims to make the link between marine ecological health and human health by monitoring seabird mortality in the Northeastern U.S. and Atlantic Canada. Numerous threats contribute to mortality, including disease, fisheries operations, organic pollutants, heavy metals, offshore development (potentially wind farms), and oil pollution. These risks to seabirds also threaten the coastal and marine environments used by humans for respite and ecological services, such as food production, waste elimination, and flood protection. Pinpointing areas of concern enables SEANET and our collaborators to focus on specific causes of mortality or ecological degradation, and propose policy and conservation measures to counteract the threats.

• Examples:
• Seabird distribution has been known to be an indicator of fisheries resources in time and space, allowing resource managers to predict future catches in some cases.
• Seabirds also are long-lived, near the top of the food chain, and serve as good indicators or sentinels to alert us to threats that might not be obvious. For instance, the extent and timing of the damage from oil or contaminant spills is often difficult to pinpoint, but seabirds can be used as indicators of the risks to human health posed by eating seafood from or spending time in the affected marine and coastal environment. Because dead birds can be examined for signs of internal oiling and feathers and other tissues can be analyzed for contaminant levels long after a spill or discharge has taken place, they are useful indicators of subtle ecological damage. Technology also exists to pinpoint sources of oil: samples can be easily obtained from feathers, and polluters can be prosecuted.
• Beached bird mortality can be used to pinpoint spread of diseases, particularly those that could pose a risk to other species and humans. Although little is known about the impacts of harmful algal blooms (marine biotoxins, from events like “red tides”) on seabirds, there have been large-scale marine bird mortality incidents that were traced to harmful algal blooms. Birds that eat species of fish or shellfish that contain biotoxins can be indicators of risk to humans, and might also be used to track “hotspots” of blooms which potentially could be mitigated by reducing human generated run-off.
• Wind farms pose a new form of development in the marine and coastal environment that have the potential to disrupt bird migrations, and even to cause substantial mortality. Beached bird surveys provide baseline data on the numbers, species, and geographic locations of marine (and other) bird mortalities and deposition on beaches before wind farm development. If wind farms or even test towers are then built in these areas, levels of bird mortality that are recorded could be compared to the pre-wind farm baseline. Particularly for offshore wind energy development, very little is known about bird mortality impacts, so such data could prove very useful and applicable to the rapidly emerging issue of offshore development.
• Seabirds are sometimes victims of marine fisheries operations, caught as bycatch along with the desired resource, but it is difficult to estimate the magnitude of this problem. By collecting seabird specimens that have been caught in gillnets and by other means, we hope to develop a descriptive pathology for such birds, and gather baseline data on levels of disease, contaminants, and biotoxins in a wide range of species. Seabirds that seem to have been caught in gillnets or other fishing gear sometimes wash up on beaches in fairly large numbers, but there is no definitive pathology associated with specific fisheries as causes of death. With the development of a standard pathology, cause of death could be more accurately determined, and the impacts of bycatch could be better assessed. With knowledge of timing, seasonality, location, and frequency of bycatch by particular fishing methods on different species, impacts of fisheries operations on seabirds could be mitigated by shifting season, location and/or timing of fishing.

Overall we hope to pinpoint geographically and temporally some of the most detrimental threats to marine bird populations, target specific conservation measures to alleviate those threats, and educate the public about conservation of the larger marine ecosystem.

Summary of Progress

1.  Established monthly beached bird surveys conducted by an Atlantic coastal network of trained volunteers and students collecting data on seabird mortality. Approximately 50 volunteers are walking 50 miles of beach in Massachusetts and Rhode Island; in addition, several agency and non-profit personnel are reporting mortality events. This winter, we hope to expand beached bird surveys to NH and ME and south to Delaware Bay.

2.  Strengthened a bycatch recovery effort, in collaboration with the US National Marine Fisheries Service, to develop a descriptive pathology for such birds, and for baseline data on levels of disease, contaminants, and biotoxins in a wide range of species.

3.  Planning for production of an Atlantic guide to beached birds, an important resource for everyone involved in data-gathering in the field, in collaboration with Bird Studies Canada and the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST). Production should start this fall after successful fund-raising efforts by BSC and Tufts.

4.  Initial stages of construction of web-based, searchable databases and interactive GIS maps for the assessment of risk factors and mortality patterns of seabird populations, in collaboration with the National Biological Information Infrastructure (of the USGS) and US EPA. This system also will house a web-based reporting system, allowing volunteers to enter data directly. As an initial focal region, we will start with Massachusetts. Completion of MA breeding seabird GIS maps, mortality data collected, and other associated environmental parameters is on target for this fall.

Current network participants:

• Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine
• Lloyd Center for Environmental Studies
• Maine Coastal Program
• ReMaine Wild
• Avian Haven
• National Audubon Society Seabird Restoration Project
• Maine Audubon Society
• Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences
• Massachusetts Audubon Society
• Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
• HSUS Cape Wildlife Center
• Wild Care
• US Fish and Wildlife Service
• US Environmental Protection Agency
• National Marine Fisheries Service
• National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), US Geological Survey
• US National Park Service
• MA Dept. of Coastal Zone Management
• The Nature Conservancy
• Bird Studies Canada
• Wildlife Trust (NY)
• NY State Department of Environmental Conservation
• Volunteers for Wildlife (NY)
• Wildlife Rescue Center of the Hamptons
• Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation
• NY State Parks Department
• NY State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation
• NY City Parks Department
• NY City Audubon Society
• New Jersey Audubon Society
• New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife
• TriState Bird Rescue and Research