Senior Scientist: “Birds in such bad condition” off West Coast — Zero babies survive on islands, usually over 15,000 — “Extremely poor” breeding success… they didn’t even try — Before and after photos show beaches deserted (VIDEO)
ENENews.com
June 11th, 2015
William J. Sydeman, Ph.D., President & Farallon Institute Senior Scientist, Pacific Anomalies Science and Technology Workshop, May 6, 2015 starting at 1:34:45 (emphasis added):
This [chart] shows the nesting success of the brown pelicans in the Gulf of California… 2010-13, of about 22,000 pairs that are nesting, an average production of about 1 young per pair. In 2014… The productivity was essentially zero. So there’s very low breeding propensity and very low productivity.
That’s what a typical colony looked like in Apr 2006… the same image in 2014 — so nobody was home.
And then another place… Hermann’s Gulls its another species, this is what the colony looked like in May of 2004. And 2014, again nobody was home, no efforts [see photo on right].
In the Channel Islands there was extremely poor seabird breeding success [according to] studies of pelicans and murrelets.
[SE Alaska] had very poor productivity.
In Baja [CA] we had severe food shortage… breeding propensity was zero… the birds were in such bad condition that they didn’t even try.
The unprecedented mass mortality of auklets estimates, we haven’t finished this, but probably about 100,000 birds in the N. California Current system. Upwelling appeared to be more or less normal.
The Rest…HERE
