- 2004 Post-Field Season Update

Another rapid retreat of the summer pack ice, invading Horned Puffins, and continuing concerns over coastal erosion made for an interesting and eventful summer for both Cooper Island’s Black Guillemots and the Friends of Cooper Island (FCI) in 2004. The year is ending with the strange news that Cooper Island may not officially be part of the United States, but instead could be part of Canada!

An early spring visit to protect guillemot nest boxes

Field activities began in early April when I traveled to Cooper Island to ensure that the Army Corps of Engineers did not crush any nest boxes during drilling operations on the island. In 2003, the Corps identified Cooper Island as a potential gravel source for the proposed reinforcement of eroding beaches at the village of Barrow. The drill and the track vehicle used to move the drill to and around Cooper Island in April were heavy enough to damage Black Guillemot nest boxes,which are hidden by snow cover until later in the spring. Using GPS locations of nest sites and knowledge of the island's landmarks, I staked out the perimeter of the colony before the Corps began its test drilling, giving me a rare chance to see the Arctic and the island in winter.

My snow machine trip to Cooper also gave me a chance to assess any damage done to the FCI cabin during a polar bear’s visit after the end of the field season in September 2003. Surprisingly, there was no substantial structural damage to the cabin but a table was destroyed and the bear left impressive claw marks on the interior insulation as it searched for potential food items. All plastic containers had major bite marks, and in some cases the contents had been eaten - including a large quantity of hot sauce! But the damage was far less than one would expect after a visit by the “world’s largest land predator”.

The Corps found that the gravel did not extend very far below Cooper Island’s surface but the island is still being considered a potential source for the 1.5 million cubic yards of gravel needed for the proposed beach modification. Alternative solutions, including seawalls, breakwaters and relocation of facilities at risk, are also being considered and will be discussed at a public meeting in Barrow in March 2005. Cooper Island has had its own beach erosion issues (see the 2003 report) with increasing wave action and decreasing permafrost contributing to a rapid retreat of the island’s north beach in the last decade. No new major erosion was evident in 2004, however.

An interesting twist on the U. S. government’s plans to use Cooper Island as a gravel source is the issue of what country has sovereignty over the island. When the H.M.S. PLOVER anchored behind the island in 1850, the ship’s captain claimed what was then Iglurak Island (Inupiat for “island with a house on it”) for Great Britain, and named it after one of the ship’s officers. In 1880 when the British transferred their North American arctic islands to Canada, Cooper Island was theoretically part of that transfer. The question of current ownership has recently been raised by a foreign policy watchdog group pressing the U.S. government on the ownership issue and pointing out the potential problems with the government’s plans to modify an island whose ownership is in question. Seabirds are frequently said to be an “international resource,” and this may be even more true for Cooper Island’s seabirds.

A wet and warm early summer with increases in both Black Guillemots and Horned Puffin populations

Summer weather in northern Alaska continued the warmer and wetter trend of recent years. Barrow temperatures averaged 38.8°F for June and 42.6°F for July - cold summer temperatures for most anywhere but the Arctic, but 3.8°F and 2.2°F above Barrow averages for those months. It was also much wetter than normal, with almost an inch of rain falling in June, three times the average for that month, and 1.5 inches in July, 75% above normal.

While early summer fieldwork on Cooper Island has always been cold, it has until recently been dry. This year’s high precipitation, combined with the near freezing temperatures from midnight to 8 A.M., when birds are present in the colony, made for some very unpleasant fieldwork. While FCI placed a cabin on Cooper Island primarily to deal with the increasing number of polar bears on northern Alaska beaches, it is now just as important as a place to dry out and get out of the wind on cold rainy days, as precipitation and wind speed have increased in recent years. Luckily, guillemots have been prospecting debris left around the cabin so it is possible to make observations out the window while getting warm inside.

The warmer temperatures and subsequent early snowmelt allowed Black Guillemots to lay their first eggs in mid-June, approximately two weeks earlier than in the mid-1970s. A total of 165 Black Guillemot pairs bred on the island, a surprising increase from 145 pairs in 2003, though still below the 200 pairs present in the late 1980s. There was also a marked increase in the Horned Puffin population, with a record number of four pairs laying eggs on the island in early July.

Horned Puffins were rare in the Point Barrow area prior to the middle of the twentieth century. But numbers began to increase in the 1970s, with the first recorded breeding in the region occurring on Cooper Island in 1986. Horned Puffins are most abundant in the Bering Sea and the northward extension of their breeding range to northern Alaska required a decrease in summer pack ice extent, an increase in nearshore schooling fish, and a 90-day period when the ground was free of snow.

While three of the puffin pairs displaced Black Guillemot eggs before occupying a nest site, one pair laid its single egg directly next to an active guillemot nest. Horned Puffin eggs lack the patterning found on guillemot eggs, indicating their cavities are typically more secure from predators. While guillemots will make a stone nest to keep their eggs off the cold sand, Horned Puffins use feathers to line their nest depression.

Nestlings die as pack ice retreats and Horned Puffins prospect nest sites

Air temperatures remained high in August, with the mean temperature of 44.2°F at Barrow, 5.5°F above normal. Because the Arctic pack ice remained near the island until incubation was almost complete, guillemot hatching success was near 75%, similar to what it has been in most years, and the colony produced 180 hatchlings. Shortly after hatching ended, however, two events occurred that would result in the death of the majority of the guillemot nestlings: 1) the pack ice retreated from the shoreline, taking with it the arctic cod that is the primary prey fed to guillemot chicks, and 2) nonbreeding horned puffins began to prospect nest sites and kill guillemot chicks with their bills. Eventually, low prey densities led to the starvation of 80 nestlings, while Horned Puffins killed an additional 60.

The resulting overall breeding success (the percentage of eggs laid that produce chicks that leave the island) of 12% was well below the 50% needed to maintain the colony. Since 1996, breeding success has been below 50% due to a number of factors. While the retreat of the pack ice and a lack of prey near the colony has been the primary cause, there have also been years when polar bears ate almost all of the guillemot nestlings (2002) or high winds prevented parent birds from flying and providing food to chicks (2000 and 2003). Before 1990, the Cooper Island guillemot colony produced enough young to maintain or allow for an increase in the population. The current low chick production is due to oceanographic and atmospheric changes in northern Alaska since 1990 that have decreased the guillemots prey and increased their predators or nest competitors. A decrease in the guillemot population in 2004 was prevented by immigration of birds from other colonies, but further decreases in the breeding population seem inevitable with the regional changes that are occurring.

The decrease in guillemot numbers will likely occur with (and be in part caused by) an increase in Horned Puffins. While only a few Horned Puffins have yet prospected the western Beaufort Sea, that number will likely increase in future years as the marine environment near Point Barrow becomes more hospitable to the subarctic species, that numbers close to a million individuals in the Bering Sea. Only one puffin chick hatched on Cooper Island in 2004, but the increase from no breeding puffins in 2003 to four pairs in 2004 and the number of nonbreeders prospecting the colony this year suggests that puffins are the future of the Cooper Island seabird colony. As FCI documents the transition from an arctic seabird (Black Guillemot) colony to a subarctic (Horned Puffin) colony it will obtain further evidence of the rapid changes occurring in the region.

The environmental change affecting Cooper Island's seabirds is having a range of effects on the indigenous peoples of the North Slope.  You can find out more about the human dimension of northern Alaska climate change at this University of Colorado website.

Public Outreach

Friends of Cooper Island regularly gives talks to groups or school classes wanting to hear more about the rapid environmental change occurring in the Arctic. If you want to attend a public presentation please periodically check this website’s Media/Events Page for the dates and locations of upcoming talks.

If you missed “Hot Times in Alaska” the Scientific Frontiers show on climate change signals throughout the Alaska, you can view it online. It features the Cooper Island Black Guillemots and provides an excellent overview of how rapidly Alaska has been warming.

Thanks

This summer’s fieldwork would not have been possible without the support of the generous contributors to Friends of Cooper Island. Our heartfelt thanks to all who have provided financial and moral support. If you would like to contribute to our work, donations can be sent to our address below (the preferred method) or from our website. FCI is a 501(c)(3) and your donation is tax deductible. We are also looking for people who would like to volunteer to help with office and tasks in Seattle. If you are interested, please email us at info@cooperisland.org

As in past summers, the North Slope Borough (NSB) and Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) regularly communicated with Cooper Island by VHF radio, providing a vital link to the outside world, as well as stimulating conversation and critical logistical support. The NSB’s Department of Wildlife Management (Director Charlie Brower, and wildlife biologists, Craig George and Robert Suydam, logistics Benny Akootchook) and BASC personnel (Executive Director Glenn Sheehan, Richard Glenn, Bob Bulger, Henry Gueco and Alice Brower) provide many of the logistics that allows FCI’s work on a remote Arctic island.

A special thanks to whoever traveled to Cooper Island before the 2004 field season to put a sign on the cabin (seen at the beginning of this report). I appreciate both the thought and your desire to remain anonymous so that the sign can become one more of the mysteries of the Arctic.

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