In this week’s field report, George talks about specific birds as well as the overall report of his 2018 Black Guillemot census on Cooper Island. Nature, when observed or monitored for any extended period, typically provides a predictability that is reassuring in its consistency and sufficient surprises to keep one engaged. For over four decades, my first task after I set up camp was a census of the Cooper Island Black Guillemot colony. This year was an excellent example of this balance of the expected and unexpected. Since the 1970s, the majority of the birds breeding in the colony have...
Arctic Worries: Climate change impacts communities and wildlife in the Arctic
Science writer Jenny Woodman of Proteus writes about Cooper Island research and the current field season. George Divoky frets–with good reason. In 2016, CNN Correspondent John D. Sutter called him the man who is watching the world melt. The description is as distressing as it is apt. George sends us regular dispatches from a small field camp on Cooper Island, about 25 miles east of Utqiaġvik, where he has studied a colony of nesting Mandt’s Black Guillemots for the last 44 years. Since his work began in 1975, the research has morphed into one of the longest-running studies of seabirds, sea ice,...
Seabirds and Sea Ice
Over most of its range the Black Guillemot is a nearshore seabird, occupying coastal waters during both the breeding and nonbreeding seasons, as do other members of the genus Cepphus. Pelagic or open ocean waters can offer abundant prey resources, but these options are often distant, patchy and unpredictable. The nearshore typically offers seabirds a smaller but more reliable source prey base consisting of forage fish and benthic fauna from the ocean floor such as crustaceans or mussels. The Arctic Ocean has extensive sea ice cover in the nearshore for the majority of the year; this presents a number of challenges to...
Fewer breeding pairs this season for Cooper Island guillemot colony
The Cooper Island Black Guillemot colony experiences a major decrease in breeding pairs as long-term decline accelerates. As of July 6, egg laying ended at the Cooper Island colony and the number of breeding pairs is the lowest it has been in four decades. Only 50 guillemot pairs have laid eggs, down from 85 pairs last year, 100 pairs in 2016 and 200 pairs in the late 1980s. Cooper Island breeding pairs over the years; it is important to note that the number of available sites has not decreased as the population has decreased, meaning some environmental factor has likely...
Work Worth Doing: Reflecting on 44 years in the Field
The Cooper Island Black Guillemot study was recently mentioned in an Associated Press story by Seth Borenstein about researchers who “accidentally” began studying climate change. A number of scientists measuring a biological phenomenon have encountered unanticipated effects from climate change and understood those effects were more important, both biologically and politically, than what originally motivated them to initiate their research. The 44-year Cooper Island study has undergone a number of changes before its current focus on assessing the decadal effects of Arctic warming on seabirds. When I first landed on Cooper Island in 1975, I had no intention of studying climate change...
The First Egg!
The first egg of the 2018 breeding season was laid on June 24th by White-Black-Gray. She fledged from Cooper Island in 1995 and has lived through a period of major climate change in the Arctic. Hoping she, and the other 150 guillemots in the colony, have a successful breeding season! The somewhat bad news is that the Audubon cover girl is not back. While I have not been able to ascertain survival for all nests, it appears that the percentage of birds returning will be similar to last year: 20 to 25 percent. The high mortality again has surviving birds...
The first field report of the 2018 season
Great to be back on Cooper island after two intense weeks of preparation in Seattle and Utqiaġvik. Arriving on the island begins an even more intense period as I need to turn the 8-by-12 foot cabin from the overwinter storage shed it has been for the past nine months into a place where I can sleep, cook, process data–and eventually even relax. Concurrently, I have been setting up my power sources (solar and wind generators powering a battery bank) and communications (satellite phone, inReach and VHF radio) that keep the camp running and connected to the outside world. While the...
Cooper Island Arctic Research Kicks Off 44th Field Season
June 19, 2018: After several weather-related delays, Search and Rescue pilots transported George and his gear to Cooper Island. His cabin is packed floor to ceiling with supplies stored over the winter, and he arrived with 800 pounds of equipment to support his 44th season studying Black Guillemots. Read more about the start of the field season on the Proteus website.
Science literacy website reporting on our field season
Proteus: storytelling for a blue planet, is a science communication website promoting science literacy and ocean awareness. A special series titled Arctic Change will be following our work this summer. The first post about Cooper Island research, Arctic Summer Home, is live.
Public Radio and Cooper Island – Some history and a recent interview
Public radio plays a major role in my three-months on Cooper Island each summer as I observe the Black Guillemots, the melting sea ice and the displaced polar bears. To the extent that there is a “field camp culture” on Cooper Island, listening to the radio is a major part of that culture. Whenever I am in camp, and not out in the colony censusing guillemot adults or weighing nestlings, I almost always have the radio on and tuned to the only local radio station for hundreds of miles, KBRW, broadcasting from the village of Utgiavik (Barrow), 25 miles away. The...