|
|
|||||||
Marbled Murrelet
Protections Saved
“Overwhelming evidence shows marbled murrelets are in deep trouble in Washington, Oregon and California, and we cannot deny them the protection they need,” said Tom Strickland, the Department of the Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. “This decision strongly reflects the Obama administration’s deep commitment to basing ESA decisions on the best available science. The American Forest Resource Council and others sought to delist the murrelet in 2008 in order to relax logging restrictions in the birds’ nesting habitat. The petition cited a 2004 Fish and Wildlife Service review—later determined to be based on flawed analysis—that concluded the tri-state population did not qualify as a Distinct Population Segment (DPS).
A second analysis was undertaken in 2009 and concluded the
tri-state population is discrete at the international border due
to the following reasons: According to the best-available science, the murrelet population from San Francisco Bay to the Canadian border has declined as much as 34% between 2000 and 2008. South of San Francisco Bay, the population dropped 75% between 2003 and 2008. About 18,000 birds are estimated to remain in the three states.
The marbled murrelet also receives state protection as a
threatened species in Washington and Oregon, and as an
endangered species in California. |
About the Marbled
Murrelet
A marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) is a member of the
alcid, or auk, family of swimming and surface-diving birds of
the North Atlantic and Pacific, which includes the guillemots
and puffins. The extinct, flightless great auk, Pinguinus
impennis, or garefowl, represents the largest species in this
family. Auks legs are set far back on their bodies, making them
clumsy on land, where they seldom venture except to nest. Auks
return to the same breeding grounds every year, and each
individual goes to the very same nesting site. The single egg is
typically laid on bare rock on cliff ledges. The marbled
murrelet is one of ventures well inland; it is the only auk to
nest in trees. Auks are classified in the phylum Chordata,
subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Charadriiformes, family
Alcidae.
The Nest A marbled murrelet will fly as far as 52 miles inland to lay its egg on a wide branch high in the top of mature and old-growth redwoods, firs, spruces, cedars, and hemlocks. Most nests are impossible to see from the ground and are usually found by persevering biologists and expert tree climbers after lengthy searches.
Though the marbled murrelet is the size of a robin, it lays a single egg the size of a chicken egg. Male and female murrelets both incubate the egg, exchanging incubation duties every 24 hours at dawn for one month. While one bird warms the egg, the other flies back to the ocean to forage.
After it hatches the downy chick is brooded for just a few days, and then is left alone for a month. The chick remains silent and still for 85 percent of the time on the nest.
After about a month on the nest, this chick has fully developed black-and-white flight feathers and is ready to fledge. Without its camouflaging plumage, the boldly-patterned juvenile is more visible to forest predators such as jays and ravens. Once this bird leaves its nest for the sea, it leaves sure but subtle clue to its nest site--a white ring of droppings on the green moss.
At Sea Marbled Murrelets are wary, skittish, and boat shy. With good
binoculars and sturdy sea legs, you can recognize adult
murrelets by their distinctive field marks.
In 1778, these marbled murrelet specimens were collected in
Alaska by naturalists on board the H.M.S. Resolution, a ship
under the command of Captain James Cook during this third voyage
of discovery around the world. They were identified only as
“divers” and were brought back to London in 1780. They made
their way into the private collection of Sir Joseph Banks, then
into a museum of natural “curiosities,” and then the Imperial
Collection in Vienna, Austria. Currently, the specimens are in
the ornithology collection of the Natural History Museum in
Vienna. They are considered the first murrelets known to
science.
This drawing was drawn in 1792 and published in Noticias de Nutka (News from Nootka) an account of life in Nootka Sound, along the coast of British Columbia's Vancouver Island, written by Spanish botanist-naturalist José Mariano Mozino.
The artist,
Atanasio Echeverria, clearly drew from life--not from a
preserved specimen--and thus created one of the most accurate
early portraits of the species. Noticias de Nutka was not widely
distributed upon publication and this image was seen by few.
Well-known illustrator-naturalists in the 18th and 19th centuries depicted the marbled murrelet on land where it was widely assumed they would come to breed during the summer. In 1794, Thomas Pennant’s Arctic Zoology featured a marbled murrelet (then known as a marbled guillemot) with its webbed feet firmly planted on shore (below). John James Audubon portrayed two murrelets standing on the shore in a penguin-like posture (bottom). Not until 1974, did scientists learn that during a murrelet’s lifetime, it’s feet never touch the ground; the birds fly directly from the sea to a nesting tree.
State, national, and provincial parks along the U.S. and
Canadian coast offer some of the best and most accessible
opportunities to see murrelets on the water and flying over the
old-growth coastal forests. Contact park headquarters for
information on local breeding season and the best viewing spots. |
|
© 2007-2010 Maria Ruth Books - All Rights Reserved |
|
Mystery
Bird of 1792
