Western Professor’s Ornithology Research Reveals a Significant Drop in

Salish Sea Marine Bird Abundance

By Alexander Van Valkenburgh, Office of Communications and Marketing Intern

Once there were thousands, now there are hundreds.

The number of marine birds in Salish Sea have been greatly reduced over recent decades,
according to research by John Bower, a professor at Western Washington University’s Fairhaven
College of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Bower’s research reveals an alarming drop in many seabird populations; since 1979, 25
out of the 37 species he surveyed have shown population declines. Out of those 25 species, 12 of
them lost more than 60 percent of their populations between 1979 and 2005.

“You could go out in the 1970s in the winter and see thousands of Western grebes every
day. Now you are lucky if you see 100,” Bower said. “When you realize that this part of the
world has only been settled by non-native peoples for 150 years, it is startling how quickly we
have caused major declines in the numbers of marine bird in the Salish Sea.”

Bower’s research compares data collected by multiple studies: the Marine Ecosystem
Analysis (MESA) in 1978 and 1979, Puget Sound Ambient Monitoring Program (PSEMP) from
1990 to the present, and his own data from 2003 to the present.

Other birds that Bower’s research show to be in decline locally also include the common
murre, red-throated loon, marbled murrelet, Bonaparte’s gull and Brandt’s cormorant.

“There has been some research showing major declines, and my research is designed to
independently test that research,” Bower said. “I knew there were declines, but when we did our
work and continue to do our work, we mostly corroborate those findings. There are about 13
species of the 40 or so species that are common in our water showing very significant declines.
So, yes, it is a little shocking.”

Bower conducted his research by counting birds along ferry paths and from points along
the shoreline from Whidbey Island all the way up to near Vancouver, B.C. . He counted birds
with the help of about a dozen Western Washington University students, over a two year period.
In each research team, two of the students used binoculars and scopes to count bird species and
two interns recorded the census data. Between 2003 and 2005 they conducted 1584 counts at 111
shore locations in northern Puget Sound and counted from three ferries every month. Bower
chose the locations and ferry paths to match MESA’s methodology.

Marine bird research is important because they are indicators of overall ecosystem health.

“These species are sensitive to changes in their ecosystems,” Nathalie Hamel, Puget
Sound Partnership’s Vital Signs reporting lead, said. “A decrease in the population of an
indicator species could be due to a decrease in their food supply, quality of food, their nesting
environment being destroyed or disturbed, over hunting by predators, or changing ocean
conditions.

Hamel added that reductions in Salish Sea marine bird populations does not necessarily
mean they are dying off, which data outside the area seems to support for some species.

“Some species have redistributed themselves,” Scott Pearson, a project lead and senior
research scientist for Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, said. “You can take the
Western Grebe, that species has declined locally by at least 90 percent. But at the same time, its
population has shifted south out of the state, all the way to California.”

Marine birds tend to keep other species in check, but Bower said it is hard to tell what the
impact of a fluctuating population might be on the ecosystem.

“My research is about finding out which species we have to worry about, which species
we don’t have to worry about, and looking at the health of the particular bodies of water over a
period of time,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment on a serious of summer quarter articles
focusing on faculty research in Western’s Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies.