Fledge your winter nest and come find out what’s happening with sea birds! Rhinoceros auklets are one of the most common and peculiar-looking birds in the Salish Sea. A relative of the more colorful, clown-like tufted puffin, rhinoceros auklets are actually puffins that dig underground burrows and breed on remote islands devoid of mammalian predators. With a compact body, waterproof feathers, legs positioned closer to the tail, and relatively stubby finlike wings, they are perfectly suited to underwater flight and can dive up to 300 feet. They mate for life.
During July of 2016, hundreds of rhinoceros auklets washed up dead off the Olympic Peninsula. Scientists like Dr. Julia Parrish investigated myriad reasons, from food availability, contagions and toxic algal blooms to “the blob” that cooked the Pacific. While hundreds of rhinoceros auklets may seem tiny compared to the hundreds of thousands of die-offs for other species like common murres and Cassin’s auklets in 2014 and 2015, this was a never before seen event. In fact, during the last three years, COASST has documented as many mass mortality events of marine birds as we have seen in the entire history of the program.
Dr. Julia Parrish (University of Washington) is the Executive Director of the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) whose trained volunteer beach walkers help scientists keep track of seabirds in five western states. COASST is the largest beached bird program in the world, amassing data over 17 years from nearly 70,000 finds and 3,000 participants, resulting in the largest collection of beached bird photographs in the world. While Julia has never taken a single bird class, her tireless work with COASST for nearly two decades has been recognized formally at The White House. [Note: COASST will hold an all-day training for interested volunteers on Saturday, Jan. 28 at a time to be announced at the Orcas Public Library.]
The talk is free and takes place from 7–8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 10 at the Emmanuel Episcopal Parish Hall in Eastsound. The 2016-2017 Marine Science Lecture Series is designed to inspire the general public and to highlight the amazing fish and wildlife of our region. Lectures are free.
The Lecture Series is presented by program partners The SeaDoc Society and YMCA Camp Orkila. It is made possible through generous sponsorship by The Averna Family and Deer Harbor Charters, Barbara Bentley and Glenn Prestwich, Barbara Brown, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Audrey and Dean Stupke, West Sound Marina, Inc. and Martha Wyckoff in honor of Lee Rolfe. For more information visit: http://www.SeaDocSociety.org/events.
