An annotated bibliography of literature on Alaska water birds

The demand for information on birds in Alaska has surged within the past few years, primarily because of the need to adequately assess the impacts of a wide range of planned developments. The accompanying increase in studies of avian populations has resulted in a growing need for a comprehensive bibliography of Alaska ornithology. An initial effort by Bartonek and Lensink (1978) provided a list of published and unpublished references on marine birds, but this list was only marginally useful because it lacked adequate indexing and annotation of references cited. Their bibliography, however, plus those of Cade (1953) and Gabrielson and Lincoln (1959), provided the basis and primary reference sources for our work.

In the present bibliography we have attempted to compile all substantive references addressing water birds in Alaska because this group of birds appears to be most Vulnerable to repercussions of development, particularly along the coast. However, the works cited make up an estimated 70-80% of all literature on birds in Alaska, and this volume thus provides an initial source of references on terrestrial birds. This bibliography, which contains 1554 citations, is current for most journal sources through 1979 and most of 1980. The content of each paper has been summarized, and we have indexed the citations by subject, species, and geographic location to make the bibliography a more useful reference. Furthermore, the bibliography has been designed to facilitate future inclusion of references that have been omitted or that will be published in the rapidly growing body of literature on Alaska birds.