Monitoring St. Lawrence Island and Cape Thompson seabird populations

About 1.8 million seabirds of 12 species breed on St. Lawrence Island (Figure 1) - one of the largest aggregations of breeding seabirds in the subarctic Pacific. Colonies of least and crested auklets alone, totaling 1.5 million birds, contain a substantial proportion (perhaps 20%) of these species’ world populations. Large seabird colonies occur also at Cape Thompson (Figure 2), where thick-billed and common murres (ea. 360,000) and black-legged kittiwakes (ea. 26,000) are the numerically dominant species. Although critical nesting and foraging habitats of Cape Thompson and St, Lawrence Island seabirds have so far remained mostly free from disturbance or alteration, there is a possibility of adverse effects on either or both components of the birds’ environment from the exploration, production, or transport of oil and gas in the region.