Paul Flint, Ph.D. (Former Employee)

We developed a model to estimate the number of bird carcasses that were likely deposited on the beaches of St. Paul Island, Alaska following the M/V Citrus oil spill in February 1996. Most of the islands beaches were searched on an irregular schedule, resulting in the recovery of 876 King Eider carcasses. A sub-sample of beaches were intensively studied to estimate daily persistence rate...

We studied egg size variation of Greater Scaup (Aythya marila) nesting on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska from 1991-1996. Mean egg size was 64.36±0.03 (SE) ml. Egg size did not vary with clutch size or serve as an index of body size. There was less than 2% overlap in total clutch volumes for clutches of different sizes indicating that phenotypic clutch size-egg size trade-offs are not...

We studied incubation behavior of Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in 1996. We trapped 19 females on their nests and weighed them in early incubation and again at hatch. Average daily weight loss for incubating females was 16.6 ± 1.0 g day-1, which resulted in a cumulative loss of 26% of body weight throughout incubation. Nest attendance was monitored...

Our objective was to synthesize individual components of reproductive ecology into a single estimate of productivity and to assess the relative effects of survival and productivity on population dynamics. We used information on nesting ecology, renesting potential, and duckling survival of northern pintails (Anas acuta) collected on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta), Alaska, 1991-95...

We collected, 342 blood samples from spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri) on their breeding grounds in western Alaska from late May through to early August 1993–1995. Lead concentrations of ≥0.50 p.p.m. wet weight were found in the blood of 20% of the adult female eiders, 2% of the adult males and 6% of the ducklings. Lead was detected (≥0.02 p.p.m.) more frequently in the blood of...

Spectacled eider (Somateria fischeri) populations on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta), Alaska, declined rapidly through the 1980s, and low adult female survival was suggested as the likely cause of the decline. We used mark-resighting techniques to study annual survival rates of adult female spectacled eiders at 2 sites on the Y-K Delta during 1993-96. Our data suggest survival...