FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 81, NO. 3 



maroids and talitroids commonly occur in intertidal, 

 estuarine, and freshwater habitats (Bousfield 1973), 

 and may be nestled among macroalgae in shallow, 

 rocky areas around St. Lawrence Island. These large 

 species (> 10 mm) were conspicuous and easily count- 

 ed without a microscope. Inspection of subsamples 

 of the fecal slick under a dissecting microscope 

 revealed a large number of smaller crustaceans (<5 

 mm), which were undetected by even the keen ob- 

 server with the naked eye. The most abundant small- 

 er forms were calliopiid and ischyrocerid amphipods 

 (Table 1), nestlers and tube builders, respectively 

 (Barnard 1969). 



We were unable to locate the fecal slicks in the 

 southern lagoons or to find anyone who has seen prey 

 remains in fecal material. 



Feeding Excavations 



A remarkable record of the feeding activities of gray 

 whales was found in the bottom sediments of the Ber- 

 ing Sea (Fig. 2) (Nerini in press). Divers located many 



large pits (more than 50) covering as much as 70% of 

 a local bottom area near St. Lawrence Island. Figure 

 3 is a scale drawing of a less disturbed pitted site ob- 

 served during another dive. Although we did not ob- 

 serve a whale making an excavation (bottom visibility 

 was about 2 m), a feeding whale is included in Figure 

 3 for scale. Gray whales and the fecal slick described 

 earlier (Table 1) occurred within 1 km of the site 

 depicted in Figure 3. These large excavations were 1 

 X 2 m and 0.5 m deep. Most pits had a distinct, 

 oblong, bowl shape. The bottom of many pits con- 

 tained a deposit of broken bivalve shells (nonliving) 

 that were concentrated from the large volume of in- 

 gested sediment. The undisturbed level bottom at 

 the highly pitted site was present only on the ridges 

 between the large excavations. However, a well- 

 developed, dense tube mat of A. macrocephala was 

 located on a second dive within 50 m of this highly ex- 

 cavated bottom. Large and small gray whale ex- 

 cavations were encountered on several dives in 

 deeper water (Fig. 2). No gray whale excavations 

 were located on many dives along the eastern shore, 







FIGURE 3.— A scale drawing of a heavily excavated bottom area observed by divers near St. Lawrence Island (21 m). No feeding whale was seen 



here, but a whale is included in the drawing for scale. (Drawn by Sandy Strause.) 



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