Ralph and others 



Chapter 1 



Overview of Ecology and Conservation 



(7) The cumulative effects of further incremental loss of 

 existing habitat, in addition to continued loss of adults at 

 sea, must immediately be considered and dealt with by all 

 relevant agencies. To this end, we strongly suggest that a 

 prudent strategy would be to curtail further loss of occupied 

 nesting habitat in at least Washington, Oregon, and 

 California. Further, the sharp reduction, or preferably 

 elimination, of night-time inshore gill netting at the earliest 

 possible date, within the areas where murrelets are known 

 to concentrate on the water, would greatly reduce the risk 

 of adult mortality. 



Management 



The objectives of efforts to conserve the Marbled 

 Murrelet should be to manage habitat and other factors to 

 achieve a stable, well-distributed population of the species 

 throughout its range. The U.S. Marbled Murrelet Recovery 

 Plan (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in press) has considered 

 management alternatives, and most of our suggestions come 

 from their findings. In some cases we further define potential 

 management needs based on findings in this volume. 



We agree with the U.S. Recovery Plan (U.S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, in press) that the next 50 years will be the 

 most critical period for murrelet conservation. Assuming 

 that there has recently been a severe and critical loss of 

 breeding habitat, the lag from the longevity of the species 

 will result in continued population decline, resulting from 

 birds dying without replacement over the next decade or 

 two. Further, the loss of suitable habitat will continue, albeit 

 at a reduced rate for the coming decade, at least. While 

 efforts to stem adult mortality can be successful, they do not 

 increase productivity. Only with increased suitable habitat, 

 will the population again increase. Some areas, peripheral to 

 present nest stands, could mature and become at least 

 marginally suitable in 50 or, more likely, 100 years. We 

 would expect that such succession, augmented by creative 

 silvicultural practices to mimic older forests, could result in 

 increases in the breeding population within 50 to 100 years. 

 The sooner that habitat loss can be stopped and replacement 

 of suitable habitat begun, the sooner the species can begin to 

 recover substantially. 



Management of Current Nesting Habitat 



The overall objective of managing current nesting habitat 

 should be to stabilize the amount of habitat as quickly as 

 possible. This objective is expected to have the long-term 

 effect of stabilizing or increasing the proportion of breeding 

 adults and stabilizing or increasing juvenile recruitment. 



Identify Management Units at Various Scales 



Broad objectives by management agencies should be 

 based on biological processes, not on political or 

 administrative boundaries. The overall goal should be to 

 maintain a well-dispersed Marbled Murrelet population, with 

 each segment of the species' range managed to maintain a 



viable population. We suggest that management should be 

 on a zonal basis and that nine Zones be designated. The U.S. 

 Recovery Plan (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in press) 

 suggests six Conservation Zones for management in 

 Washington, Oregon, and California as the basis for 

 maintenance of the population. We would add additional 

 zones to include all populations in North America. They 

 are: (1) the Aleutian Islands Zone; (2) Southcentral Alaska 

 Zone, including Prince William Sound, and 40 miles inland; 

 (3) Southeast Alaska and Northern British Columbia Zone, 

 from Yakutat Bay, Alaska and coastal British Columbia, 

 south to Vancouver Island, and 40 miles inland; (4) Vancouver 

 Island and Puget Sound Zone, including the Olympic 

 Peninsula, and 40 miles inland; (5) the Southwest Washington 

 Zone to 40 miles inland; (6) Oregon Coast Range Zone, 

 south to Coos Bay and 35 miles inland; (7) the Siskiyou 

 Coast Range Zone of southern Oregon and northern California 

 to the Humbolt County line, south of Cape Mendocino, and 

 35 miles inland; (8) the Northcentral California Zone to 

 include Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin counties, and 25 

 miles inland; and (9) the Central California Zone south to 

 Point Lobos in Monterey County, and 25 miles inland. 

 These Zones are smaller to the south where populations are 

 more fragmented and at greater risk. At the Zone level, 

 broad objectives can be based on large-scale distribution of 

 murrelet populations. Within each Zone, forest management 

 could be planned on a scale that is relevant to the biology of 

 the murrelet. We suggest that a relevant scale is at least 

 100-200 miles of coastline. 



The rationale for this scale of analysis is that individual 

 birds are known to travel as far as 60 miles in one direction, 

 so a given offshore group could range over an area twice as 

 wide (120 miles plus). It would be best to consider that the 

 size of protected stands be a minimum of 500- 1 ,000 acres or 

 more. This does not imply ignoring smaller occupied stands; 

 this would not be desirable. Rather, these small stands could 

 be included within larger units when possible. It is critical to 

 avoid the incremental loss of small units that could lead to a 

 small core population of murrelets lacking viability. 

 Management units would be most effective if tied to existing 

 land classification systems such as USGS hydrological basins. 

 In Southeast Alaska, individual islands might be useful 

 management units. 



Identify Highest Priority Sites Within Management Units 



Where available, we suggest the use of multi-year inland 

 survey results to identify areas of high use, as Burger (this 

 volume a) suggests for British Columbia. If these data are not 

 available, then managers could use at-sea survey results to 

 infer habitats that might support the highest numbers of 

 murrelets within each management unit. This is usually only 

 useful on a large scale; for example, no correlation has been 

 found between activity at inland sites and immediately adjacent 

 waters. On the other hand, the foraging area of the Waddell 

 Creek population near Santa Cruz, California, appears to be 

 closely tied to the nesting area (Ainley and others, this volume). 



18 



USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-152. 1995. 



