Konyukhov and Kitaysky 



Chapter! 



The Asian Race of the Marbled Murrelet 



with larch forest (Babenko and Poyarkov 1987). It has been 

 suggested (Kistchinsky 1968b) that the Marbled Murrelet 

 breeding range is determined by taiga forest distribution in 

 coastal areas of the region. Indeed, all nests and breeding 

 birds observed to date have been in forested areas. 



Mortality and Population Trends 



Sources of mortality are rarely documented. There is 

 one observation that Marbled Murrelets are occasionally 

 shot by hunters. This occurred on the southwest coast of the 

 Sea of Okhotsk (Babenko and Poyarkov 1987). There have 

 also been records of plumage contamination by oil 

 (Kondratyev and Nechaev 1989). 



Most authors have noted that the Marbled Murrelet is 

 rare throughout its breeding areas. This may be a result of 

 perspective, since the bird is small and relatively 

 inconspicuous, as compared to other seabirds. No quantitative 

 data exist, other than in small areas. Total population size is 

 probably in the range of tens of thousands. No information 

 exists to assess population trends. 



Conclusions 



Although Marbled Murrelets are widely distributed and 

 relatively common in the Far Eastern region of Russia, to 

 date we know little about the abundance, status, or main 

 characteristics of the ecology of the Asian race of the species. 

 Under these circumstances, it is impossible to say much 



about the murrelet's population status or to make 

 recommendations for management of this subspecies in the 

 Sea of Okhotsk. 



Unfortunately, during the last few years the situation 

 regarding the investigation and protection of wildlife in the 

 former Soviet Union has taken a turn for the worse. It is 

 important that Russia establish ecological control of natural 

 resource exploitation, especially on the oceanic shelf. Intensive 

 development of the oil industry on the Okhotsk and Bering 

 Sea shelves is proceeding without appropriate control and is 

 potentially threatening to shelf ecosystems in general. In 

 particular, the overall breeding distribution of B. m. perdix 

 matches the proposed areas for intensive oil development. It 

 has long been suggested that increased murrelet mortality is 

 quite possible because of oil pollution (Kondratyev and 

 Nechaev 1989). Perhaps the greatest immediate threat to 

 populations is from logging of forest habitats. Logging of 

 prime old-growth forests has accelerated in recent years - 

 particularly on Sakhalin Island and the Kamchatka Peninsula, 

 where companies have recently been granted logging rights 

 over large tracts of virgin forest. This logging activity is 

 apparently without regard to wildlife considerations. 

 Ecological impacts of this industry are in need of investigation. 



Acknowledgments 



We thank John Piatt, Linda Long, and C. John Ralph for 

 their hard work on the manuscript, including editing the 

 final version into a coherent whole. 



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



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