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D. E. MC KNIGHT AND C. E. KNODER 



Although the coastal waters of the north- 

 western United States and western Canada 

 support a plenitude of marine life, including 

 marine birds, relatively little is known about 

 these ecosystems. Sustained interest in quan- 

 titative aspects of this area's marine bird 

 populations has developed only within the 

 past few years. As Sowl and Bartonek (1974) 

 indicated, seabirds are the most visible com- 

 ponent of a marine ecosystem and, at the 

 same time, they are the least understood. 

 Management information has been hap- 

 hazardly gathered, and because seabirds oc- 

 cur in incredibly large numbers in north 

 Pacific and arctic waters, it has been con- 

 venient to assume that, in the absence of 

 problems, systematized data gathering and 

 analysis were unnecessary. 



The sudden emergence in the late 1960's of 

 Alaska and portions of northwest Canada as 

 potential major oil production areas has 

 changed this situation dramatically. Ongoing 

 and planned petroleum development in the 

 North and the concurrent expansion of hard 

 mineral extraction and logging activities now 

 threaten to adversely affect these marine bird 

 resources. Alaska's human population, which 

 numbered only slightly over 400,000 in 1975, 

 will probably double within the present 

 decade. Doubtless, increased numbers of 

 people, oriented toward mineral and other re- 

 source exploitation rather than toward tradi- 

 tional wildland values, will compound these 

 problems. Pressures on State and local gov- 

 ernments for increased services necessitated 

 by increasing populations will require addi- 

 tional expenditures. In Alaska, at least, these 

 demands are being imposed before revenues 

 from minerals become available. This necessi- 

 tates additional oil leases, timber sales, and 

 other means for obtaining immediate funding, 

 thereby adding to the acceleration and ir- 

 reversibility of industrial expansion into the 

 North. 



This atmosphere of change has spawned 

 major government- and industry- supported 

 programs to broaden knowledge of northern 

 marine ecosystems, including their avifauna. 

 There has been a recent flurry of publications 

 on seabird populations and biology and a pro- 

 liferation of papers stressing the need to learn 

 more about the biota of this area. Neverthe- 



less, environmental impact statements on 

 proposed developmental programs in the 

 North still raise more questions than are 

 being answered. Attempts are being made to 

 apply available information on oil spills, hu- 

 man disturbance, and other aspects of envi- 

 ronmental degradation gathered from experi- 

 ences in other areas to expected problems in 

 northern environments, but one must realize 

 that much of the information gained from ex- 

 perience elsewhere is not applicable to these 

 areas. It is realistic to assume that, until de- 

 velopment-related problems occur in the 

 North, biologists cannot estimate the magni- 

 tude or ecological dimensions of their effects. 

 However, existing knowledge of ecological 

 "laws" and of the biology of some species pro- 

 vides the base for limited predictive efforts. 



It is the purpose of this paper to describe 

 significant current and proposed resource de- 

 velopment along the coasts and the ocean 

 floors, to summarize existing knowledge of 

 the ecology of marine birds in these areas, and 

 to identify potential conflicts with marine 

 bird conservation. We hope that identification 

 of these problems will provide impetus to data 

 gathering and management programs neces- 

 sary for conservation of these valuable 

 resources. 



The Region and its Avifauna 



The region discussed here encompasses 

 nearly half of the United States and Canadian 

 coastlines, extending from Washington to the 

 eastern edge of the Northwest Territories. 

 Alaska alone has two-thirds of the United 

 States' continental shelf (Bartonek et al. 

 1971). This region's marine and estuarine 

 waters are some of the most productive in the 

 world and support a diverse wealth of bird life 

 throughout the year. Sanger (1972), for 

 example, estimated total summer standing 

 stocks of some 21 million birds in an area ap- 

 proximating the outer continental shelf from 

 the Bering Strait south along the coasts of 

 the Aleutian Islands and North America to 

 central California. Sanger and King (this 

 volume), to whom more data were available, 

 revised this estimate upward to 45 million. 

 Bartonek et al. (1974) provided estimates of 

 year-round standing stocks of 27 million birds 



