CONSERVATION OF MARINE BIRDS IN THE DANISH MONARCHY 



279 



Table 6. Colonies of the common murre, 

 Uria aalge, on the Faroe Islands, based 

 on a census conducted in 1972. (After 

 Dyck and Meltofte 1975.) 



a The "number of pairs" is calculated by multiply- 

 ing the number of birds observed by 0.67 (Dyck 

 and Meltofte 1975). 



involved in the decline in murres. Investiga- 

 tions of concentrations of chemical pollutants 

 in their eggs show that levels of DDE (mean 

 1.1 ppm), PCB (mean 2.0 ppm), and mercury 

 (mean 0.2 ppm) (Dyck and Meltofte 1975) are 

 relatively low and unlikely to affect reproduc- 

 tion (Dyck and Meltofte 1975). Levels are 

 much smaller than those found in seabirds in 

 Britain, the Baltic, or in albatrosses in the 

 Pacific (Fisher 1973). 



Greenland 



Greenland, which has an area of 2,175,600 

 km 2 and extends for a distance of 2,670 km 

 from the northernmost to the southernmost 

 point of the country, is almost a continent by 

 itself. The range of the different species of sea- 

 birds, therefore, is greatly varied, and it is 

 necessary to classify them according to the 

 relation between their distributions and the 

 marine zones. A description of the zones of 

 the marine environment in the North Atlantic 

 was given by Salomonsen (1965), and the 

 breeding distributions of seabirds in Green- 

 land based on this system are given in 



Table 7. Distributions of seabirds breeding in 

 Greenland in relation to marine zones. 



Marine zone and species 8 



Boreo-panarctic 



Fulmarus glacialis 



Somateria mollissima 



Stercorarius parasiticus 



Rissa tridactyla 



Sterna paradisaea 



Cepphus grylle 



Fratercula arctica 

 Panarctic 



Lams hyperboreus 



Uria lomvia 



Ckmgula hyemalis 



Gauia stellata 

 High arctic 



Somateria spectabilis 



Branta bernicla (hrota) 



Stercorarius longicaudus 



Xema sabini 



Larus thayeri 



Pagophila eburnea 



Cepphus grylle (mandti group) 



Plautus alle 



Fratercula arctica (naumanni) 



Phalaropus fulicarius 

 Low arctic 



Larus glaucoides 



Phalaropus lobatus 

 Boreo-low arctic 



Mergus serrator 



Phalacrocorax carbo (carbo) 



Larus marinus 



Alca torda 



Uria aalge 



Cepphus grylle (grylle group) 



Fratercula arctica (arctica) 

 Boreal 



Larus ridibundus 



a A few species breed near freshwater lakes, but are 

 marine during the nonbreeding season. 



Table 7. The terrestrial area of southernmost 

 West Greenland belongs to the subarctic zone 

 of the boreal province, and one boreal bird 

 species, the black-headed gull, has bred there 

 in recent years. It is, however, as much a 

 freshwater bird as a marine one. 



The widely differing ranges of Greenland 

 seabirds are shown in Figs. 1-4 and are based 

 on my new and previously unpublished data. 



