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I.C.T.NISBET 



enough about the functioning of this complex 

 biological resource. Seabird populations fluc- 

 tuate and they have a very long response 

 time, the environment is not constant, we do 

 not understand the dynamics of multispecies 

 communities, and we do not know how they 

 respond either to external changes or to our 

 attempts to manage them. Management will 

 have to be improvisatory for a very long time. 

 We must recognize that effective conserva- 

 tion of a bird population with a 20-year 

 generation time will take at least 20 years to 

 show results. 



Another priority task is to control preda- 

 tors. I have been impressed by the evidence 

 we have for major effects of predators on the 

 seabird populations here. I would regard con- 

 trol of predators and management of habitats 

 on some of the major seabird islands as an ex- 

 tremely urgent task. 



A longer-term but no less important pro- 

 gram is public education. This program has 

 several important aspects: one is to increase 

 public support for political actions and effec- 

 tive regulations to protect seabirds; another 

 is to educate the public about the vulner- 

 ability of seabirds and to prevent disturbance 

 or deliberate human destruction. 



Another aspect of public education is to de- 

 velop public interest by making some of the 

 birds more visible. The great problem with 

 this biological resource we have been talking 

 about is that no one knows it is there. Prob- 

 ably half of us did not know how substantial 

 and important a resource it is even 5 years 

 ago. In setting up a large-scale conservation 

 program, we should not make the mistake of 

 basing it only on the most remote and inacces- 

 sible colonies, even if these are the most im- 

 portant numerically. Many of the smaller 

 colonies are locally very important, both bio- 

 logically and for human interest and educa- 

 tion. One example given at this conference 

 was the State of Washington's program for 

 conserving what are, by northern Pacific 

 standards, quite small colonies. This program 

 is important and impressive because it is con- 

 serving bird populations near people who 

 want to see the birds. We have the same sort 

 of situation in Massachusetts and Maine, 

 where effective protection programs have 

 been established for extremely small seabird 

 colonies. We have learned from these pro- 



grams that a few hundred birds, or even a few 

 dozen if properly managed, can be of immense 

 educational importance. If human access is 

 carefully managed so that people can see the 

 birds without disturbing them, these pro- 

 grams can generate support for conservation 

 of larger bird populations that may be thou- 

 sands of miles away where people may never 

 see them. 



A Rationale for 

 Conservation 



As I have tried to show, we know something 

 about the importance of this biological re- 

 source, and we know in outline what we 

 should do to conserve it. But why should we? 

 Almost no one knows the birds are there. We 

 ourselves do not know whether there are 50 

 million or 250 million birds in the north 

 Pacific Ocean. Who cares if 10 million disap- 

 pear? If we cannot give a good answer to this 

 question, we might as well go home and study 

 chickadees instead. 



To justify spending money on conserving 

 marine birds or any other natural re- 

 sourceswe must establish their value. Some 

 of the arguments made in this conference for 

 assigning economic values to seabirds have 

 been dangerously weak. The annual value of 

 "muttonbirds" (Puffinus tenuirostris) in the 

 New Zealand markets is about $70,000. Some 

 speakers have tried to argue that seabirds 

 might play some subtle role that we do not yet 

 understand in regulating marine communi- 

 tiesperhaps they weed out the sick fish. The 

 direct economic values that we have specified 

 for seabirds are really not very impressive, 

 even in terms of the costs involved in conserv- 

 ing and studying them. The biggest number 

 we have heard for the value of these seabirds 

 is the amount of money we are spending on 

 surveys. 



However, this is not the real issue. In judg- 

 ing the costs and benefits of a conservation 

 program, we should not look just at the value 

 of the birds as meat, or oil, or indicators of 

 pollution. The real issue here, as in all eco- 

 nomic problems, is the rational allocation of 

 resources. H. Boyd posed the rhetorical ques- 

 tion: "Why should we waste public money on 

 conserving birds when there are so many 



