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I.C.T.NISBET 



that it could have been acquired much more 

 cheaply only a few years ago. Acquisition of 

 habitat is cheap if we do it now compared with 

 what it will cost in a few years or a few 

 decades. Management is cheap. None of us 

 gets paid very much, but each of us could 

 manage several colonies with a couple of stu- 

 dents to help us. Wardens are cheap. Surveys 

 are cheap. The cost of conserving seabirds is 

 minuscule in comparison with the amount 

 spent on the exploitation of resources that 

 threatens them, and it is minuscule in relation 

 to the cost of restoring a seabird population 

 after it has been depleted. 



It is far cheaper to avoid oiling birds than it 

 is to rehabilitate them and to reestablish them 

 in breeding colonies in the wild. It costs noth- 

 ing at all to award leases to companies that 

 have a good safety record and to refuse leases 

 to companies with bad records. It costs a little 

 more to maintain good safety practices in 

 drilling and transportation. It does cost more 

 to transport oil in small, double-bottomed 

 tankers with well-trained crews than to trans- 

 port it in big ships flying flags of convenience, 

 but the cost differential is very small com- 

 pared to the value of the shipment. 



In considering the economics of conserva- 

 tion, we have to weigh the costs of conserva- 

 tion against the value of the resource being 

 exploited. Full-scale development of oil re- 

 serves on the Alaskan continental shelf would 

 generate economic values on the order of ten 

 billion dollars per year. Of this total, 0.1% 

 would support a reasonably sized manage- 

 ment program for the threatened resources. 

 About 1% of the total, or 12$ per barrel of oil, 

 would not only support an ample manage- 

 ment program but also permit management of 

 many other coastal zone resources. Yet the ex- 

 perience of the last few years has shown that 

 an increase in oil prices of 1 % is barely noticed 

 by consumers. 



The point I am trying to make is that ex- 

 tracting oil carefully does not cost signifi- 

 cantly more than extracting it carelessly. If 

 we can solve the institutional problems and 

 I do not underestimate the difficulty of doing 

 so we are not talking about an irrational use 

 of resources. Conservation is feasible; it is 

 worthwhile; it is not expensive; and there is a 

 public demand for it. 



Conclusions 



Practical conservation is an adaptive pro- 

 cess. It is not at present a process that is 

 firmly based in ecological theory. It is one in 

 which we have to start by doing something, 

 see whether it works, and then change our 

 program in accordance with our early experi- 

 ence. I do not believe that we can wait for de- 

 tailed knowledge of population sizes, or ecol- 

 ogy, or demography, or trophic importance, 

 or any other biological attribute of these birds 

 before we start conservation and manage- 

 ment. As scientists we do, of course, find it in- 

 teresting and important to study these 

 things. We should do so; we need to do so; but 

 we should not use our ignorance of detail as an 

 excuse for delaying action. If this seabird re- 

 source is worth conserving, we should start 

 now. 



Summary 



The marine birds of the northern North 

 Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, and adjacent seas 

 constitute one of the great neglected biologi- 

 cal resources of the world. 



This resource is impressive in terms of both 

 total numbers (probably of the order of 100 

 million birds) and species diversity. A number 

 of species are endemic to the area and hence of 

 special interest. 



The resource is international in that it in- 

 cludes major populations of migrants from 

 Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the 

 Soviet Union, and other countries. Several mi- 

 grant species appear to use this area exclu- 

 sively in their nonbreeding season and should 

 be included in the list of endemics. 



The general relation between the distribu- 

 tion and abundance of seabirds and other 

 marine resources is beginning to be under- 

 stood. However, comparatively little is known 

 about the distribution of seabirds in winter, 

 and there is a serious dearth of information 

 about breeding success, survival, and 

 demography. 



Seabirds in the north Pacific Ocean and 

 adjacent seas are concentrated over the conti- 

 nental shelf and in areas of high biological 

 productivity. Hence they are especially vul- 



