JWLy 16, 1963 
Mr. Blnlon A^r»on 
U.S. Coast (Siard LORAH STA. 
APO 105 
Sau Franc Ibco, California 
Dear Blnlon: 
The ia?oJect has grown like the proverbial mushroom cloud since you 
folke left. We now have I7 field pe^^e on the staff, including three 
HiD's. Win Barik o fj’om USPWS will be on a leave of absence from there 
to run this project starting in a noirth or so. Richard Warner (Laysan 
teal) will start In Jan. or so after he finishes his doctorate. Dr. 
Ely (ornithologist from Kansas) starts in August. Two new Research 
Curators are Bob Sundell ai^ Bat Gould, both bird lasn. Bob will be 
woriting on Laysan and Pat at sea - 1*11 explain later. Staff is 
rounded out by 8 Technical Assistants. 
As you've probably gathered from the flurry of activity there la increased 
Interest in Sand^ Ken Amerman and I^t Elliott will assist you in banding 
and color marking 100 jjer-cent of all other species and 20,000 Sooty 
Terns by 1 Augaat if humanly possible. All of you will stay through 
August to con^jlete the banding. OTC wants continual etanreilance at 
Sand for at least the next six BEJuths; Bob IfcFarlaiM will probably do a 
lot of this as Phil doesn't want to put him on ships any more. In 
addition to his misery from seasickness there were evldenly some 
repercussions from his behavior on the first trip, 
A major addition to the project came last week. We are to conduct 
BK)nthly surveys on a YA& (remember the ones alongside us at Pearl in 
Feb.) in a 800 by 250 mile area somevi^ie southwest of Johnston. Our 
team will incliade 2 ornithologists (Gould has had some experience off 
tlM Pacific coast) and a profession;^ marine biologist. Bushman is now 
an associate project officer and he will be going on some of the trips. 
The trips will take about 20 days each Eonth, euid o\ir staff members will 
move to Honolulu for the duration, though the surveys may eM in February 
or March. surveys will be to acctaately determine the bird utilization 
of the study area, species, tine of day (including radar saannlng at night) 
plankton seoapllnj water tsnroeratxire, current, weather, etc. The team 
will collect, from a skiff lowered over the slde^for stomach contents and 
reproductive tractsj also for positive identification. 
