AGLSM: Black Scoters, Baie des Chaleurs, New Brunswick 2009

A project of Environment Canada - Atlantic and Québec Regions in conjunction with the partners and sponsors detailed below.

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Introduction

There appears to be two geographic populations of Black Scoters in North America that are separated by their breeding and wintering distributions along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts; satellite telemetry of birds on both coasts has not revealed any interchange between Atlantic and Pacific Black Scoter populations, although the sample size from the east coast is particularly small.

A large portion of the eastern North American population passes though the Bay of Chaleur on the northeastern border between New Brunswick and Québec and along the St. Lawrence estuary on their spring migration. Our telemetry study was initiated at the spring staging site in the Bay of Chaleur near Dalhousie, NB, Canada in May 2009.

This study was conducted by the Canadian Wildlife Service, and is one of several projects funded by the Sea Duck Joint Venture to improve our understanding of the delineation of sea duck populations across North America.

Project Partners

The primary partners were Environment Canada and the USGS. Logistic support and local expertise was provided by the New Brunswick DNR and the USFWS.

Links to Partner projects:

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/resshow/perry/scoters/

http://www.seaduckjv.org/

Project Partners:

Glenn Olsen & Matt Perry, USGS

Scott Gilliland & Keith McAloney, Environment Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service

Jean-Pierre Savard, Environment Canada, Science & Technology

Tim Bowman, USFWS

Kevin Conner, NB Department of Natural Resources

Project Sponsors

The Vision of the Sea Duck Joint Venture (SDJV) is to maintain sustainable populations of North American sea ducks throughout their ranges. The goals of the SDJV promote development of short and long-term information gathering programs to determine basic parameters of sea duck populations, such as delineation of ranges and subunits, abundance and trends, production, harvest, and survival rates.

Much of the emphasis in the first few years of the Sea Duck Joint Venture (SDJV) has been on population delineation, and satellite telemetry has been the primary tool used to identify breeding ranges, migration routes, molting and wintering areas, and timing of bird movements among these areas.