Sooty Shearwaters in the California Current System

A project of Gabon Olive Ridley Program.

click map for full-size version Sooty Shearwater #57690 is the third to leave the California Current System following a remarkably consistent (also well defigned during last year's tracking) path toward the Southern Hemisphere. Prior to migration, movements indicate interchange between Monterey Bay and another upwelling-retension area in San Luis Bay, near Pismo Beach. The Avila to Pismo Beach area also was used extensively by shearwaters tracked in 2004.

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Species: Sooty Shearwater
Life Stage: AHY
Gender: Unknown
Release Date: 2005-07-28 10:37:00
Release Location: Monterey Canyon
Last Location: 2005-10-07 20:08:00

Background

Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus) is the numerically dominant seabird in the California Current System (CCS; British Columbia to Baja Mexico) during the upwelling season from May to September. The shearwater’s affinity for fishes associated with upwelling centers, including anchovy, sardine, and juvenile rockfishes, leads to predictable aggregations in coast California. Single flocks can number in the 100s of thousands of individuals and often extend for several kilometers in narrow bands just off the coastline. Shearwaters are highly mobile, capable of traveling 800 km-1 day, and thus are able to respond to changes in oceanic conditions and prey resources over very short time scales (i.e., hours to days) while integrating information about prey availability over large spatial scales (i.e., CCS; 100,000 km2). Thus, movement patterns and habitat use of shearwaters provide a convenient measure of biological response to environmental variability within upwelling systems.