Atlantic Canada Beached Bird Survey

Bird Studies Canada is looking for volunteers to participate in our Maritime beached bird surveys in Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and in the Bay of Fundy. If you already spend time walking a beach in either of these areas, or would like to start, we hope you'll consider volunteering for this program. 

Why do we need Beached Bird Surveys? 

Hundreds of ships pass through the waters off the Atlantic Canadian coast daily. This traffic creates a real problem for birds. In particular, the illegal dumping of oily bilge waste leads to chronic petroleum pollution. Oil pollution poses a great threat to pelagic seabirds, the bodies of which are separated from near zero-degree water by a natural "survival suit" of feathers. Like a pinhole in a diving suit, a drop of oil the size of a coin sentences the bird to a slow, painful death from hypothermia and starvation. The bird also tries to preen itself clean of the toxic oil, ingesting it in the process. Poisons in the oil can lead to delayed death. Either way, an oiled bird is a dead bird. 

Latest estimates from the Canadian Wildlife Service, who are partners with Bird Studies Canada in the Cape Breton survey, indicate that about 300,000 birds die each year as a result of chronic oil pollution. This is comparable to the impact of the Exxon Valdez spill each year! 

Usually the first sign of impact from this oil is the appearance of dead and dying birds on beaches. By systematically monitoring birds on beaches - oiled and clean - we can detect fluctuations in both the amount of oil pollution occurring in the Atlantic and in the Bay of Fundy, as well as its effect on waterbirds. This type of information is extremely important in helping to eliminate the problem. 

Cape Breton is an area of extreme risk for birds oiled at sea, due to both the heavy shipping traffic through the Cabot Strait and the concentrations of marine birds that use this water in winter. Beached bird survey participants will be helping to develop a baseline index of oiled birds in Cape Breton. If large spills occur, this baseline can be used to estimate the impact of the spills on seabirds. Beached bird survey data can also be used to determine what species of seabirds are most affected by oiling, what time of year the problem is most severe, and whether the proportion of oiled birds washing up on beaches is changing over time. 

Oiling could also be a problem in the Bay of Fundy, with many large tankers going to and from the oil refinery in Saint John. Industrial garbage and debris from the Bay of Fundy's extensive fish-farming industry could also have an impact on the area's important bird populations. The Bay of Fundy area contains no less than 9 internationally recognized Important Bird Areas (IBA). Hundreds of thousands of seabirds travel through this area during the year, including a significant number of overwintering birds. 

On the south coast of PEI, Charlottetown Harbour is a deep water commercial harbour that remains ice-free from April 15 to December 31, with occasional icebreaker support late in the shipping season to complete seasonal exports. As the capital of PEI and largest city in the province, Charlottetowns harbour hosts the largest volume of shipping traffic in PEI. In addition, plans for the marine terminals expansion have been submitted and shipping traffic into the harbour is likely to increase in the near future. Despite this activity, Charlottetown Harbour continues to be actively used for foraging by several species of cormorants, ducks and terns, and is near one Important Bird Area, Orwell Bay, where up to 2,500 Canada Geese and thousands of other waterfowl are known to stage during spring and fall migration. As a result, there is a relatively high likelihood of birds washing up contaminated with oil in this harbour, making it a priority for establishing beached bird survey sites. We would like to recruit new volunteers from the surrounding community to begin covering these beaches beginning in October 2006. It is particularly important that this project begin prior to the proposed harbour expansion in order to be able to determine what effects the expansion may have on oiling and deposition rates in the harbour.

Our beached bird program is a part of a growing network of beached bird surveys throughout the world. Many other organisations conduct similar surveys on both coasts of North America, and also in Europe. In Atlantic Canada, a beached bird survey has been in place in southeastern Newfoundland since 1984. Very little information has been gathered in Cape Breton and in the Bay of Fundy, two very important areas where human activity could be impacting bird populations. 

How can you get involved? 

We are looking for keen volunteers to conduct monthly surveys year-round if possible, particularly for the Charlottetown Harbour area.  If you would like to volunteer, you will be asked to walk a stretch of beach once every month from November to April, keeping an eye out for beached birds. You should have a working knowledge of bird identification. You will also be asked to note various physical characteristics of the beach (wrack thickness, amount of driftwood), along with weather conditions. The time it takes to survey a beach section depends on the length of beach you wish to survey. The weather will not always be pleasant (!) and you will probably not find beached birds on every survey. 

If you are a keen birder or beachcomber who would like to get involved with this project, or if you would like to learn more about it, please contact Greg Campbell by phone, email or regular mail. If you decide to volunteer, you will receive an information kit with an instruction guide, data forms, latex gloves (in case you need to handle carcasses), and a map of your survey area. 

For information contact: 

Greg Campbell - Project Biologist 
Bird Studies Canada - Atlantic Region 
P.O. Box 6227, 17 Waterfowl Lane Sackville, NB E4L 1G6 
Phone: (506) 364-5025 
Fax: (506) 364-5062 
Email: gcampbell@bsc-eoc.org