Sea Duck Research and Monitoring in the Atlantic Flyway: Development of a monitoring program for the American Common Eider. An assessment of repeatability and accuracy of aerial counts of males

Project Number: 135

Year Funded: 2012

Lead Institution(s): Canadian Wildlife Service

Project Lead: Scott Gilliland

Email:

Collaborator(s): Christine Lepage (CWS), Francois Boldoc (CWS), Kevin Connor (New Brunswick DNR)

Location: Atlantic Flyway

Focal Species: Common Eider (Somateria mollissima)

Project Description: The current American Common Eider (Somateria mollisima dresseri) population estimate is around 300,000 birds (C. Lepage and D. Bordage, Canadian Wildlife Service, in prep.) and is among the most commonly harvested sea ducks in several coastal regions of eastern Canada and U.S. The sustainable harvest rate was estimated around 10%, and harvest was estimate to be about 32,000 birds (mean harvest 1998 to 2003) which exceeds the estimate of sustainable harvest for this subspecies (Savard et al. 2004). Although the distribution and relative abundance of American Common Eider has been well described, there exists no comprehensive monitoring program for this subspecies. Various state, federal and provincial agencies have intermittently conducted breeding surveys over the past 40 years within their jurisdictions in south-eastern Canada and the north-eastern U.S. Long term ground counts have been done in north shore Gulf of St. Lawrence and within the St. Lawrence estuary. The U.S. component of the wintering population has been partially surveyed on the Mid-Winter Inventories, and recent surveys in Canada have covered the Canadian component. Unfortunately, no coordinated, international survey of this population has occurred and therefore no reliable indices of continental population size or trend exist.