Determination of breeding areas, migration routes, and local movements associated with surf and white-winged scoters wintering in the inner marine waters of Washington State.

Project Number: 28

Year Funded: 2006

Lead Institution(s): Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

Project Lead: David Nysewander

Email:

Collaborator(s): Joseph Evenson (WDFW), Don Kraege (DKK), Eric Anderson (UW), Jim Lovvorn (UW), John Takekawa (USGS)

Location: Washington

Focal Species: White-winged Scoter (Melanitta delgandi)

Project Description: The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) continued its ongoing four-year focus study that is presently using implanted satellite (PTT’s) and VHF radio transmitters to better understand the demography and movements associated with Surf and White-winged Scoters that frequent Washington State waters during the year. This work started in 2003 looking at White-winged Scoters and expanded to include Surf Scoters in the remaining three years to look at the two most common scoter species historically present in Washington marine waters during the winter. This focused work was impelled by the recognition of the significant declines that have occurred in wintering scoter populations distributed throughout Washington State marine waters over the last 25 years. This WDFW project has now implanted during the four years a total of 73 satellite PTT transmitters in scoters (Surf, 47 and White-winged, 26) captured on the wintering grounds in the inner marine waters of Washington. This work has also implanted 90 VHF transmitters primarily into Surf Scoters, facilitating examination of other facets of their demography. Most of the batteries for the PTT transmitters lasted from 1-1.5 years, but we do have a few that were programmed to last 2 years. In addition, some of our VHF transmitters have lasted longer than one year also, giving us some additional insight into inter-year site fidelity. The greater focus on Surf Scoters is considered critical since the decrease in this species is increasingly considered to be the largest component of the declines observed overall for scoter species in Washington.