Monitoring of seabirds on Bjørnøya (Bear Island), Svalbard

The project involves long-term monitoring of population trends, demographic parameters and diet of seven species of seabirds (northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, glaucous gull, great skua, common guillemot, Brünnich's guillemot and little auk).

The monitoring programme on Bjørnøya was initiated in 1986 and the number of species and parameters monitored has been increased gradually over the 2 decades the programme has run. Bjørnøya is home to some of the largest seabird colonies in the Barents Sea region. These colonies are under increasing human influence through fisheries, oil and gas exploration, ship traffic and climate change.

Long-term monitoring of population trends and demographic parameters makes it possible to distinguish between changed due to human influences versus those caused by natural variation, and assess the impacts of the factors causing change at a population level.

Aggregated data is reported to the MOSJ-website annually.

Prosjektleder: Hallvard Strøm