Scientists are monitoring threats to seabirds from climate change, overfishing and other anthropogenic hazards.
However, many species are difficult to study because they live in wild or scattered seas.
But not the northern gannet that breeds on Bonaventure Island off Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. The small island is located close to the coast and is home to over 100,000 gannets during the breeding season, making it the second largest gannet colony in the world. Moreover, these birds are very approachable.
Experts say there is no doubt that global warming is reshaping the lives of northern gannets by pushing fish deeper into cooler waters and sometimes out of reach with theirs.
Warming and rising sea levels as well as erratic weather events caused by climate change are taking a heavy toll on seabirds. University of British Columbia researchers say seabird populations have fallen by 70% since the mid-20th century.
For example, climate-related losses have affected albatrosses in the central Pacific, penguins in South Africa, and several species in the United States: the common murres and Cassin’s auklets along the Coast West; puffer fish off the coast of Maine; terns off New England; and brown pelicans on the disappearing islands off southeast Louisiana.
The struggles of many seabirds occur in wild seas far from humans. However, Bonavoji’s gannets appear before our eyes, as a gift to scientists and the public, on the protected grounds of Parc national de l’lle-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Perce’s Quebec government.
