Cape Parry Thick-billed Murres: Solving an Arctic Seabird Mystery

Who:  Stephen Insley and Rosana Paredes

What: Thick-billed murres are deep-diving, fish-eating, cliff-nesting seabirds that live most of their lives at sea in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. The Cape Parry colony, about which very little was known, is one of the smallest and most isolated and the only colony in the western Canadian Arctic (the Inuvialuit Settlement Region). We set out to fill in some of the basic gaps in what is known about these murres, such as where do they go when they are at sea especially during the winter, and are there any new risks to their survival caused by climate change and human activities.

A joint presentation of the Yukon Science Institute and the Yukon Bird Club