Diet and Foraging of Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls On Tuckernuck and Muskeget Islands, Massachusetts in 2016
| Main Authors: | Veit, Richard R., Thorne, Lesley |
|---|---|
| Format: | Report eJournal |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/3752293 |
Daftar Isi:
- Report submitted in fulfillment of a Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative grant in 2016 We studied diet and foraging behavior of Herring and Great-blacked Gulls at Tuckernuck and Muskeget Islands during May-July 2016. We had anticipated that the inshore fishery for Long-finned Squid (Loligo peali), which extends to within 3 NM of the beach at Tuckernuck, was to be curtailed or restricted to waters much farther offshore in 2016, and if this had occurred, would have yielded a convenient comparison with our work in 2015. The fishery was not curtailed in 2016, so multiple trawlers worked within 3 NM of the beach throughout the period of our 2016 study, and we were unable to make the anticipated comparison. Of 89 Great Black-backed Gull chicks whose diet we sampled in June, 11 had food in their crops, and of these 11 samples, 6 contained squid. The 5 others contained lady crabs and unidentified fish fragments. Of 12 adult Herring Gulls sampled in late May, 4 contained fresh sand launce. Our GPS tracking of Herring Gulls revealed that birds traveled 3-5 NM offshore, to areas populated with squid trawlers. Nevertheless, the diet samples we obtained contained primarily sand launce.