Observation: I was out on MacDonald’s Spit for a reported dead harbor porpoise when I came across 7 dead birds and one gull or murre egg. We also picked up a dead eagle out on Nuble Point a while back and when I talk to the U.S. Fishing Wildlife Service (USFWS) guy he said they had gotten several dead eagles prior and one they were investigating because someone had cut the feet off of it. I have heard of but not seen a minke whale that washed up on Barabara Point. The other harbor porpoise I have heard about was up towards Ninilchik I think that may have been killed by killer (Orca) whales because half of it was gone. We were at the Outside Beach last week and someone reported dead herring along the mouth of the slough that comes out of Irene Lake. We did collect those and in finding them we also found two dead clams that we collected and froze as well. The herring and the clams we will send to Bruce Wright with Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association (APIA) to check them for domoic acid. I have heard that some people are saying that is what is killing things such as the birds and whales. We have been working with Bruce Wright and Knik Tribe to collect and send off clam samples to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) Lab this summer. The birds that should be eating up by Gull Island have been seen down passed Pogi in big flocks so there must not be enough feed in the bay like there normally is for them to stay near Gull Island. Bruce is now working with Dom at the Kasitsna Bay lab to collect plankton samples. There is also a gentleman here from South Carolina working with Dom on paralytic shellfish poison (PSP) but is now also I think looking at domoic acid in the large algal bloom that is happening from California into the Gulf of Alaska. It sounds like there was quite a large algal bloom in Jakolof Bay the week before that this gentleman and Dom were watching. There were some college students working with Kris Holderied who had some great data from the transects that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve (KBRR) folks run between Homer and this side of the bay. Michael Opheim - Seldovia Village Council
LEO says: The cause of the bird die-offs is currently being investigated by several agencies. A recent article by Alaska Public Media discussed the die-offs in the Homer area. The leading theory on a cause of mortality is food related. Leslie Slater the Gulf of Alaska Unit Biologist for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge says there are a lot of potential reasons for the increase in fatalities but the prevailing cause is likely tied to the birds’ food sources." You can read the article here.
