BOEM’s Alaska Environmental Studies Program: A Review of the At-sea Seabird Surveys and Red Phalarope Tracking Study

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) promotes environmental protection and economic development through responsible management of offshore resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) based on the best available science. BOEM’s Environmental Studies Program (ESP) aims to develop and manage rigorous scientific research to inform policy decisions, often via partnerships with private and federal agencies. Under an intra-agency agreement, BOEM and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have conducted At-sea seabird surveys since 2010 as part of multiple vessel-based research program to obtain seabird distribution, abundance, and habitat information in the northern Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas. To date, over 200,000 km of survey effort have been achieved, contributing information on over 60 seabird species. We have identified long-term trends and shifts in distribution of key species in Alaska’s Arctic marine ecosystems. In 2019, we added a component to use satellite tags to track the Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius) during the non-breeding season and during their migration to pelagic habitat breeding grounds with a goal to understand how their movements correlate with At-sea survey data and oceanographic conditions. Here, we present a summary of BOEM’s ESP approach, and describe preliminary results. We describe distribution and abundance of select seabird species and Red Phalaropes, and compare individual movements of tagged Red Phalarope to At-sea observations. Our results illustrate the value of collecting both population - and individual-level data on species to understand their response to changing Arctic marine conditions.