States
AlaskaThe Aleutian tern, a USFWS and ADF&G “Species of Conservation Concern/Species of Conservation Need�, may be Alaska's most imperiled seabird, having undergone dramatic population declines at known colonies recent decades. A 2015 analysis highlighted the rapid decline and suggested the Alaska breeding population could be as small as approximately 5000 birds. The analysis identified several challenges for monitoring population trends of Aleutian terns, including: lack of a formal monitoring effort across the Alaska breeding range, substantial uncertainties related to methods for counting and monitoring colonies, and an inability to assess whether birds have moved from previously documented colonies to not-yet-known locations.
Since 2016, the Aleutian Tern ʹapp Group, including USFWS staff from the Migratory Bird, Refuges, and Ecological Services Programs plus partner agencies and organizations, has worked on developing a plan that will estimate size of the Aleutian tern population in Alaska. The working group has been focused on developing and refining efficient and statistically rigorous methods to survey potential Aleutian tern habitat to locate and count birds at nesting colonies across the state. This project builds on years of focused work on colony census methods and will provide a defensible population assessment of the entire North American population of Aleutian terns. This information is critical for management and conservation of this rare seabird.
