It’s Marbled Murrelet Nest Discovery Day!

The first Marbled Murrelet nest known to science was discovered 44 years ago—on August 7, 1974—by an unsuspecting tree trimmer who had never heard of this mysterious seabird.

Hoyt Foster.  Photo courtesy Susan Schwanke.

Forty-four years ago today, tree surgeon named Hoyt Foster arrived in Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California to do a routine safety trim at a popular campground. 

Hoyt Foster, age 47 at the time, didn’t know much about birds. He didn’t know that a robin-sized seabird called a Marbled Murrelet had been seen flying into the state park where he was working. He didn’t know that the location of the Murrelet’s nest was a mystery that had flummoxed birders and ornithologists for decades. 

Flip-line climbing of an old-growth tree demonstrated here by Tom Hamer (Photo courtesy Hamer Environmental).

What Foster did know was how climb and trim trees—the Big Trees—the old-growth Douglas-firs and Coastal Redwoods that were over 200 feet high and several feet wide. The trees that were too big and too remote to get into by ladder, cherry picker, or hydraulic lift. The 47-year-old Foster knew how to climb such trees with little more than a pair of spurs, a climbing rope, and a flip line.

It’s no wonder the mystery of the Murrelet’s nest wasn’t solved until 1974, well after the nests of all other North American breeding birds had been discovered. Few if any birders or ornithologists were also skilled tree climbers and, even if they were, none of them had thought to look high in the trees for a murrelet nest. 

Two Marbled Murrelets painted (not from life) by John James Audubon. 

While Hoyt Foster was trimming trees in California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park on August 5 and 6, plenty of people were thinking about murrelets and searching for their mysterious nest sites. The problem was that birders were looking in the wrong places. The Marbled Murrelet is an alcid, (a web-footed seabird family that includes puffins and auklets) and most birds in this family nest on the ground along the rocky cliffs and outcrops of the Pacific Coast. That is where birders, egg collectors, ornithologists had been looking for the murrelet.

The color plate (above) depicts two Marbled Murrelets by John James Audubon from 1838. The bird at left is in summer “bark-brown” breeding plumage, the bird at right in winter plumage. This is likely the only image of murrelets available at the time, but is misleading. The penguin-like murrelets are shown sitting on the ground (which they never do) at the edge of the coastal bluff (where they do not nest).

Hoyt Foster probably didn’t know about the nesting mystery of the murrelet while he was working in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. He was simply doing his job as a tree surgeon, wielding his 24-inch pruning saw in 200-foot-high redwoods and Douglas-firs to remove potentially hazardous branches overhanging the park campsites. By the end of August 6--his second full day of work--Foster had trimmed five big trees. He was relieved to have gotten this far without injury or incident.

Around 2:30 p.m. on August 7, 1974, Hoyt Foster was perched 148 feet up in a 228-foot-high Douglas-fir. He had just eaten his lunch and was about to continue his climb when he came face-to-face with a creature hunkered on the wide mossy branch. The bird was covered with beige and brown downy feathers, and was later described by Foster as “a porcupine with a beak sticking out.” When he noticed the feet of the little bird, he knew he was looking at an unusual creature. The feet were webbed, but the bird was six miles from the nearest point on the Pacific Ocean.  

The bird was captured and taken to park headquarters where park naturalists identified it as the only known downy chick of the Marbled Murrelet. The mossy branch where it was sitting was its nest—not a built nest, but simply a place in the naturally occurring moss and duff.  

The very downy Marbled Murrelet chick discovered on its nest in 1974   Photo courtesy Bruce Elliott (California Dept. Fish & Game)

The discovery ended the search for the nesting site of this small seabird whose secretive breeding habitats had eluded scientists for decades and brought to a conclusion the “last great ornithological mystery in North America.” This one nest proved to be the critical evidence that lead to subsequent scientific discoveries: that the Marbled Murrelet depends on old-growth coastal forests for nesting, that the logging of these forests along the Pacific Northwest coast is the primary cause the bird’s declining population, and that saving the murrelet from extinction requires protecting the murrelet’s nesting habitat. 

The Marbled Murrelet is the size of a robin, its egg the size of chicken egg.   (Photo by Nick Hatch, USDA Forest Service)

Thanks to years of scientific research and public support, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Marbled Murrelet as a threatened species in Washington, Oregon, and California under the Endangered Species Act in 1992. Despite these protections, Marbled Murrelet populations have been declining rapidly. In Washington state, the murrelet population declined a heartbreaking 44% between 2001 and 2016.

This fall, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) plans to release a set of conservation strategies for the Marbled Murrelets nesting on our state-managed public lands. We’ll need your help during the following 60-day public comment period to ensure that Marbled Murrelets have a chance to recover and thrive in our state forests.

A coalition of Marbled Murrelet advocates—the Washington Environmental Council, Washington Forest Law Center, Olympic Forest Coalition, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, Seattle Audubon—will be analyzing the strategies and sharing their recommendation and information on how you can support the conservation strategy that will best help the Marbled Murrelet.

For the most up-to-date information, check here or the Murrelet Survival Project on Facebook. 

A Marbled Murrelet in breeding plumage taking off from the water. Photo courtesy Dan Cushing and S. Kim Nelson

And now  a short light-hearted video to celebrate Discovery Day. Click here and enjoy!

Help for the Murrelet

After several years of work, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released in December the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS)  for six alternative Long-Term Conservation Strategies for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The dEIS is now available for public review and input. Once the preferred strategy is selected, it will replace the interim strategy that has been in place since 1997. 

But wait.

After so much time and effort, it turns out that not one of the alternatives actually does anything to save the murrelets nesting in our forested state lands. In fact, under scientific analysis, each Alternative--even the most conservative Alternative F--is associated with a downward population trajectory over the next fifty years.

Fortunately, a coalition of conservation organizations has developed a Conservation Alternative and now the coalition needs your support to encourage the DNR and USFWS to consider this alternative. 

You don't need to be a policy expert to support the Conservation Alternative. If you support the work of your local Audubon chapter, Washington Audubon, the Seattle Audubon Society, the Washington Environmental Council, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, the Olympic Forest Coalition, the Washington Forest Law Center, or the Sierra Club--the organizations that together developed a Conservation Alternative you can feel good about supporting this.

In a nutshell...

Conservation Alternative aims to achieve the following biological goals for the marbled murrelet population in Washington State (adapted from the 2008 Science Team Report and 1997 Recovery Plan:

1.  a stable or increasing population for at least a 10-year period 

2.  an increasing geographic distribution

3.  a population that is resilient to disturbances (stochastic events such as wind throw, wildfire, and insect outbreak)

The Conservation Alternative is based on Alternative F, but recommends the following additional protections:

 1. All current and future habitat within the next 50 years and/or

 2. All Emphasis Areas and Special Habitat Areas from Alt. E (collectively “Conservation Areas” when combined with Marbled Murrelet Management Areas)

3. No-touch 150 m buffers around all occupied sites and old forest in the Olympic Experimental State Forest planning unit as mapped by the 2008 Science Team.

Now what?

Please take a moment to send a letter or e-mail by Thursday March 9 at 5 p.m. (Only written comment is being accepted in this process).  Submit your comments online at sepacenter@dnr.wa.gov or SEPA Center, PO Box 47015, Olympia, WA 98504-7015. 

Please include the file number "12-042001" on letters and postcards and in the subject line of comments send by e-mail. 

If you are short on time...simply write this: 

Please request that Board of Natural Resources analyze a Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS before they selected a preferred alternative.  

If you have another few minutes and would like to add more, here are some suggestions: 

Predicted population decline: All six of the current strategies being considered by the DNR show a declining population trend for the next 50 years. None of the alternatives contribute to Marbled Murrelet survival and recovery. This is demonstrated by the DNR's own population modeling. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Recent uplisting to “endangered.” In December 2016, the Marbled Murrelet’s status was uplisted from a “threatened” to the more serious “endangered” by the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission. The dEIS Alternatives do not properly reflect this imperiled state, as evidenced by the ongoing population decline in the dEIS population viability analysis and by the 44% smaller population size (from 2001-2015) documented in the 2016 status review. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Best-available science: Alternative F, which is based on the 2008 Science Team Report, comes closest to reaching Marbled Murrelet recovery goals, but unfortunately this alternative does not include important, more recent scientific findings. For example, a 2015 study identified the regional importance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca as a "hotspot," not previously recognized, of murrelet at-sea density adjacent to high/higher quality nesting habitat. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

“Bridge” habitat: DNR-managed lands contain approximately 15% (213,000 acres) of all existing Marbled Murrelet habitat in the state, and this habitat is needed to serve as a temporal "bridge" to support the bird's population over the next 30-50 years while it is most vulnerable to extirpation. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Harvest volumes: Alternatives A-E set harvest volumes between 35,000 and 49,000 acres DNR's best option for protecting Marbled Murrelets, Alternative F, allows the harvest of 25,000 acres of mature forest habitat that is needed for the population to stabilize and recover. The DNR and USFWS should consider a stronger, more effective alternative with considerably lower harvest volumes to prevent the local extinction of the Marbled Murrelet. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Precautionary approach: Without explicit population recovery criteria at the state or federal levels, the adopted LTCS Alternative could preclude murrelet recovery if it does not preserve enough existing and future habitat.  Under these conditions, a precautionary approach—as outlined in the Conservation Alternative—is appropriate. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Mitigation for loss of high-quality habitat: The restoration of low quality habitat over time does not adequately mitigate for the loss of higher-quality habitat that currently exists.  Washington’s murrelet population cannot afford further habitat losses in its imperiled status, or it may become functionally extirpated before future, low quality habitat is restored gradually over time. If murrelets become functionally extirpated from Washington, the lack of genetic flow and genetic variability will become a more significant threat to the persistence of the species at the range-wide scale. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Edge-effects: Not all of the dEIS Alternatives adequately ameliorate the edge effects associated with habitat fragmentation.  For example, Alternatives A and B completely lack contiguous, blocked-up Conservation Areas.  Alternative F stipulates that Marbled Murrelet Management Areas only have a 50% habitat target in the Olympic Experimental State Forest; this insufficient for achieving one of the goals of the Conservation Areas—to minimize edge effects. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Buffers. Buffers on occupied sites of 100 meters or less (Alt. A-F) are too narrow to protect murrelet nests from predators, a suboptimal microclimate, and/or wind throw. Buffers of 150 meters should be part of the preferred alternative. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative, which provides for these buffers, in a Supplemental EIS.

Make the talking points your own. Add information about your experience or or expertise on the marbled murrelet. Thank you for your help. If you are not filled with warm and fuzzy feelings about this bird, please click the chick for more photographs of this unique, endearing, and imperiled seabird. And a photo a literal bottle of marbled merlot. 

What Managing Murrelets Looks Like

This is the poetic version of what managing Marbled Murrelets looks like; a word cloud of the most-often used terms in the 1997 Recovery Plan for this federally threatened seabird:

All good words but words whose meaning(s) we have not yet agreed on. We struggle toward meaning, but seem to end up in court battling out the particulars. We are not sure who is responsible for making these words mean something to the marbled murrelet--something or some action that will slow its decline and set it on a path toward recovery.

Words fail us and, ultimately, the marbled murrelet. This is a numbers game it turns out. A lot of numbers, a lot of calculations, a lot of measuring things that may or may not be measurable. In Washington State where I live, we are struggling with a lot of numbers that will ultimately inform a Long-term Conservation Strategy for the murrelets that occupy (or could occupy) certain forest that are managed by our Department of Natural Resources. This strategy will replace the one (the inadequate one) adopted in 1997.

Why has it taken so long? For many reasons--some understandable, some inexcusable. And because, when it comes down to it, it looks like this:

This is just one of the PowerPoint slides prepared by the Department of Natural Resources (with assist from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) for the June 7 meeting of the Board of Natural Resources--the board that oversees the work on the Long-Term Conservation Strategy. The entire presentation can be viewed here. It is worth looking at if only to get a sense of the complexity of marbled murrelet management.

The meeting is open to the public. The meeting room will be crowded with members of conservation community, representatives of the timber industry, western Washington county commissioners, and many who fall into a large group of people representing the "trust beneficiaries." The sale of timber (marbled murrelet nesting habitat in many cases) generates revenue for our state public institutions--schools, universities, and hospitals among them. There are a lot of smart people in the room--and on the board itself. But few people (myself included) will be able to follow the math and understand exactly (or even generally, conceptually, or vaguely) what it means for the forest and the murrelet. 

On and off, I have been attending the monthly Board of Natural Resources meetings for three years now. I should be able to follow along. I should know what the charts, graphs, discounts, p-stage values are. But I don't. 

I should know what the words "recover" and "stabilize" and "protect" mean. But I don't.

We are all trusting a very few very smart people to choose the numbers and the words. My hope is that--zero through 9 and A to Z--we find the best numbers and words. The best to prove that yes we can do right by the murrelets, the forests, and our future.

Tomorrow's meeting in Olympia will be long. The address and agenda can be found here

Three Keers for Science!

Thank you all Marbled Murreleteers who have been supporting a Science-based conservation strategy for this imperiled species in Washington state. It's been a long haul (at least two years of monthly meetings with the Board of Natural Resources), but today the board approved an expanded range of alternatives including one based on the 2008 Science Team report (officially known as Recommendations and Suporting Analysis of Conservation Opportunities for the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy, (Raphael, M.G., S.K. Nelson, P. Swedeen et al). 

Additionally, the board approved adding and amending other alternatives to create a total of six alternatives, one including expanded buffers (from 100 meters to 150 meters) around occupied nest sites. It is unlikely this expanded buffer will be approved, but it is important that buffers with meaningful and documented conservation value be analyzed for comparison to less buffer-generous alternatives.

This is a big victory! Thanks to all the individuals, staff of the Washington Forest Law Center, the Murrelet Survival Project and partners, and many Audubon chapters who have been providing public comment in person or in writing lo these many months. Every voice matters--truly. And we seem to have a board that listens.

Kyle Blum of Department of Natural Resources has done a remarkable job getting all the stakeholders to this point. It's amazing how complex, time-consuming, and fraught the conservation of such a little bird can become. The members of the BNR (with one notable and unnamed exception) should be praised for their engagement in the material presented and for their insightful questions all along the way. This is how we get to a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win if we are lucky.

Up Next: More analysis by the DNR and USFWS. This is just the end of one phase and the beginning of the intense scrutinizing the environmental impacts of each alternative strategy. We are probably looking at summer/fall for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and opportunities for Murreleteers and others to provide comment. Adding and modifying alternatives will extend the time line to reach an approved Long-Term Conservation Strategy--but what's a few months given the interim strategy has been in place since 1997!