Magnificent Migrants: Shorebirds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Several species that depend on this fragile land are in serious trouble

By Stephen Brown and Metta McGarvey

When you think of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, what comes to mind? Cold, of course – and vast open spaces, nameless mountain ranges, polar bears, caribou, and mosquitoes. Wilderness on this scale boggles the mind. The Arctic Refuge is the size of South Carolina, and it includes a full range of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems -- from the boreal forests and taiga in the south, through the rocky peaks and countless river valleys of the Brooks Range, to the braided rivers and fragile tundra extending across the coastal plain, to the lagoons and barrier islands of the Arctic Ocean.

Most of the debate about the future of the Arctic Refuge focuses on the large mammals that live there. Few people know that an astonishing 177 species of birds also call the Arctic Refuge their home for at least part of each year. Although birds nest throughout the refuge, they congregate most densely on the coastal plain. Here marshy wetlands form each summer as the top several inches of permafrost thaw. Unfortunately this is also the most controversial area, because it is where developers want to drill for oil. The law establishing this refuge required further study on this 1.5-million-acre region before its fate is decided.

Manomet researchers face daunting logistics for their Arctic Refuge field work. Because the refuge is so remote and the 10-day period when birds are visible varies, they bring a month's worth of supplies.

At first glance it seems there should be plenty of room for both development and wildlife. The Arctic Refuge encompasses nearly 20 million acres, and 8 million of those have already been designated as wilderness for all time. But although people can adapt to living in almost every environment on earth, most wildlife species depend on very specific habitats that provide the particular kinds of food and shelter they need to survive. Almost all of the appropriate habitat for wetland birds in the Arctic Refuge is located in the area of the coastal plain that is not yet protected, and our research indicates that the closer one gets to the coast, the greater the density of birds.

A Coast Teeming with Birds
Many of our favorite game birds and seasonal visitors in the lower 48 raise their young across Alaska’s North Slope, which is bounded by the Brooks Range in the south and the Arctic Ocean in the north. The North Slope includes about 1.8 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 23 million acres in the much larger National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to the west, and the state lands in between. Waterfowl that nest in the Arctic Refuge include green-winged teals, northern pintails, long-tailed ducks, king and common eiders, and rare spectacled eiders. Other breeders and migrants include scoters, scaup, northern shovelers, brant, greater white-fronted geese, snow geese, tundra and trumpeter swans, and the birds that personify wilderness – Pacific, red-throated, and yellow-billed loons.

But few know that the North Slope also has the highest density of breeding shorebirds of any place in North America. This fragile strip of coastal tundra produces a veritable explosion of plant and insect life in the short Arctic summer, providing exactly the habitat these birds need to survive and breed. Millions of shorebirds of at least 18 different species are known to breed all across Alaska’s North Slope, with at least a half million breeding in the Arctic Refuge alone. When breeding and migrating species are combined, 34 species of shorebirds have been documented in the refuge. Most fatten up for migration by feeding on the abundant food in the coastal plain and offshore lagoons during July and August.

From left, Stephen Brown, Metta McGarvey, and Robin Hunnewell - all crewmembers of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences' expedition to the Arctic - take a break from their shorebird survey work in camp.

Shorebirds include plovers, sandpipers, godwits, whimbrels, dowitchers, and phalaropes. Most people see these birds when they are relatively quiet and drab, like the common grey and white sanderlings that chase advancing and receding waves along ocean beaches as they look for food. But when breeding in Alaska, most shorebirds shed their dull winter colors for bright breeding plumages. These usually quiet birds can also be heard vigorously defending their territories all through the 24-hour Arctic daylight, with haunting breeding calls heard only here.

As a group, shorebirds are the champions of long distance migration, with some completing astounding pole-to-pole journeys each year. One species, the American golden plover, flies from its Alaskan breeding grounds to eastern Canada, then continues non-stop over the Atlantic Ocean to South America, covering some 2,500 miles in just days. Another common species, the semipalmated sandpiper, weighs only about an ounce but manages to migrate from the Arctic all the way to the northeastern coast of South America and back again each year. For most of us, simply taking this trip in an airplane would be exhausting, to say nothing of covering the distance under our own power twice a year. Obtaining the food required to fuel these migrations is the focus of much of these birds’ lives, and finding it in the right places and at the right times drives their endless movements across the globe.

Filling Information Gaps on Declining Species
Shorebirds need our help to protect critical breeding and migration sites. Six species that breed in the Arctic Refuge are designated as high priority in the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan, primarily because their populations are shrinking. Our organization, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, a non-profit environmental research group located in Massachusetts, is working to improve conservation of Arctic-breeding shorebirds by filling important information gaps about their habitat requirements and by developing educational outreach programs.

Crewmember Robin Hunnewell uses binoculars to observe shorebirds.

One part of our work involves conducting field surveys to determine the distribution and abundance of breeding shorebirds. We are collaborating with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to complete the first comprehensive study of shorebird use of the entire Arctic Refuge coastal plain. Earlier surveys helped determine which species use this region, but those surveys were conducted from fixed field camps that only allowed access to a few square miles. Our surveys covered the entire coastal plain using a combination of two different survey types. First, rapid surveys were done using a small helicopter to deliver field researchers to randomly selected sites scattered across the many different shorebird habitats. At each place the surveyor recorded all the shorebirds and other birds observed in the area. Second, intensive surveys were conducted on a small number of plots where observers documented as closely as possible the true number of nests of each species. Then the rapid surveyors counted birds on the intensively studied plots, without any knowledge of the intensive survey results. The number of birds the rapid surveyors missed on the intensive plots allows us to estimate how many birds were likely missed on the widespread rapid surveys. Overall, this study will show which habitats within the Arctic Refuge are most important for breeding shorebirds, and our preliminary results show that diversity and abundance are both highest close to the coast.

The logistics of conducting this kind of work are daunting. We have a window of about ten days when the birds are actively displaying on their territories, and can therefore be detected when conducting rapid surveys across the 1.5 million acres of the coastal plain. To make matters even more complicated, the particular days during which these displays occur vary from year to year depending on weather conditions, sometimes early in June if the spring is warm, and sometimes toward the end of June if winter lingers. We have to take everything we will need for a crew of up to 10 living in tents for a month, because the remote work conditions don’t permit resupply. Arriving by plane in late May, we land on frozen lakes, prepared for occasional blizzards and freezing fog. After thaw, we hike through bogs and across tussock tundra to survey our study plots, and ready ourselves for the annual onslaught of twenty mosquito species that begin hatching late in June.

Our efforts are also contributing to a large-scale international shorebird monitoring effort called the Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring, or PRISM, which is being spearheaded by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service. This project coordinates and conducts surveys all across the U.S. and Canadian Arctic to better estimate the population status of each species of Arctic shorebird, including the species currently thought to be in serious decline. This effort will provide vital information to help target conservation efforts where they are most needed.

Author and Manomet crewmember Stephen Brown uses a small video camera to film much of the crew's work so that the experiences can be shared with Manomet supporters back home.

Research conducted by Manomet and a cadre of volunteers over the last 35 years has shown that some shorebird species are already in serious trouble and experiencing steep population declines. Among the shorebirds that breed in the Arctic Refuge, several are particularly at risk. The numbers of American golden plovers seen in southward migration along the east coast appear to be declining at about 7 percent per year, an alarming rate that will reduce their population by half in about 10 years if not reversed. Even the seemingly modest rate of 1 percent annual decline estimated for long-billed dowitchers would lead to the loss of half the population in about one human lifetime. These rates are expected to increase as environmental changes continue, such as further human development in critical coastal migration sites and increasing impacts of global warming, which will be severe in Arctic ecosystems.

Oil Development vs. Birds
There are many ways in which oil development could directly and indirectly affect shorebirds breeding on the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge. Direct effects include loss of nesting habitat to drill pads and road construction, seismic exploration, and dust from roads and construction work. Indirect effects include the inevitable oil spills, changes in drainage around roads, and potentially higher predation rates on shorebirds by birds of prey and foxes drawn to human activity. The extent of the potential impact of most of these factors is still largely unknown, which underscores the importance of more research to understand the natural dynamics of shorebird populations in undisturbed habitats.

Existing oil development is located all along the northern coast of Alaska up to the border of the Arctic Refuge. While no one knows where oil might be found under the refuge’s coastal plain, it is a fair bet that the patterns of oil distribution clustered along the coast in adjoining areas may continue under the refuge as well. If approved by Congress and the President this year (votes are expected this fall), oil development in the Refuge would certainly occur within the relatively small portion of the coastal plain where shorebirds breed. And if oil development were concentrated along the coast, as seems likely, it would have an even greater impact on habitats critical to shorebirds.

To help educate the public about the importance of the Arctic Refuge for birds, we are working on a new book, Arctic Wings: Birds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, with Subhankar Banerjee, author of Seasons of Life and Land. The new book will be published this spring by Mountaineers Press and will include stunning photos by leading wildlife photographers. Renowned writers and bird biologists will document Arctic birds’ struggles for survival, their epic migrations between their wintering and summer breeding grounds, and the challenges they face in their habitats at every stage of their journey. Chapters will address oil development issues on Alaska’s North Slope, the stories of individuals who have worked to protect the birds of the Arctic Refuge, and suggestions for how birders can take an active role in Arctic bird habitat conservation.

For more information, visit our websites at:
www.shorebirdworld.org, and www.manomet.org.

Stephen Brown received his PhD from Cornell University, and is currently director of Manomet’s Shorebird Conservation Research Program. He and his wife Metta McGarvey have conducted research on shorebirds in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the past five years.

This story has been reprinted from REFUGE magazine, Autumn 2005, with permission from the National Wildlife Refuge Association. Copyright 2005 National Wildlife Refuge Association.