An open mini-seminar about the SEATRACK project
The institutions leading SEATRACK; the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Norwegian institute for nature research and the Norwegian Environment Agency invite all interested to come and participate in an open mini-seminar, monday March 19th, about the project and related ongoing work.
The seminar starts 12:30, Monday, March 19th in the Amfiet auditorium in NINA huset (Høgskoleringen 9, Trondheim).
UPDATE! You can live stream the talks in the seminar at NINA-TV Direktesending (the link will be activated 12:30)
At the seminar, we will present and discuss new knowledge concerning the nonbreeding-distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations, such as northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, European shag, Brünnich’s guillemot, common guillemot and little auk. The ARCTOX project, a close collaborator with SEATRACK, which focuses on tracking mercury contamination across Arctic marine food webs will also be presented.
About SEATRACK
Seabirds are important components of Arctic ecosystems, and are culturally and economically important for local communities. Seabirds conduct extensive seasonal migration, often between different large marine ecosystems or between marine areas under different national jurisdiction.
Until recently it has been difficult to follow the seasonal movements of seabirds, making it particularly demanding to identify potential environmental threats to seabird populations during the non-breeding period.
However, the recent development of Global Location Sensor (GLS) loggers has greatly enhanced our ability to track seabirds in the non-breeding season. This new technology links the breeding populations to the non-breeding habitats, giving essential information to marine spatial planning and seabird conservation.
Arctic countries often share the same seabird populations. Consequently, there is a joint and equal responsibility for the conservation of seabirds in and outside the Arctic. Hence, SEATRACK, a coordinated multi-year, multi-site and multi-species effort which primary objective is to document the winter distribution of seabirds breeding around the Northeast Atlantic, thereby linking breeding populations to non-breeding habitats. The project takes place in 38 colonies in five countries where individuals of 11 seabird species in four ecological groups are tagged with archival light loggers. So far have over 8600 loggers been deployed and 3200 retrieved yielding information about the whereabouts of the tagged individuals outside the breeding season and the environment they are faced with.
The results of SEATRACK can be viewed in the project’s online mapping application, and more information about the project can be found on the project’s webpage, you can also find us on facebook.
Contact person: Hallvard Strøm, Norwegian Polar Institute