Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
during the next 9.3 years. This 18.6-year-cycle relates to the variation of the moon's orbit about the Earth relat-
ive to the Earth's about the sun.
Bonaparte's gulls are among the seabirds that benefit from the “tidal pump” in the outer Bay of Fundy.
Other seabirds, however, still converge on the rich waters of the outer bay. As many as ten thousand shear-
waters concentrate around Brier Island, and on the New Brunswick side of the bay, Bonaparte's gulls use Pas-
samaquoddy Bay as a major molting and staging ground during fall migration. Later, the Grand Manan Basin
becomes a major wintering area for razorbills and their auk cousins, common murres. Cetaceans, too, seem to
divide up the territory. The North Atlantic right whale and harbor porpoises concentrate in the Grand Manan
Basin, and humpback whales are more common on the Nova Scotia side. This separation of species is prob-
ably some expression of feeding ecology related to the size of the zooplankton prey. In seabirds, it may be re-
lated to beak size, whereas in whales the fineness of the baleen fringes may determine what species are found
where.
Fish also concentrate in these areas where feed is pumped to the surface. Two-to three-year-old juvenile her-
ring, in particular, feed along the New Brunswick shore and near Digby Neck on the Nova Scotian side of the
bay, where they support a sardine industry based on small herring. I have watched as Atlantic herring were
pursed from a fish weir off Grand Manan Island, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. A net is strung around the
