Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
they seem to dance on water while feeding, plucking zooplankton from the surface—a method called dipping.
Gannets soar for hundreds of kilometers in search of their prime fish prey, then fold their great wings, plunge-
diving to catch mackerel, herring, or capelin. By contrast, the alcids—murres and puffins—have short, stubby
wings that make them poor fliers but excellent divers. They can thus exploit a greater range of depths to find
food than other seabird species; this method is called pursuit diving. However, all depend on their
prey—capelin in Newfoundland waters—to concentrate near their nesting sites. Some species, like the gulls,
are scavengers, feeding on dead animals for at least part of their diet. Still others are aerial pirates, such as the
jaegers and skuas, which occur in small numbers in inshore waters, where they are sometimes observed harass-
ing black-legged kittiwakes causing them to disgorge capelin.
Seabirds play a vital role in recycling nutrients in coastal waters. The great Newfoundland ornithologist
Leslie M. Tuck has described murre colonies, which can number more than a million individuals, as “the fertil-
izing factories of the northern seas.” Seabird droppings are rich in nitrates and phosphates, which boost phyto-
plankton growth in the upper 15 fathoms of water, where light penetrates and photosynthesis takes place. This
input of fertilizer is particularly important in the summer, when seabirds concentrate at breeding colonies, be-
cause the upwelling currents that bring nutrients to the surface are weaker then. In fact, studies show a correla-
tion between fisheries production and the presence of large seabird colonies along the coast of Newfoundland.
Seabirds, in effect, help to grow their own food supply as their guano is recycled into the marine food web.
The role of seabird colonies in the early exploration of the North American continent has been compared
with that of the buffalo in opening up the West. The most pressing concern for early explorers, having made
the two-month-long crossing of the North Atlantic, was the replenishment of fresh meat supplies. Newfound-
land's great seabird colonies served as the first North American “fast-food takeouts,” according to Memorial
University of Newfoundland ornithologist William Montivecchi. The most important of these fast-food outlets
was Funk Island, a fact that sealed the fate of the great auk.
The Funks consist of an 800-by-400-meter (2,600-by-1,300-foot) bald island of granite and two rocky
nearby outcrops, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Cape Freels, Bonavista Bay. They first appear on a 1503
Portuguese chart as Y.-dos-Aves, “Isle of Birds.” The island's ornithological bounty was first chronicled by
Jacques Cartier, who visited the Funks on May 21, 1534, when he found the island still surrounded by ice
cakes: “It is so exceeding full of birds that one would think they had been stowed there. In the air and round
about it are a hundred times as many more as on the island itself. Some of these birds are as large as geese, be-
ing black and white with a beak like a crow's. They are always in the water, not being able to fly in the air,
inasmuch as they have only small wings about the size of half one's hand, with which however they move as
quickly along the water as the other birds fly through the air. And these birds are so fat that it is marvelous . . .”
He was, of course, describing the great auk. Cartier's crew filled two longboats with the birds in less than half
an hour, salting them in four or five casks and eating the rest fresh. It was the beginning of the end for the great
auk.
The Funks was probably the largest great auk colony in the world, perhaps numbering more than 100,000
pairs. Cartier also describes the presence of murres and gannets, both of which still nest on the island—some
800,000 murres and approximately 8,000 gannets. These species usually nest on steep cliffs, but on the remote
Funks they nest on flat ground—the only option on this bald, flat, sea-washed rock, which is too remote for
mammalian predators. The numbers of each have grown substantially in the last century, having been previ-
ously decimated by egging and hunting.
