Channel Islands Seabird Monitoring

Project Goal
Researchers and conservation practicioners have been working to
study and protect seabird species in the Channel Islands for decades. CMI has collaborated on several of these efforts; include several ambitious and long-term
conservation efforts such as the monitoring and management of Scripps’s Murrelet and Ashy Storm-petrel by the U.S. Navy on San Nicholas
Island, archipelago-wide monitoring of seabirds by the USGS, rat eradication and subsequent monitoring of impacts to seabird species on Anacapa Island by the National Park Service and other partners,
and studies of interactions between Scripps’s Murrelet and common ravens on Anacapa by the National Park Service and University of Washington.

Conservation Metrics
Conservation Metrics has collaborated with multiple partners in the Channel Islands in the past decade. We have helped design survey strategies
and analyze data from acoustic surveys to monitor priority species activity throughout the archipelago. A highlight of these projects was our work on Anacapa Island measuring the recovery of seabird populations ten years after the eradication of invasive
rats in 2002. Automated acoustic sensors greatly increased the temporal scale of survey efforts in difficult terrain, while rapid analysis of automated sensor data directed field staff to sites with Ashy Storm-Petrel activity and led to the discovery of the first nest record on Anacapa Island for this elusive species.