by J.K. Ullrich

Summer is tourist season in Alaska, and the largest group of visitors arrives on the wing. Every year millions of birds travel the Pacific Flyway, a migratory route that stretches from Patagonia to this Arctic oasis. Alaska’s 46,000 miles of coastline offers protected nesting areas, and the surrounding seas produce lots of food. These conditions attract more than 40 species of seabirds and one-third of the world’s shorebird species to raise new generations in the Last Frontier.

Alaska’s coastal birds are as diverse as its habitats. Lake Clark’s mud flats host more than 100,000 Sandpipers and Dunlins each spring. Endangered Kittlitz’s Murrelets nest in Wrangell-St. Elias and Glacier Bay National Parks. Further north, tundras provide a chilly nursery for Steller’s Eiders and the Yellow-billed Loons. Numerous other seabird types inhabit Alaskan waters:

Cormorants go ashore after fishing to dry their short wings in the sun.
Guillemots rank among the deepest bird divers, reaching depths of more than 300 feet.
Kittiwakes are small gulls that nest on high cliffs, where their chicks have few predators.
Murrelet populations have declined due to habitat loss and global warming.
Petrels live on the open ocean and only return to land to breed.
Sea ducks comprise 15 species in North America—such as eiders, mergansers, and scoters— and all nest in Alaska.
Terns are known for their long-distance migrations; thanks to its polar travels, the Arctic tern may see more daylight every year than any other animal.
Puffins sport brightly colored beaks during breeding season, which help them dig burrows up to 50 feet long for their egg.

Puffins in particular serve as sentinels for ocean health. Nearly all of the world’s three million tufted puffins breed in Alaska. They are generalist hunters, so when a puffling hatches, the parents feed it a buffet of local seafood. Researchers collect these diet samples to study fish populations and inform fisheries management. Insights from puffin catches also help monitor the state of Alaska’s marine ecosystems, which have suffered a difficult few decades.

Tufted Puffins. Photo credit: J.K. Ullrich

It began with shifts in ocean conditions in the late 1970s, which triggered long-term declines in many bird, mammal, and crustacean populations. Then the tanker vessel Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling 42 million liters of oil into Prince William Sound. This ecological disaster killed up to a quarter-million seabirds, along with other animals. Bird TLC’s founder, Dr. James Scott, helped care for affected birds in the aftermath.

While seabird populations fought to recover from long-term ecosystem damage, new challenges arose. Two and a half decades after the oil spill, a prolonged marine heatwave in the the Gulf of Alaska collapsed multiple fisheries. Many seabirds starved. From 2015 to 2019, warming ocean temperatures in the Bering Sea changed the distribution of both fish and the seabirds that eat them. More disruptions loom as glacier loss in Southeastern Alaska threatens to alter coastal ecosystems.

Gulls are possibly the most recognizable seabird. As icons of adaptability, they make themselves comfortable in urban settings during the nesting season—buildings offer nesting sites that resemble cliffs and dumpsters provide reliable food. Because of the number of gulls in urban areas, people often find orphaned chicks and bring them to Bird Treatment and Learning Center. 20 gull chicks have been raised by volunteers and staff so far this summer, all Short-billed Gulls save for a single Cook Inlet Gull (a hybrid between Herring Gull and Glaucous Winged Gull).

A young gull skims along the water. Photo credit: J.K. Ullrich

With help from dedicated caretakers and conservation support from all their human allies, seabirds can continue to flourish on Alaska’s coastlines.