A Seabird Haven - On the Canadian Islands of Haida Gwaii the Work to Save the Ancient Murrelet Goes On

Birdwatching Magazine - July 2021

By Heide Brandes

On Islands of Haida Gwaii, A Battle Rages To Save Seabirds From Rats

By Heide Brandes

The trail up Tow Hill, an isolated volcanic plug at 125 meter elevation on the island of Haida Gwaii, is seeped in the dark green of a coastal rainforest. Moss covered trees and roots weave around the mountainous side of Tow Hill like arthritic hands, and in that dark are the chirps and hoots of unseen birds.

The hike to the top of Tow Hill is a 45 minute climb that leads to the Blow Hole, a unique coastal formation that shoots sprays of surf up into the air, but it is the thick downy ground cover in all shades of green that interest us.

Deep beneath the swirling roots and rocky soil are nests of the Ancient Murrelet, a rarely-spotted sea bird that makes this north Pacific archipelago its nesting site. Their ebony heads and virgin white necks are oddly hard to spot in the slate gray sea around Haida Gwaii’s islands, but they are one of the most coveted of the migrating birds that visit the archipelago.

Ancient Murrelets nest in colonies along the islands in the north Pacific in North America and near Japan and Kamchatka. The nesting pairs don’t nest in the craggy rocks or along the shores, but in burrows excavated in forest soil among tree roots, under logs and in forest rock crevices. 

The ancient village sites along the Haida Gwaii islands - North America’s most western North Pacific islands - are also home to other nesting birds and are the only places where the Haida Northern Goshawk can be found. Haida Gwaii's small population of northern goshawks are the last remnant of a highly distinct genetic cluster of the birds, according to a new genomic analysis by University of British Columbia researchers. Only 50 remain, according to the last count.

On the Haida Gwaii islands, the nests are invaluable to the livelihood of the species, but the nesting spots are in danger. Invasive species of deer brought to the islands by white settlers eat the protective underbrush that the murrelets use and stomp on the delicate burrows.

Rats that jumped ship throughout centuries of trading and invasion have run rampant throughout the island, eating eggs and chicks and generally destroying the natural ecology of the Haida Gwaii islands. 

While the largest eradication program ever of rats was successful on one of the islands of Haida Gwaii, the rats continue to return. Naturalists are working to clear the rest of the islands of rats and the non-native deer species that threaten nesting sites.

In many ways, the return to a pure natural state also reflects the fight of the Haida people to regain their indigenous cultural identity as well.

A ‘GALAPAGOS’ OF BIRDS

While hiking along the mountainous trails on Gwaii Haanas and Graham’s Island in the Haida Gwaii, I looked for the Ancient Murrelets, but never saw them. Naturalist and guide Phred Collins led the group into the gloaming of the forest and stopped to show where the murrelets burrow into the earth.

Murrelets leave the nest at night to avoid predators, so they are hard to spot. Chicks are even harder to see. Usually one to three days after hatching, the parent murrelets call their chicks, who made a mad dash from their burrow out to the sea.

Along their run, the chicks face danger from predators like the Haida Goshawk and eagles. At sea, they can be snapped up  by other predators, but those who make it safely to their family swim out into the ocean in the dead of night. 

This journey isn’t a short one for the fledgling chicks. On average, the family of Ancient Murrelets will swim up to 30 miles for at least 12 hours. Of all the birds in the world, the Ancient Murrelet as a species spends less time on land than any other bird.

The Haida Gwaii archiepelago off the coast of British Columbia is often called “The Galapagos of the North.” Because of its relative isolation, it has become a rare biological treasure of subspecies that include the rare Haida Northern Goshawk, unique forms of hairy woodpecker and Stellar’s jays, the northern saw-whet owl and red crossbills. 

To save the delicate balance of nature on the islands, an ambitious effort is underway to protect the ecology of this archiepelago off the coast of British Columbia. This remote island archipelago is home to the Haida people and the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve - the only UNESCO Heritage Site in the world protected from ocean to mountain peaks that protect ancient village sites.

“The Ancient Murrelet is a small pelagic seabird, which means it spends all of its life in the ocean,” said Collins. “We have one of the largest breeding sites in the world, which makes our islands very important to this species.”

The Ancient Murrelet, like most pelatic seabirds, are not adapted to the threat of predators like rats or other mammals. While in the ocean, they are graceful fliers in water, diving down hundreds of feet, but on land and in air, they are more like clumsy penguins.

“As soon as you let rats on an island - any island - it’s like letting a weasel in the henhouse,” Collins said. “Ancient Murellets burrow into the forest floor in usualy the Western Hemlock Zones. Rats can zip down those tunnels and feed on the eggs and chicks. They don’t even eat the whole chick, just the lipid fats on the chick’s neck and the brains. A Murrelet has no idea how to defend itself. It will just sit there and let a rat kill it.”

Because of that, the breeding populations of Ancient Murrelets and other seabirds have crashed dramatically, Collins said. 

The Haida Gwaii Islands are also home to one of the most unique subspecies of goshawk, the Haida Gwaii Northern Goshawk. Kenneth Askelson, a researcher with the UBC Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, co-led a new genomic study in 2019 that showed that the Haida Goshawk was the last remnant of a highly distinct genetic cluster of the birds.

Even among the northern British Columbia coast, the Haida Goshawk stands out. On the surface, its plumage is darker than coastal or inland goshawks, but genomically, it’s one of a kind.

“In the 1940s, an orontholgist named Percy Algernon Taverner described this unique species based on specimens in a musuem. The individual birds are darker in plummage,” Askelson said.

“They noticed that the coastal subspecies was in decline, but it was unclear what the range was and how different they were genetically.”

On Haida Gwaii, the researchers discovered a distinct cluster of the goshawk subspecies that was different from all the others and estimated that this unique population of birds may have evolved uniquely on Haida Gwaii for 20,000 years. 

“The Haida Gwaii islands are a unique biogeographic area,” Askelson said. “It’s important for conservation, so the government can be able to diagnose conservation planning.”

Even more important, however, are the numbers. According to Parks Canada, only 50 to 60 adult Haida Gwaii Northern Goshawks are in existance, making it one of the most endangered birds on the planet. For the Haida people, the numbers are even more dire.

The Haida people’s connection to the natural world is a connection of the soul. Even the Haida constitution reflects their relationship with the wild, stating "Our culture is born of respect; and intimacy with the land and sea and the air around us. Like the forests, the roots of our people are intertwined such that the greatest troubles cannot overcome us. We owe our existence to Haida Gwaii. The living generation accepts the responsibility to insure that our heritage is passed on to following generations. On these islands our ancestors lived and died and here too, we will make our homes until called away to join them in the great beyond.”

While not an expert on sea-birds, Barbara Wilson is a member of the Haida Nation, serves as a member of the Archipelago Management Board for Gwaii Haanas and is an elected representative of Skidegate on the Council of the Haida Nation. 

“In discussions with my late father, he told me how there were thousands of birds in most areas,” she said. “I have been involved with biologists as they walked shorelines looking for evidence of impact and occupation of rats and raccoons. The combination of introducing grazers such as Sitka Black tail deer in the very late 1800s and again in the years between 1910 and1920 and the rats which came over on sailing ships and then other vessels has had a profound impact on all of our feathered friends. No longer do we hear smaller song birds, the use of sea-birds for food has very much stopped.”

THE RATS ARE DEAD, LONG LIVE THE RATS

As we flew in a small seaplane over the 138 islands that make up Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), the beauty of this landscape takes your breath away. It’s a wild and rugged place, home to the Gwaii Haanas National Reserve, the National Marine Conservation Area Reserve and the Haida Heritage Site. 

From the sea plane’s window on our way to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of SGang Gwaay, the scars from logging can be seen on the bald patches that dot the otherwise crayon green of the numerous islands.

Less than 3,000 visitiors come to the Gwaii Haanas National Park due to its remoteness and the fact that it’s one of the most protected areas on earth. The most famous site in Haida Gwaii is  SGang Gwaay, where morturary and standing poles dating from late 1800s remain, making it the largest collection of North American monument poles still in their original location.

The village of SG̱ang Gwaay was abandoned after 1880, but the ruins of traditional longhouses and memorial or mortuary poles illustrate the power and artistry of Haida society.

In 2009, the Haida Nation and Canadian government teamed up on restoration projects to protect the island ecosystem and Haida way of life. The Haida people have called this land home for what is believed to be more than 12,000 years, and until the 18th century, more than 30,000 Haida people lived here of the land and the ocean. But, like with most indigenous tribes in the Americas, disease and conflict ravaged the Haida and their home. Nearly 90 percent of the Haida people were killed by smallpox and other diseases, and by 1911, only 589 native Haida remained on the islands.

The old growth spruce, cedar, and hemlock trees were too lucrative to pass up for the logging companies, however. At its worst, the pristine old growth forests were logged at the rate 10,000 acres a year. 

Haida Gwaii’s southern islands became a national park preserve in 1988, thanks to a Memoriandum of Agreement signed by the Haida and the Canadian government. The government and the Haida have never agreed on who actually owns the land, and in 1993, the Gwaii Haanas Agreement was signed in which both parties agreed to disagree on who owned the land but agreed to co-manage its protection.

Protecting the natural beauty and ecology continued, and in 2010, the Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve and Haida Heritage Site was formed.

Only 12 visitors at a time are allowed on the sacred site, which is looked after by Park employees called “watchmen.” The invasive species, however, follow no such rule.

“The Norway rat is the most widely distributed animal in the world,” said Collins. “It’s also well adapted to new environments. The original rats brought to the Haida Gwaii islands were black rats. They can also get into the trees and eat the eggs and chicks of terrestrial song birds.”

The land itself with its towering mountains, temperate rainforests and long, endless beaches are believed to be about 14,000 years old, but clear-cut logging has altered nearly 50 percent of the habitat.

Logging damage to the forests made it an ideal home for the Black Sitka deer that settlers brought over to use as a food source. Rats, of course, found an easy meal in the nests of the dozens of migrating bird species that stop along the archipelago.

of  populations of ground-nesting seabirds like ancient murrelts, fork-tailed storm petrels, Cassin’s auklets and rhinoceros auklets have been ravaged by the ravenous rodents, and many other migrating birds have learned to avoid the islands altogether.

In the late 1990s, Collins was part of the largest rat eradication project ever attempted. The project aimed to wipe out all the rats on the 33 square kilometer Gwaii Haanas National Reserve.

In collaboration with the Canadian goverment and the Haida people, bait stations with short-toxicity bait were placed at one at every 100 square meters on the island. In all, 3,500 bait stations were placed down and 65 Haida wokers were on site to coordinate the six-week operation.

And they were successful.

“Something like this had never been done before successfully in an area that size,” said Collins. 

But rats are adaptive. As soon as the black rats disappeared, the brown and Norway rats took over.

NIGHT BIRDS RETURN

The battle against rats continues today.

In 2009, Parks Canada and the Haida Nation teamed up for the SGin Xaana Sdiihltl’lxa: Night Birds Returning, a project that aims to restore nesting seabird populations within the reserve. The Night Birds Returning project aims to eradicate rats from four of the 16 Gwaii Haanas islands with known rat infestations. The islands – Bischof, Arichika, Murchison, and Faraday – were chosen due to their distance from the other islands and the ease in which rats could swim over.

They are also important Ancient Murrelet sites.. 

“Gwaii Haanas is a very important place for both global seabird populations and living Haida cultural practices. Because of this, invasive, introduced species such as rats pose a huge threat to both culture and ecosystems in the bounds of the park reserve,” said Tyler Peet, resource conservation manager for Parks Canada.

 Since 1997, eradications have taken place on Haida Gwaii. Langara Island, located in the north end of the Haida Gwaii archipelago, was the first successful eradication, completed in 1997 and still remains rat free at last biosecurity inspection in 2019. 

Other rat eradications followed on small, critical seabird islands within Gwaii Haanas using techniques employed on Langara. St. James Island was eradicated in 1998 and remains rat free as of the last check completed in 2017.

 An unsuccessful attempt on eradicating rats was completed in 2003 on the Bischof Islands.

 “The SGin Xaana Sdiihltl’lxa: Night Birds Returning project, launched in 2009, was a joint project between Parks Canada and the Haida Nation with the goal of eradicating invasive black rats and restore nesting seabird habitat on four islands in Gwaii Haanas,” Peet said.

Parks Canada and the Haida Nation collaborated with partners Coastal Conservation and Island Conservation. The project also drew on technical expertise from eradication experts in New Zealand and Mexico.

“As recognized leaders in conservation, Parks Canada and the Haida Nation are committed to protecting and restoring seabird habitat in Gwaii Haanas – home to a significant proportion of the millions of nesting seabirds on Haida Gwaii,” Peet said. “This project aimed to correct an imbalance and allow seabirds and other native species to re-establish their populations and to thrive in intact ecosystems.”

A ground-based eradication where poison was distributed by hand was carried out on the smaller Bischof and Arichika islands during Phase 1 of Night Birds Returning in 2011. Bait stations were set every 50 metres in a grid system. The bait stations were filled by Gwaii Haanas staff and contractors and they checked stations every 48 hours until bait uptake hit its peak and then every three to five days after that for five to seven weeks. 

In September 2013, an aerial eradication on the larger Murchison and Faraday islands was used. 

The efforts seemed to pay off.

In 2015, a 6 percent increase in Ancient Murrelet calls was recorded on Parks Canada’s acoustic monitoring units on both Murchison and Faraday islands. After two years of monitoring, Murchison and Faraday were declared rat free.

But, the success was short-lived. In September 2017, biosecurity cameras set to detect small mammals on Murchison/Faraday Islands showed evidence of Norway rats on these islands. Previously, during SGin Xaana Sdiihltl’lxa-Night Birds Returning, black rats were removed from Murchison and Faraday; since then there has been an incursion of Norway rats.

“By September 2018, rats were detected on Hotspring and House islands. Rodenticide was distributed on these islands in November 2018. In July 2019, Norway rats were discovered on Tar Agglomerate Island, Ramsay Island and again on Hotspring Island in August 2019,” Peet said. “This is the first time rats have been detected on Tar, Kawas, Agglomerate and Ramsay islands.”

The Haida Nation, Parks Canada and international conservation partners continue to work together to contribute to healthy ecosystems in Gwaii Haanas, but the rats are a mighty foe to defeat.

WHAT YOU CAN DO 

Arichika Island still remains rat free. Since the completion of rat eradication work in 2011, signs of ecological recovery have become evident, including increased numbers of nests and increased successful chick-rearing by black oystercatchers, a species that acts as a sentinel for changes in coastal ecosystem health, Peet said.

Anecdotal evidence from Parks Canada team members also indicated an ecosystem response from other species such as shore crabs.

“Anyone planning a trip to Gwaii Haanas can help prevent rats from being introduced to more islands,” Peet said.

He said this can be done by maintaining a rat-free vessel by implementing the following steps:

·        Keep food, waste and gear in rat-proof, sealed storage areas.

·        Inspect you boat regularly for signs of rats. This includes droppings, nests and chewed food, wood or wires.

·        Know which anchorages have rats nearby.

·        Clean up any debris that could shelter rats.

·        Use rat guards on ship-to-shore lines to prevent rats boarding at ports.

·        Install traps on your boat

·        Seal all entry points on your boat. Rats can crawl through holes as small as 1 cm.

·        Never throw a rat overboard. They are good swimmers and may reach land

Free rat proofing kits are also available at Gwaii Haanas orientations or from the Gwaii Haanas office.

 “Parks Canada and its partners are also currently working on an information package for visiting naturalists to help with our invasive species detection efforts. In the meantime, we are encouraging visitors to log any introduced species sightings on iNaturalist and/or report any rat sightings to the Gwaii Haanas office,” Peet said.