[Conservation of Marine Birds of Northern North America—A Summary]
by
Ian C. T. Nisbet
Massachusetts Audubon Society
Lincoln, Massachusetts 01773
This is not going to be a straightforward summary of the conference because it is my view that a number of important topics have not been addressed. In particular, what was supposed to be the main theme of the conference—the need for conservation of marine birds of northern North America—has been taken for granted by many speakers and has been treated by others in what may be a misleadingly brief way. So instead of simply summarizing the information that has been presented in the papers, I want to give my own views about how we should use this information to make a case for the conservation of marine birds. I feel strongly that we can make a good case for conserving them, and that we know enough to start doing so. The task of making a case for conservation and of proposing priorities for action has been left to me as the conference summarizer.
Particularly in the first half of this conference, we heard a long series of accounts of the birds of the area which stressed our ignorance—large amounts of information that was not known and large amounts of research that needed to be done. Now, I have an unexpected advantage over most of these speakers in that I have very little direct experience in the area. What I learned from their papers, not having any very clear picture of the islands, the birds, their habits, or the food that they eat, is that we already know quite a lot about the marine birds of northern North America. We certainly know enough to decide what we ought to do next and how to take the basic steps in conserving them.
After listening to the presentations, reading the abstracts, and studying the maps posted in the conference hall, I drew up a list of 10 points that I will first list and then elaborate on.
• We know that we are discussing a very important biological resource which has been neglected for a long time.
• We know roughly what this resource consists of and which aspects of it are biologically important.