Subject: [Tweeters] Cassin's Auklets strewn on beach, Hobuck.
Date: Jan 9 07:02:12 2015
From: bruce paige - BBPaige at nikola.com


I've followed the recent exchange about juv. Cassin's Auklets turning up on this winter's beaches, and was prepared to find some on my recent trip to Neah Bay, but was none the less saddened by the magnitude! Yesterday morning, I walked Hobuck Beach and immediately found the small carcasses of this species littering the beach, counting 81 in a one mile stretch. Taking into account the piles of flotsam from recent storms and that some bodies were in the upland beach grass, I'm sure I missed multiples of this count. Most of these bodies had washed up so recently they had yet to be scavenged though there were plenty of crows and gulls about.

If one multiplies just 81 per mile of beach times the total miles of exposed beach land, the loss must be very high indeed! How far north and south do these losses extend?

Bruce Paige
Sequim, WA

spruceak at yahoo.com
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