North Slope Yellow-billed Loon Studies

In 2024, ABR will complete its 30th year of Yellow-billed Loon studies on the Colville River delta. Yellow-billed Loons breeding in Alaska have a small, unevenly distributed population with highly variable annual reproductive success. As a result, regulatory agencies consider the Yellow-billed Loon a species that warrants special management. Our surveys provide important information on breeding distribution, population trends, and nesting effort, plus critical information on chick production that is not collected elsewhere in Alaska. More recently, we have used timelapse cameras to understand drivers of nesting success and potential effects of human activities associated with oilfield operations.