You've got to be kidding

How many pelagic birders does it take to...?

Sounds like a joke, doesn't it?

The answer is 1120--that's one-thousand one-hundred and twenty. Pelagic birders. On one boat!

That's about 5 years worth of birders on all our ocean birding trips combined!


This trip out of South Africa packed most of a cruise ship for this tour.

Trip report is here: http://naturenerdonthego.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/birdlife-flock-at-sea-2013-pelagic-sea-birds-at-their-best/

More about the event with photos that just flabbergast me: http://justjohnimages.blogspot.com/2013/03/flock-at-sea-2013.html

I thought that Lands End at Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico was one of the most distinctive coastal harbors on the planet. But the photos of Cape Town, South Africa (above) rival it.

Oregon charter boats: fishers versus bird watchers

Recently I queried Janess Eilers about the number of charter fishing boats in Oregon. Eilers is the Registration Operations & Policy Analyst for the Oregon State Marine Board, who is responsible for licensing charter boats.

In March 2011 there were 243 licensed charter vessels in Oregon. Of these, 210 were "6 packs," smaller vessels carrying 6 or fewer people and not requiring Coast Guard inspection. That leaves 33 larger Coast Guard inspected vessels.

Birders use only 3 of the larger boats for pelagic birding on less than 10 days out of the year. That seems insignificant compared to the total number of boats available and the total number of trip days available on all those boats in a year.

According to the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation there were 30.0 million US anglers (age 16 or over, 75% male, 92% white) of which 5.3 million (17.7%) fished salt water from boats. These salt water boat fishers averaged over 11 days fishing at sea during the year.

Of the wildlife watchers in the US, 88% watched birds. Of these, 19.9 million watched birds more than 1 mile away from their homes (age 16 or over, 54% female, 93% white).

Locally, Oregon had 483,000 fishers (16% of population). If Oregon's average is the same as the US in total, then about 85,330 fished from a boat in the ocean. At an average of 11 trips per year, charter boats carried nearly 950,000 people fishing in Oregon in 2006.

Oregon also had 675,000 away-from-home wildlife watchers. If the US average of 88% of these being bird watchers applies to Oregon, then there were approximately 594,000 bird watchers in Oregon in 2006.

So many interesting things to say about these numbers....

But for now, I want to tie it to charter boats and fishers versus pelagic birders.

The number of bird watchers joining chartered birding boat trips at sea off Oregon is no more than 250 persons per year. That includes about 20 people who take 2-3 trips each year.

So, there are about 20% more bird watchers than fishers, yet in one year, fishers take just shy of a million ocean boat fishing trips in Oregon, while birders take 250.

Obviously, there is a tremendous difference in the participation rate of going to sea in boats between the two groups (3800:1).

Why?

Repositioning cruises

For several years now, a small group of birders has been taking cruise ships off the West Coast and watching some fantastic seabirds in comfort and luxury at a discount price.

In summer the big cruise ships travel 8-14 days from Vancouver, British Columbia to Ketchikan and other Alaskan ports. In winter they cruise from Long Beach, California to the "Mexican Riviera" (Mazatlan and Puerto Villarta). These trips have all the amenities--shows, staterooms, food, drink, music, spas, art shows, fancy dinners--really, they are self-contained floating casinos.

In spring, each boat must depart Long Beach and head to its new home in Vancouver. In the fall, the course is reversed. These repositioning cruises are 3-4 days and travel 60 miles offshore--the perfect place for deep water seabirding! The prices are exceptionally reasonable. In fact, the cost of such a trip (including air-fare) is often less than 3 day-long pelagic trips, when you figure in travel costs, restaurants, and a motel for 3 nights.

If you choose your trip carefully, you can plan to be offshore during daylight hours nearly anywhere on the West Coast. Rise at dawn and have the ship to yourself for several hours, as the last late-night partiers are just stumbling off to bed.

You watch birds generally from a covered deck on about the 7th floor of most ships. Bring your scope, it is smooth and the view is an ocean panorama (see photo above from September 2007). The very bow of the ship, from where you watch, may be more than a hundred feet forward of the bow wake, thus it is very quiet and relaxing.

For more photos of the trip I took, see: http://www.pbase.com/gregbirder/20070915_cruise

Non-consumptive Ocean Recreation

Happy pelagic birders. Photographed at Perpetua Bank off Newport, Oregon May 31, 2003 by Greg Gillson.

Chris Eardley at Oregon State University is working on "non-consumptive" recreational ocean use questionnaire. This study may be used to understand pelagic birding as it relates to access to and importance of Marine Important Bird Areas or future Marine Reserves. It is likely that very few policy-makers know about pelagic birding. Here's your chance to explain its importance to such decision makers.

Chris writes:

A first-of-its-kind study in the state, Oregon State University is conducting research focusing on the “non-consumptive” ocean recreational users of Oregon-including divers, surfers, kite boarders, windsurfers, boaters/sailors, kayakers, and boat-based nature viewers. The project hopes to better understand these communities in learning about their needs, perspectives, composition, and contributions. Presently, there is a void in available information on these groups.

The information gathered will be used to create a profile of these recreational communities to potentially serve as a foundation for informing policy decisions. This project seeks to ensure that the present void in information on these “non-consumptive” recreational ocean users is filled to facilitate their representation in future decision-making regarding Oregon’s oceans.

As a stakeholder of Oregon’s ocean resources, your participation is highly valued. Participation in the study is voluntary, limited to Oregon residents over the age of 18, and will involve the completion of a mail questionnaire. Help us to serve you!

To participate please contact Chris Eardley, an Oregon State University graduate student, at ceardley@coas.oregonstate.edu. Please mention which ocean recreational group(s) you belong to and provide your mailing address for receiving the questionnaire.

All information gathered will be presented as a whole, in a summarized form. We will not seek any sensitive information, no identities will be made public, and mailing information will not be shared with third parties.

Let's work together.