Lack of food killing off Oregon murres

PORTLAND – Natural causes are to blame for the hundreds of dead seabirds washing up on Oregon shores, according to wildlife experts.

Common murres, the state’s most abundant nesting seabird, are being discovered either dead or severely weakened on the beaches between Astoria and Cape Meares near Tillamook.

An abundant number of juveniles, combined with a possible food shortage, may account for the severity of the die-off, experts told The Oregonian.

“It’s not unusual for us to periodically have these mortality events at this time of year, and they sometimes can be pretty intensive,” said Roy Lowe, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “At times in the past, we’ve had 100 birds per mile of beach.”

Lowe, who supervises the Oregon Coastal National Wildlife Refuge Complex, said other seabird species would be affected if disease or pollution was behind the deaths.

Dead murres also have been found on the southern Washington coast, said Marie Fernandez, another agency biologist. She said a survey last week along a 5.7-mile stretch of beach on the Long Beach Peninsula spotted 21 dead murres, 18 of them chicks.

Lowe said the last substantial die-offs of young murres were in 1995 and 1999.

An estimated 700,000 murres — about two-thirds of the eastern Pacific’s population below Alaska — live along Oregon’s coast in the summer.

Feeding and fledging habits may be working against the birds.

Common murres lay their eggs on the ground on top of coastal rocks. When the chicks are about 3 weeks old, they jump into the ocean, where they are accompanied by their fathers until they can fly, dive and fend for themselves.

Murres prefer heading out to sea for food as they migrate north toward northern Washington and British Columbia.

Karen Anderson, curator of birds at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, said warmer water may be causing the murre food supply — small fish such as sardines, herring and smelt — to stay nearer to the coast.

“It could be that the murres are foraging closer to shore, and we’re just seeing more of the failed young ones,” said Anderson said, whose team is caring for about 20 birds.

The Wildlife Rehab Center of the North Coast near Astoria has taken in about 500 weakened murres in the past two weeks, said Sharnelle Fee, the executive director. So far, the center has been able to save about three-quarters of them.

Most of the birds brought to the facility are from Rockaway Beach, Nehalem and Manzanita.

The weakened birds are usually fed fluids such as a fish gruel with a stomach tube and given vitamins, Anderson said.