Introduction

The Northern Fulmar, a “tube-nosed” bird related to petrels and shear-waters, is abundant in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, though few people ever see the species on land in those regions because it tends to be highly aggregated in a few remote breeding places. By contrast, fulmars in the boreal zone of the northeast Atlantic Ocean—Iceland, the Faeroes, and the British Isles, in particular—are ubiquitous because of a spectacular increase in their population and breeding distribution during the last 250 years. This increase and its possible causes are well documented and much debated.

Fulmars exhibit color morphs ranging from mostly white with a light gray mantle to uniformly dark gray, including every gradation between the extremes. There is no generally accepted explanation for this polymorphism. Individuals of different colors mate indiscriminately, although in many colonies most or all of the birds are of one type. Reproduction is slow—most individuals defer breeding for 8–10 years, and pairs produce at most 1 egg per year. Not surprisingly, then, fulmars also rank among the longest-lived birds known. Individuals that reach adulthood have a mean life expectancy of greater than 30 years, and some breed over a period of 40 years or longer.

Renowned scavengers on offal that is generated by industrial fishing and whaling operations, fulmars also take a wide variety of fish, squid, and macrozooplankton (especially copepods and amphipods) from waters at or very near the sea surface. They probably do much of their foraging at night and may use olfactory cues in locating food—their sense of smell is highly developed. Like other petrels, fulmars emit an unpleasant, musky odor that is not only evident when the birds are handled, but also unmistakable as one approaches a breeding colony or a large flock over water from downwind.

Fulmars are familiar birds at sea and figure prominently in many at-sea surveys in both the Atlantic and the Pacific portions of their range. To date, however, the only detailed investigations at breeding colonies in North America have been conducted by the authors of this account—from 1976 through 1981 at the Semidi Islands, western Gulf of Alaska (SAH), and from 1975 through 1978 on Prince Leopold Island in the Canadian Arctic (DNN). From a scientific standpoint, fulmars have long enjoyed a wider following in the Old World, where James Fisher, for example, devoted more than 30 years to the study and documentation of the spread of Atlantic fulmars. Equally notable is work by the late George Dunnet and associates, who in 1950 initiated a long-term study of fulmars at a small colony on Eynhallow in Scotland—a study that continues today. The latter work is especially valuable for elucidating certain aspects of life history that can be revealed only through long-term monitoring of marked individuals in this long-lived species.