Important Marine Bird Resources
AMBC Documents
- Priority Species List
- Recommendations on BOEM Avian Survey Guidelines — AMBC Marine Spatial Planning Working Group
- Request for guidance on avian compensatory mitigation and voluntary conservation offsets to achieve net gain for marine birds from offshore wind energy development
- Steering Committee Responsibilities and Composition, V1 (November 28, 2022)
- Decision-making Processes, V.2 July 21, 2024
AMBC Annual Meetings
2016 Meeting, New Bern, NC
2017 Webinar
2021 Atlantic Marine Bird Cooperative – Roseate Tern Recovery Group Virtual Meeting
2022 Atlantic Marine Bird Cooperative – Roseate Tern Recovery Group Virtual Meeting
- Agenda with video links to all presentations
- General Presentation Abstracts
- Day 1 Chat Notes
- Day 2 Chat Notes
- Day 3 Chat Notes
- AMBC Day 3 State of Seabirds Discussion Notes
- AMBC Marine Spatial Planning WG Discussion Notes
2023 Atlantic Marine Bird Cooperative – Fort Lauderdale, FL
- Agenda
- Participants list – AMBC General session and Working Group Break Outs
Session Notes
- AMBC General Session Notes
- Marine Spatial Planning Working Group Break Out
- Community Science and Marine Bird Health Working Group Break Out
- Forage Fish + Seabird Colonies & Adjacent Waters Working Group Break Out Notes
Session Recordings, October 9th
- General Session Part 1 Video (8:45-10:15)
- General Session Part 2 Video (10:30-11:45)
- Marine Spatial Planning Working Group Break Out Video Recording
- Forage Fish + Seabird Colonies & Adjacent Waters Working Group Break Out Video Recording
2024 Atlantic Marine Bird Cooperative – Roseate Tern Recovery Group Virtual Meeting
- Agenda – with links to all video recordings
- Participants list
- Presentation Abstracts
- Team Chat Archive
Working Group Breakout Notes
Reports and Publications of Interest
At-sea Surveys
- Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
USFWS-BOEM Aerial Survey Report (2010-2014); NOAA-BOEM Shipboard-Aerial Survey Reports - Modeling At-Sea Density of Marine Birds to Support Atlantic Marine Renewable Energy Planning (NOAA-NCCOS)
- Errors in aerial survey count data: Identifying pitfalls and solutions (Davis, et al. 2021)
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Flying fish habitat and co-occurrence with seabirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Michael et al. 2025)
Colony Management & Monitoring
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- North American Waterbird Conservation Plan (2002)
- Mid-Atlantic/New England/Maritimes (MANEM) Waterbird Plan + Appendix (2006)
- Southeast United States Regional Waterbird Conservation Plan + Table (2006)
- Status of seabirds, habitat, and invasive species in the Cordillera Reef Nature Reserve, Puerto Rico (Vázquez, et al. 2021)
- Desecheo Island: a new home for Audubon’s Shearwaters (Vázquez, et al. 2024)
Seabird Tracking
- First satellite tracks of the endangered black-capped petrel (Jodice et al. 2015)
- Movements and foraging habitats of Great Shearwaters (Puffinus gravis) in the Gulf of Maine (Powers et al., 2017)
- Determining fine-scale use and movement patterns of diving bird species in federal waters of the Mid-Atlantic United States using satellite telemetry (Spiegel et al., 2017)
- Tracking offshore occurrence of Common Terns, endangered Roseate Terns, and threatened Piping Plovers with VHF arrays + Appendices (Loring et al., 2019)
- Assessing the exposure of three diving bird species to offshore wind areas on the U.S. Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf using satellite telemetry (Stenhouse et al., 2020)
- Migration routes, high‑use areas, and network connectivity across the annual cycle of an arctic seabird (Gray and Olsen 2022)
- Habitat use of Common and Roseate terns tracked with satellite transmitters in northeast Brazil (Loring et al. 2023)
Foraging Ecology, Diet & Prey
- A synthesis of changing phenology in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem (Staudinger et al., 2019)
- The role of sand lances (Ammodytes sp.) in the Northwest Atlantic Ecosystem: A synthesis of current knowledge with implications for conservation and management (Staudinger et al. 2020)
- Pre-breeding foraging ecology of three tern species nesting in the Gulf of Maine (Bratton et al., 2022)
- Interspecific and local variation in tern chick diets across nesting colonies in the Gulf of Maine (Yakola et al., 2022)
- Reproductive Success and Chicks Diet of the Least Tern (Sternula antillarum) in the South-southwest of Puerto Rico (Vázquez, 2023, MS Thesis)
Bycatch
- Business Plan for Addressing & Reducing Marine Bird Bycatch in Atlantic U.S. Fisheries (2011 draft)
- Comprehensive estimates of seabird–fishery interactions for the US Northeast and mid‐Atlantic (J.M. Hatch, 2018)
- Seabird bycatch vulnerability to pelagic longline fisheries: Ecological traits matter (Zhou et al., 2019)
- Estimates of seabird bycatch in commercial fisheries off the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts of the United States from 2017-2019, NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NE-317 (Sigourney, et al. 2024)
Marine Debris
- Southeast Marine Debris Action Plan
- Gulf of Maine Marine Debris Action Plan
- Impacts of Marine Debris on Birds in the Gulf of Maine Region: Project report and Implementation Framework
- High Levels of Plastic Ingestion in Great Shearwater Adults and Juveniles Across Their Annual Migratory Cycle (Robuck, et al. 2021)
- Shorebirds ingest plastics too: what we know, what we do not know, and what we should do next (Flemming, et al. 2022)
Disease
- Great shearwater (Puffinus gravis) mortality events along the eastern coast of the United States (Haman et al. 2013)
- Highly pathogenic avian influenza resulted in unprecedented reproductive failure and movement behaviour by Northern Gannets (Careen, et al. 2024)
- Wild bird mass mortalities in eastern Canada associated with the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) virus, 2022 (Avery-Gomm et al., 2024)
- Geographic, ecological, and temporal patterns of seabird mortality during the 2022 HPAI H5N1 outbreak on the island of Newfoundland (McPhail, et al. 2024)
Seabird Populations and Trends
Useful Links
Marine Bird Abundance & Distribution
- Ocean Data Portals – Northeast, Mid-Atlantic
- Gulf of Mexico Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (GOMAPPS)
- Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)
Coordinated Colonial Waterbird Monitoring
Beached Bird Monitoring
Offshore Energy Development
- Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – Completed Bird and Bat Study Reports
- Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Avian Survey Guidelines (2017)
- NY State Energy Research and Development Authority Offshore Wind-Wildlife Efforts (Environmental Technical Working Group)
Fisheries Interactions
Marine Debris
NOAA Marine Debris Program