Marbled Murrelet

1. Marbled Murrelet The marbled murrelets critical habitat are in near shore areas mostly in the west coast (WA,CA,OR) . Its environment lies within at least 80 km inland from the shore where they nest in old-growth conifer trees. Their population has been declining since the 1800’s when logging was introduced. Since 1992 It has been listed as a threatened species because the loss of their habitat. With logging still around its been almost impossible for the marbled murrelets to reproduce themselves. The el nino, oil spills and gill nets has also been part of their decline. Since 1994 the SEI and the U.S. Forest Services Redwood Science lab has been monitoring the status and trends of the population. They have documented that the murrelet population is at a decline of 3% every year and just from the northwest coast the populations is only at 22,000. In 1997 a recovery plan was developed by the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service. It explains specific guidelines to allow land use allocation and land management to help recover the population of the marbled murrelets by preserving and relocating old growth trees and forests. An investment of $1.6 billion was proposed to refine their habitat. In the ten years of the Northwest Forest Plan (1994-2003) the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service was able to restore 44% of the habitat in Washington, 36% in Oregon and 20% in California. JaniceLaureano

2. Bibliography http://www.esablawg.com/esalaw/ESBlawg.nsf/d6plinks/KRII-7H42GU http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr650.pdf http://www.conservationnw.org/wildlife-habitat/marbled-murrelet http://www.sei.org/murrelet.html#anchor267534 Janice Laureano