Back from the field

I am back from Yakutia. It was a sad trip for a number of reasons. First, it was heartbreaking to see the economical and political situation in Russia away from Moscow (I even wrote a short text about it). Second, I witnessed first-hand the misery that the climate change is bringing to the Arctic. Daytime temperatures exceeded +30 C; the spring months had been unusually warm and dry so many bird species didn't even try to breed. Ross's gulls were among those species: they didn't breed for the third time in five years. Looks like they might be in more trouble than people think.

The only way to put transmitters on them was to catch them at nests, so we couldn't do it. I brought six solar-powered satellite transmitters to Yakutia and trained my Yakut collaborators in handling them and putting them on the birds. We'll try again to put them on Ross's gulls next year. For now, the whereabouts of Ross's gulls from Siberia between late August and early May will remain a mystery.

Well, nobody expected this to be easy. Ross's gull is one of the world's most enigmatic birds for a reason. But we are getting closer to solving the puzzle. Now our main problem is getting money for satellite tracking.

This fundraising effort is almost over and we are still $2000 short. If we don't succeed in 2022, this chance to find out where the gulls migrate might be lost forever. In a few more years their population might crash or they might permanently shift their breeding range to even less accessible areas further north, so finding them would get even more difficult. Please help!