May 2022 Limestone Log!
Welcome back to fully-operational
East Limestone Island Field Camp!
Camp set up - April 2022
Jake Pattison provided boat transportation for our gear run down to East Limestone Island on 30 April this year, accompanied by LBCS staff Matt Peck and Rian Dickson. Tyler and Klare Yakabuski volunteered for the day and helped us move many totes from truck to boat to beach to cabin!
2022 Staff and Student Interns
This year we have a combination of new and returning staff. Jesse Beaubier-Brulotte has joined us as Research Assistant for the entire 2022 season. Rian Dickson, our Lead Biologist, will be the Camp Supervisor for 5 of the 11 weeks during the field season, with the other weeks being covered by Matt Peck, Jake Pattison, and Ainsley Brown. Jake and Ainsley are former LBCS biologists, and it’s wonderful to have them helping with the field season this year.
We have three student interns scheduled to each spend 4 weeks at Limestone this summer. Our first intern, Lindsay Curle, has been a huge help and we will be sad to see her go. But perhaps she will be back…
Amicie Lavault, Joshua Brown, Keith Moore, Jesse Beaubier-Brulotte, Rian Dickson, Eric Nyhof, Gidin-Jaad Crosby, Lindsay Curle, at K'uuna.
Photo credit: Amicie Lavault.
First Volunteers of 2022
After two field seasons without our regular volunteer program, Laskeek Bay Conservation Society was happy to welcome the first ones since 2019! Pete Moore and Evan Amies-Galonski came for two days to help set up and carry heavy things with us – thanks guys! Joshua Brown and Amicie Lavault, students at McGill University, stayed a week on Limestone Island and were thrilled to discover the life of researchers in a remote station. They were very helpful and enthusiastic, always willing to get up early for songbird point counts or stay up late to listen for our local Northern Saw-whet Owl! Josh was on a quest to find the endemic subspecies of birds that live here in Haida Gwaii.
Ancient Murrelet Chick Monitoring
After a hiatus from Ancient Murrelet chick monitoring in 2021, we set up the funnels and cameras this year. Even though numbers of murrelets breeding on East Limestone Island have declined dramatically since 1990, the colony is still active. The first chicks were detected on the night on May 14-15, which was the same in 2020, but later than average. We will leave the funnels set up until sometime in June, after the breeding season is finished.
Matt Peck, Evan Amies-Galonski, and Jesse Beaubier-Brulotte studying the instructions for setting up the Ancient Murrelet chick monitoring funnels and remote camera system.
Inside a chick funnel. Small twigs mimic forest floor and terrain.
Common Raven Chicks
The loudest neighbours we have on East Limestone Island are the family of Common Ravens! This season, the parents welcomed four healthy raven chicks into the world. They were already close to fully grown when we arrived, and it only took them two days after we found them to take their first flight!
Young Common Ravens in the nest, a couple of days before fledging. Photo credit: Amicie Lavault
The SmartNest Box Program
We are continuing our collaboration with researchers at the Czech University of Life Sciences and Environment and Climate Change Canada to monitor nesting Pigeon Guillemots at Limestone Island. These dapper seabirds are true locals, breeding in Laskeek Bay and spending the entire year in the waters around Haida Gwaii. We have provided nest boxes for the guillemots at Limestone Island for about 20 years, and in 2021 we upgraded five of the boxes with high-tech video cameras, which allow us to monitor what types of fish the adults are bringing back to their chicks. This year we hope to have 5 additional boxes equipped with cameras – stay tuned for chick videos later this season!
Above photo, by Amicie Lavault: PIGU checking out one of the older nest boxes
Jesse installing some of the upgrades on the new PIGU SNBoxes
Photo credit: Lindsay Curle
Red-breasted Sapsuckers are nesting
One of our longest-running monitoring efforts is the Wildlife Tree program. East Limestone Island supports several species of cavity-nesting birds, including Red-breasted Sapsuckers. Each year, we check our list of known wildlife trees and keep our eyes open for newly active ones.
Above: Red-breasted Sapsucker feeding at sapwells on a hemlock tree.
Below: Beautiful photo of a Red-Breasted Sapsucker, by Joshua Brown.
Baby Sperm Whale found dead on beach on Louise Island
At the beginning of the season, the team found a sperm whale calf carcass stranded on a beach on Louise Island (thanks to a hot tip from Lynn Lee and Leandre Vigneault). The baby whale was good news for the Island’s carnivorous residents! Bald Eagles, Pacific Marten, Common Ravens, and at least two Black Bears feasted for days on the carcass. We set up two camera traps and got footage of the animals’ meals through nights and days. Unfortunately, black bears’ digestive tracts seemed to have a hard time with rotting whale meat and there was ample evidence of diarrhea in the surrounding area! However, the bears did not seem to be deterred by this and continued to feed regularly. We were surprised that we did not have any images of raccoons scavenging from the carcass, as we know they are regularly present along the shoreline of Louise Island.
Plastic Awareness
Plastic is widely used in our daily lives, but it does not have its place in any natural ecosystem. Indeed, it does not decompose back in the soil to be used by plants or other organisms, but rather fragments and pollutes wild environments. We frequently find plastic garbage along the beaches of Laskeek Bay islands (c.f. picture below; plastic collected between the 15th and 16th of May). Plastic bottles, wrapping materials, and other plastic objects, all coming from humans, float on the ocean and spread. Plastic ends up in the digestive tracts of animals and threatens their health and survival. You can reduce the impact of plastic on wildlife around the globe by reducing, or even eliminating, your use of plastic. The wildlife of Laskeek Bay is counting on you!
Trivia question:
What colour are the eyes of raven chicks?
Check the next edition of the Limestone Log for the answer!
The Laskeek team would like to send out a big HAAWA & THANK YOU to our sponsors and supporters who have made these new projects possible: Gwaii Trust, B.C. Gaming, Parks Canada/YESS funding, Northern Savings Credit Union, Bluewater Adventure Tours, and Canadian Wildlife Service.
We are happy to report that the Laskeek Bay Conservation Society has a busy season of volunteers, tour groups, and community events planned. Stay tuned for an update next month!
Donations to support our ongoing programs remain crucial to our continued success - please click on the Donate Now button below, to be taken to our website donation page.
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