Urge ODFW to create stronger survival guidelines for the Marbled Murrelet
Write to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Commission and urge them to adopt strong survival guidelines for the Marbled Murrelet at their upcoming June meeting.
Take ActionWhat We’re Advocating For
- The Survival Guidelines should take effect immediately, rather than two years from now as proposed by ODFW.
- Require protection of all high quality suitable Marbled Murrelet nesting habitat (both occupied and unoccupied).
- Specifically require land-managing agencies to develop management plans that adopt the Pacific Seabird Group Protocol as the “Approved survey” for monitoring state forest lands for murrelet occupancy, presence, and potential absence.
- Require specific forest thinning techniques in areas near Marbled Murrelet Habitat that limit corvid penetration into suitable habitat.
- The minimum consecutive years a site should be surveyed prior to consideration of tree removal should be 5 consecutive years (rather than 2) if marine conditions indicate poor at-sea forage conditions.
- Survival guidelines should direct land-managing agencies to use the best available scientific information to delineate higher suitable Marbled Murrelet nesting habitat on state land.
Continued habitat loss and fragmentation due to inadequate logging regulations, most dramatically on nonfederal lands, and increasingly poor oceanic conditions have resulted in a historically small and vulnerable Oregon murrelet population.
ODFW has a golden opportunity to begin the process to develop a roadmap for Marbled Murrelet recovery on state lands. State lands contain a significant percentage of remaining high quality murrelet nesting habitat. Without better protection on these lands, efforts to bring this species back from the brink will continue to fail.
