Numbers of Northern Fulmar have increased substantially in the last 200 years throughout their range in Faroes, Britain, northern Europe and Iceland, though since the late 1990s, many populations have since stabilized or even declined (Mallory et al. 2012). In Canada, Northern Fulmars breed on cliffs in remote arctic locations, so few monitoring data are available. However, Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Seabird Colony Monitoring Program has been undertaken regularly at Prince Leopold Island in the Arctic and indicates a slightly declining population from the late 1970s to the late 2000s (Gaston et al. 2012). New information from three colonies on eastern Baffin Island (Buchan Gulf, Scott Inlet, and Cape Searle, which support roughly 60% of the Canadian breeding population) suggests a 75% decrease since the 1970s (M. Mallory et al., in prep.). In the 1970s, these colonies were estimated to support about 150,000 breeding pairs. In 2018, these same colonies were estimated at about 38,500 pairs (M. Mallory et al., in prep.). Though additional information is available from the Eastern Atlantic, these colonies represent a small proportion of the Canadian population. Therefore, based on the most recent information from the core of the species’ range in Canada, it appears that the Canadian population has decreased since the 1970s, but future monitoring is required to strengthen the reliability of this assessment. The Northern Fulmar is currently below the lowest acceptable level relative to its national population goal.
Additional information on: Seabird Colony Monitoring Program
