Annual Roseate Tern Newsletter 2017

The Roseate Tern LIFE Recovery Project revived the annual newsletter of which the first issue started back in 1987. The latest edition we were able to find was 1996 and in 2016 we reached out and contacted roseate tern colonies on both sides of the Atlantic Sea. This was a resounding success and subsequently repeated in 2017. The newsletter has continued to expand with new colonies contributing to this edition including the UK, Ireland, France, Azores, USA and the Caribbean. A valuable addition in 2017 was receiving articles from a variety of scientists whose investigations will further our understanding of the tern’s lifecycle. This combined with summaries from site managers about their colonies and the techniques they are trialling is incredibly valuable. Their results will direct our future management practices. Ideally it is our hope that this cross-Atlantic collaborative newsletter will continue to bridge gaps across roseate tern colonies.

Roseate tern adult on Rockabill (photo credit: Brian Burke)

In 2017, the roseate tern populations across both North America and Europe continued to increase with a key number of colonies having a record breaking year. This included USA’s Great Gull Island, Buzzards Bay and Ireland’s Rockabill and Lady’s Island Lake. In addition, Coquet had their best recorded productivity count ever.

On a more sombre note, the roseate tern colonies in Florida are continuing to decline rapidly with habitat loss, predation and hurricanes attributed as the main cause. Wardens are working hard to counter this through creating artificial platforms and trialling lures. Initial surveys between 2016 and 2017 show a 33% decline for the Virgin Island’s populations, however more survey years are needed to accurately assess it. In Northern Ireland, the remaining roseate tern pair were unsuccessful in fledgling any chicks due to high levels of predation.

Meanwhile, other colonies are continuing to recover such as Maine (USA), with wardens working on tackling predators and invasive vegetation. The roseate terns in the Azores also fared better with the population growing by 35% since 2016. Ile aux Moutons (France) and Falkner Island (USA) are continuing to slowly increase and the latter site trialled a common tern exclusion zone which yielded some good results.

With each colony facing a multitude of threats and pressures including climate change; it is great hear about the scale of habitat restoration work, vegetation, and predation control being undertaken that has yielded positive results.

The 2017 newsletter is available on our project website: http://roseatetern.org/documents.html