Common murre colony on the South Island of Semidi Islands, in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge south of the Alaska Peninsula, in 2014, before the marine heat wave. Disclaimer ...

But why? In the Gulf of Alaska, murre colony sizes dropped by 50%, while in the eastern Bering Sea, losses reached a devastating 75%, the team found. "We knew right away this was a big ...

Parrish was part of a team of researchers led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that analyzed years of common murre colony survey data to estimate the total mortality of this die-off.

Murre Colony, Norton Sound. (Photo by Vivian Mendenhall). Click image for a larger view. SMALL AUKS are between the size of a sparrow and a robin. Many small auks are a specialty of the Bering Sea ...