Birds of a Feather? Bird Conservation and Archaeology in the Gulf of Alaska

Summary

Gulf of Alaska islands provide habitat for substantial populations of both seabirds and migratory waterfowl, which have been under threat from mammal introductions and landscape degradation for more than 200 years. Bird management drives decisions in this island region and focuses on the eradication of invasive species and restoration of island landscapes to their "natural" state. However, given that people and climate have influenced these landscapes for thousands of years, we ask: how do we determine a baseline for this restoration? Using a combination of zooarchaeological data and contemporary bird observations on Chirikof Island, Alaska, the results of this project provide a historical perspective of changing bird biodiversity that can be used to inform contemporary conservation, landscape reconstruction, and illustrate the challenges of applying long-term archaeological data to contemporary environmental problems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Arctic and Subarctic Coasts: Current Research and Modern Challenges

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17221