[EBB Sightings] More on Elegant Terns distribution

It is my understanding that the large ( no longer)  Alameda Naval Base
(ANB) Elegant Tern nesting colony moved north to the islands on the
Columbia River Inlet - Oregon  and Washington .
This was due to the change in habitat on ANB.
ANB would scrape the shore along the bay and man made channels on ANB
producing nesting and roosting habitat.
When ANB was de-commission all that so-call maintenance stopped.
Least Terns now nest on the run ways.
Federal wildlife biologist tracked the Elegant Terns to the Columbia River
region of the Northwest.
Once the birds were established on these islands ( I'm told ) they ran into
conflict with commercial Salmon Fishing Fleet.
The fishing industry has been claiming that the salmon numbers / fall catch
is down due to Elegant Terns eating the annual smolt run out into the
Pacific.
There may have been a petition file to reduce the size ( shooting them ) of
the  Elegant Tern Colonies.
I'm not sure of  the status of that petition.
Rich Cimino
Pleasanton 

> [Original Message]
> From: Rusty Scalf 
> To: 
> Date: 8/30/2006 3:45:06 PM
> Subject: RE: [EBB Sightings] Elegant Terns
> Phila Rogers wrote:
> "Looking up Elegant Tern in my first bird book, a 1941 copy of Roger
> Tory Peterson's "A Field Guide to Western Birds," I discover that
> Peterson devotes only a few lines to the tern, listing the bird as a
> rare species found in the fall along the coast south of San Francisco. 
> In another example of "nothing stays the same," Elegant Terns now are
> found in the fall as far north as Washington state."
>  
> I just checked the San Diego County Breeding Bird Atlas (online
> version)
> http://www.yournatureconnection.org/research/birdatlas/focus/terns.html
>  and it seems Elegant Terns were first detected nesting in San Diego in
> 1959. A single pair.  After El Nino and predation related ups and
> downs, 3100 nests were counted in 1999. 
> A colony which I think is about that size seems to alternates between
> Bolsa Chica Lagoon in Orange County and various opportunities in Los
> Angeles Harbor (some of these disastrous). I don't know when the Orange
> County colony was established, but it was well after the San Diego
> colony.
>     Rusty Scalf
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