Credit: John Piatt
The number of dead or dying common murre seabirds observed on beaches spanning more than 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) of coast that were surveyed systematically (gold circles), and with opportunistic beach surveys or the capture of sick and dying birds (red circles). A total of 62,035 murres were recorded from all areas. Only a fraction of birds killed at sea are found on beaches, and the researchers estimated that total mortality was between 500,000 and 1.2 million birds (mostly adults), or about 10-20% of the northeast Pacific population.