Glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus), representing one of three pelagic surface feeding species within the scope of the project, are being instrumented with GLS and GPS loggers as well as GPS-GSM transmitters at 6 SEATRACK localities.
The Glacuous gull has been a SEATRACK species since the beginning of the programme in 2014. Since 2019 SEATRACK is equipping glaucous gull chicks with GLS loggers at two locations (Bjørnøya and Kongsfjorden). In 2024, SEATRACK also started deploying GPS-GSM transmitters on adult glaucous gulls at several SEATRACK locations.
The world population is being stable and classified of “least concern” by the IUCN.
The glaucous gull has a circumpolar, high arctic, breeding distribution. In the north-east Atlantic it occurs in Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya.
The glaucous gull is a large gull, similar in size to the great black-backed gull. Adults have a very pale plumage, pale grey on the upper sides of the wings with white wing tips. The feet are light flesh-coloured.
Glaucous gulls are generalist predators that feeds on a wide variety of fish, molluscs, crustaceans, eggs, chicks and adults of other seabirds, insects, carrion, refuse and offal. Birds breeding in or close to bird colonies are often specialized in preying upon eggs, chicks, and adult birds of certain seabird species.
Featured image: Sébastien Descamps.
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