‘Special’ murrelet comes out of
hiding
The Daily Astorian
Published on March 29, 2018
10:58AM
When they are nesting, marbled
murrelets stay silent and well hidden. In fact, the coastal seabirds remained a
mystery from the time they were discovered in the 1700s by Capt. Cook until
1974, when the first nest was discovered in California.
“There was nothing known about the
bird at the time, or at least white man thought,” said S. Kim Nelson, a
research biologist with Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of
Fisheries and Wildlife.
Nelson spoke at a “Listening to
the Land” lecture sponsored by the North Coast Land Conservancy in Seaside
March 21.
“The native Americans knew about
the marbled murrelets, they knew where they nested,” Nelson said. “They knew
about the beautiful dance they do in courtship where they put their bills up in
the air and swim across the water and they dive under the water and come up
together.”
But nobody thought to ask the
Native Americans about the bird that nests deep in forests and forages for prey
at the ocean’s edge.
“The Tlinget tribe revered the
marbled murrelet. They wouldn’t eat the murrelet because they thought they were
so special and mysterious,” Nelson said.
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