Return to Conservation Biology Research on BirdsBosanko, D., and J.H. Miller. 1990. 1990 Management common terns and ringed-billed gulls at Leech Lake, Cass County, Minnesota. Final report submitted to the Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Unpaged.
Introduction:
In the past ten years the Common Terns that nested on Gull Island have been increasingly displaced by Ring-billed Gulls. This displacement was essentially complete in 1989. In that year Common Terns successfully nested on Little Pelican Island, 800 meters north of the old nesting site on Gull Island.In 1989 all the Ring-billed Gull nests were removed from the traditional Tern nesting site in an attempt to reestablish the common Tern nesting colony. These efforts were unsuccessful. Again in 1990 we tried to reestablish Tern nesting on Gull Island, this time by excluding Gulls from the nesting site. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of that work, report on the new Tern colony, and make recommendations for 1991.