Great Skuas Stercorarius skua and Arctic Skuas S. parasiticus were counted on their breeding grounds in Orkney during June 2010. Great Skua numbers had fallen by 23% overall since the previous census in 2000. However, the decline was not uniform across Orkney, the major colony on Hoy declining by 32% but with many smaller colonies actually increasing. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed. Arctic Skua numbers fell by 47% in the same time period and by 64% from their peak in 1992. We found evidence of intra-specific negative density dependence in trends of both skua species, suggesting that declines may have been driven by low food availability. In addition, we found a negative relationship between Arctic Skua trends between 2000 and 2010 and the numbers of Great Skuas present in each colony in 2000. These findings suggest that whilst scarcity of food may have contributed to Arctic Skua declines, predation by Great Skuas is likely to have played an additional role. Predation on Arctic Skuas, both adults and young, is also likely to be ultimately attributable to a scarcity of alternative fish prey for Great Skuas.

The Arctic Skua Stercorarius parasiticus has a circumpolar breeding distribution at high latitudes, Scotland being at the southern edge of its breeding range; the Seabird 2000 census of 1998–2002 put its British population at 2,100 pairs out of a world population in the range of 85,000–340,000 (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004a). Great Skuas S. skua (hereafter ‘Bonxies’), in contrast, have a very restricted breeding range in the northeast Atlantic with their population concentrated on Iceland, Shetland and Orkney. The British population at the time of the Seabird 2000 surveys was 9,600 pairs, 60% of the world population of just 16,000 pairs (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004b).

All-Orkney surveys of both skua species have been undertaken on five previous occasions. The first two of these, for the Operation Seafarer census in 1969–70 (Cramp et al. 1974) and in 1974–75 (Everett 1982), used the count unit of territorial pairs. In 1982, the colonies were counted again (Meek et al. 1985), using for the first time the ‘apparently occupied territory’ (AOT) methodology (Furness 1982). The 1982 counts were used as the basis for the Seabird Colony Register (SCR) census (Lloyd et al. 1991) and no additional complete survey was undertaken during the SCR years (1985–88) although Furness (1986) updated the 1982 data with estimates made in 1984. Further full surveys were undertaken in 1992 (Meek et al. 1994), and again in 2000 for the Seabird 2000 census (Mitchell et al. 2004).

Agricultural moorland increasing Bonxie numbers were identified as possible threats to Arctic Skua populations in Orkney and Shetland in the 1980s, as well as a reduction in the availability of sandeels Ammodytes sp., the main fish prey of other seabird species which Arctic Skuas kleptoparasitise (Meek et al. 1985; Lloyd et al. 1991). Habitat loss has since almost been eliminated in Orkney and is now considered an unimportant influence on Arctic Skua numbers and distribution. However, food shortage that impacted on various parameters of breeding performance, as well as adult survival, and competition for space with Bonxies and their predation of Arctic Skua fledglings were considered important factors in both island groups in the 1990s (Phillips et al. 1996; Furness & Ratcliffe 2004a; Davis et al. 2005; Dawson et al. 2011). By the time of the Seabird 2000 census, Arctic Skuas had declined in both Orkney and Shetland by 39% and 42% respectively since the SCR (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004a). Within Orkney, an even greater decrease at the largest colony, on Hoy, had been partly offset by some increases elsewhere, possibly due to recruits, and possibly even breeding adults emigrating from Hoy to other colonies, although there was no proof of this.

Bonxie numbers increased during the 1960s and 1970s probably due to the fact that sandeels, fisheries’ discards and seabird prey all increased in the northwest North Sea during that period (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004b). From the mid 1980s, sandeel availability decreased, as did gadoid stocks, the latter leading to a decline in the amount of fish discarded from fishing boats. The increasing Bonxie population was therefore subjected to a much reduced food supply (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004b). In Shetland, this resulted in some years of increased non- breeding, reduced breeding success and, at least on Foula, reduced adult survival rates (Hamer et al. 1991; Catry et al. 1998; Ratcliffe et al. 2002). Despite this, the Seabird 2000 census recorded increases since the SCR of 10% in Orkney and 26% in Shetland, although increases in Shetland were entirely at small or newly established colonies, the largest ones being stable or in slight decline, while in Orkney, the colony on Hoy had increased to become the second largest (after Foula) in Britain and Ireland (Furness & Ratcliffe 2004b).

Since 2000, breeding numbers and breeding performance of both skua species have been variable in both island groups, with a generally very poor season in 2004 (Mavor et al. 2005), and marked differences between colonies in other years (e.g. 2006; Mavor et al. 2008). In Orkney, observers familiar with the Bonxie colony on Hoy had commented for several years that it appeared to be declining with, for example, a 50% decrease between 2000 and 2006 in numbers in the RSPB reserve there, while away from monitored sites a general decrease in Arctic Skua numbers was suspected (Mavor et al. 2008). By 2010, another all-Orkney survey was clearly required in order to elucidate what was happening to the populations of both species, not least because Arctic Skua had been recently added to the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern (Eaton et al. 2009).

We are grateful to the following people who contributed counts to the survey: Chris Bell, Simon Brogan, Mike Cockram, Alan Leitch, Andy Knight, North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory, Mara Nydegger, Barry & Rebecca O’Dowd, Brian Ribbands, Paul Thompson and students of Aberdeen University, Andrew Upton, Stuart Williams, Tim Wootton. Aileen Meek prepared the map while Dr Sarah Davis, Professor Bob Furness and two anonymous referees all commented constructively on an early draft of the manuscript; our thanks to them all.

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