These Pirate Birds Are Not After Treasure: They Bully Their Peers Into Giving Them Food, Which Spreads Avian Flu
Typically, seabirds find food at sea by skimming the first few feet of water for fish, squid, and other prey. Scavenging is also a common survival tactic. But there is another, more brutal method that some seabirds practice to fill their bellies.
Frigatebirds, skuas, and gulls, often referred to as “pirate birds,” have a special trick up their wings. They may be called pirates, but they’re not after treasure!
These birds chase, harass, and attack other seabirds until they regurgitate their lunch or drop the prey they just caught. Then, the pirate birds steal the meals for themselves.
The behavior is known as kleptoparasitism, a term derived from the ancient Greek word kléptēs, which means thief.
The strategy is cruel but effective. But according to new research, it comes with serious risks. A new strain of avian flu is killing millions of birds, and kleptoparasitism can help the virus spread more easily.
Frigatebirds, skuas, and gulls have the ability to hunt, of course. It’s just that shaking down other seabirds for food is much less exhausting.
The pirate birds hang around the breeding sites of other seabirds, waiting for a tired parent to return home with food for its babies.
The pirate birds are yet another threat to the seabirds being targeted. There are 362 species of seabirds in the world, and they can be found across every ocean.
They are important to island ecosystems because they help the soil thrive and shape plant communities whenever they stop to nest or rest.
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Unfortunately, seabird populations are suffering. Nearly half of all seabird species are classified between “near threatened” or “critically endangered.”
Aside from the kleptoparasitic birds, they face many threats, including climate change, habitat loss, disease, overfishing, invasive predators like mice and rats, and being accidentally caught by fishing boats.
Generally, seabirds live for a long time. Every one or two years, they raise only one chick. They take several years to mature.
Plus, a lot of species breed in a small number of locations. All these traits make it harder for their populations to bounce back.
Three years ago, a particularly lethal strain of the avian influenza virus appeared. It spread around the world, taking out at least 280 million wild birds.
The virus is a serious threat to seabirds, but it is even more dangerous for kleptoparasitic birds. For instance, the virus killed about half of the world’s great skua during the 2022 northern hemisphere summer.
When a great skua forces a seabird like the gannet to cough up its food, the skua’s feast will be covered in saliva.
If the gannet is infected, the skua can get sick by consuming its food. Skuas, gulls, and frigatebirds can also travel long distances and spread the disease even further.
So far, the virus has reached parts of Antarctica, but not Australia or the rest of Oceania yet. Continued monitoring and management of frigatebirds, skuas, and gulls is crucial for the health of our ocean ecosystem.
You can read the study here.
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