Eider roundup! Photo by Linda Welch

For the past six years, Maine Coastal Islands NWR Complex has been collaborating on a common eider survival and recruitment study with biologists from USGS and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.  Each August, as eiders undergo their annual molt cycle, refuge staff, together with partners use kayaks to drive the flightless ducks into a trap on an intertidal bar at Petit Manan Island.  This effort allows us to band a large number of eider hens without disturbing them during the breeding season. We have also been able to band male eiders that were traditionally not available to banders during the breeding season. We have banded over 10,500 eiders in the past six years, and USGS researchers are calculating survival rates for the species.