Project objectives and rationale:The Newfoundland and Labrador Thick-billed Murre (Uria lomvia) and Common Murre (Uria aalge) annual harvest is the only licensed harvest of seabirds in Canada. Though harvest of Thick-billed and Common Murres has declined since the 1960-70s, murre colony declines across the North Atlantic have prompted domestic and international concerns over the sustainability of the harvest in Canada. The impact of current harvest is difficult to assess since there is a lot of uncertainty in recent population estimates, particularly in the eastern Canadian Arctic where some Thick-billed Murre colonies have not been surveyed for 40 years. To inform harvest management, updated information on the Canadian population is required. Therefore, the first objective of this project is conduct surveys at the nine largest murre colonies in the eastern Canadian Arctic, including the population of Thick-Billed Murres at Hantzsch Island.Additionally, subarctic and arctic waters around Canada support millions of breeding birds. Although tied closer to land during the breeding season when they raise their young, seabirds exist mostly in the marine environment. Since many spend much of their lives out of sight of land, knowledge of their at-sea distribution has been difficult to obtain. Since 2006, the Eastern Canada Seabirds at Sea (ECSAS) program has monitored seabirds at sea using ships-of-opportunity, including Canadian Coast Guard vessels, cruise ships, and more recently, ships in local communities. The information from these surveys is used to identify important marine areas for protection, and understand the potential consequences of climate change and other threats on Arctic marine bird populations. Although the surveys were designed to count birds, observers collect information on all wildlife sightings, including marine mammals and plastic pollution. All data are made publicly available through the Open Government Data Portal. Although several trained observers exist in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, we lack the expertise in Arctic Canada where survey effort is needed most. Thus, our second objective is to train northern community members, including Inuit staff within CWS, to enhance our capacity to monitor seabirds across Arctic Canada.Proposed date and duration of visit: The survey of the Thick-billed Murre colony on Hantzsch Island, Nunavut will take place in late July/early August in 2024 and 2025 over 1-3 days. The ECSAS surveys will take place in Frobisher Bay in 2024 and 2025 over 1-2 days.Project methods: For the Thick-Billed Murre survey, will boat to Hantzsch Island from Iqaluit for one to three days in late July/early August 2024 or 2025 to take photos using a camera and a drone. For the photograph survey, photos will be taken using a handheld DSLR camera with 200 mm lens mounted on a tripod from the boat. We will boat at a low speed alongside the cliff, remaining at minimum 200 metres from the cliffs. For the drone survey, the drone will be launched from the boat 50 metres away from the edge of the colony. Flight speed of drone will not exceed 10 km/h and the drone will be flown with a 30-metre horizontal buffer from the colony. For boat and drone surveys, multiple observers will monitor the colony for signs of disturbance/flushing, if flushing occurs, distance will be increased to minimize disturbance. For Eastern Canada Seabirds at Sea surveys, marine bird observers will conduct surveys from the bridge of the vessel while the vessel is in transit in Frobisher Bay, scanning ahead to a 90° angle. Observations are limited to 300 m from the beam of the ship, and all birds observed are counted and identified. Each survey lasts five minutes and as many consecutive surveys as possible are conducted during daylight hours. At the beginning of each 5-minute survey, we record the ship’s position, speed and direction, time of day, and a number of environmental variables (e.g., ice conditions, visibility, wind speed). These methods are standardized with methods used elsewhere in the North Atlantic and will allow us to compare data across survey years and regions.