Geolocation reveals wintering sites of near‐extinct Caucasian breeding sea duck

We obtained 14 sets of full annual cycle geolocator tracks from 13 individual nesting female Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca from the relict Caucasian population at their last remaining breeding site, Lake Tabatskuri, Georgia. Results showed that females wintered at widespread discrete localities in Ukraine, around the coasts of the Crimean Peninsula and in Georgia, with most (10 of 13 individuals) at a single known wintering concentration in Samsun Bay on the Turkish Black Sea coast. Despite a small sample size, the data identified priority Black Sea areas for site‐based protection, spatial planning and targeted monitoring (e.g. for abundance, distribution, bycatch, oil pollution and disturbance), complementing ongoing conservation actions at Lake Tabatskuri. The data demonstrate the value of relatively simple geolocation tracking for rapidly revealing full annual‐cycle threats in small, data‐poor populations, such as the near‐extinct Caucasian Velvet Scoter population.