Prehistoric Human Impacts on Waterbirds at Watmough Bay, Washington, USA

The well-preserved faunal remains from shell middens in the Pacific Northwest of North America provide a unique opportunity for investigation of the long-term history of human and animal interactions in coastal settings. Recent analysis of a large sample of birds from the Watmough Bay site (45-SJ-280) in the Gulf of Georgia reveals dramatic changes in hunting practices between ca. AD 300–700. Initially the site occupants hunted Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) chicks from nearby nesting colonies. Subsequently, diving ducks were hunted more intensively. The most likely hypothesis is that the cormorants moved their nesting colonies farther away from Watmough Bay in response to repeated human hunting, and people living at the site switched instead to hunting sea ducks, possibly using submerged netting technology. In addition to adding to our knowledge about the impacts of pre-industrial human hunting, the evidence from Watmough Bay provides data about past breeding distributions and relative abundances of bird species that may be of value in addressing biological conservation issues.