Animals -> Birds -> Seabirds -> Northern Fulmar

Northern Fulmar

In the Arctic, Northern Fulmars were consumed in spring, before the return of the tastier auks. Bering Strait cultures usually ate these birds cooked, fire-roasted or boiled, which was the most common cooking method [1].

Reference

1.         Vaughan R: Birds and Arctic peoples. In: In Search of Arctic Birds. edn. London: T & A D Poyser; 1992: 20-48.

The Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) is a long-winged, soaring seabird present in most North American oceans and breeding from Alaska to eastern Canada. Fulmars are related to albatrosses, but are smaller, rarely weighing over 1 kg, and have merged nostrils into a single tube on top of the bill, instead of separated left and right nostrils. This nostril tube appears to be used in olfactory sensing of prey and perhaps navigational cues. Northern Fulmars are abundant in the North American arctic, but aggregated around large breeding colonies in Newfoundland and Labrador, Baffin and Devon Islands, and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Northern Fulmars breed for the first time at 8-10 years of age and pairs produce only one egg per year, but life expectancy exceed 30 years. They eat a wide variety of fish, squid, and krill captured at or very near the sea surface.

Reference

Hatch SA, Nettleship DN: Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis). In: The Birds of North America Online. Edited by Poole A. Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; 1998.

 

Distribution maps provided below, unless otherwise stated, were obtained from Birds of North America Online http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/, maintained by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and all pictures provided below were obtained from Encyclopedia of Life http://www.eol.org.
Northern Fulmar
© Jan Andries van Franeker
Supplier: Ecomare

 

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