It Takes A Village / by Michael Johns

I’ve had the great opportunity to work with an incredibly detailed long-term dataset of known-age Cassin’s auklets from the Farallones, but I think it’s important to put into perspective how much effort is required to collect these types of data. Above is a reimagined figure depicting the tenure of the many devoted people involved in maintaining a continuous time series dataset from 1967 when the field station was first established until the present. Thanks to these committed folks, we now have a unique tool for tackling a range of demographic, evolutionary, ecological, and management questions for several seabird and marine mammal species. This summer will be my 6th season on the island, which is a small drop in the bucket compared to some current and past Farallon personnel. Apologies if your names are slightly misrepresented or some of the years are missing, I still need to finish my degree after all. Full resolution figure HERE.