Brown Boobies Nesting off Santa Barbara Island

Seabird biologists last week logged the first record of brown boobies nesting in the Channel Islands National Park, observing four nests and 102 individual birds on Sutil Island off the southwest end of Santa Barbara Island. Brown boobies, generally considered a tropical or subtropical bird, appear to have been extending their range northward since the 1990s as changing ocean conditions and warmer waters associated with recent El Niños altered the availability of prey. Worldwide, brown booby populations have declined due to habitat degradation on islands where introduced predators have hurt their nesting success.