Arctic Skua

The Arctic Skua, or Arctic Jaeger, is an energetic flier with falcon-like wings and long central tail feathers. They live most of their lives at the sea and come ashore to breed in the arctic summer. It is a circumpolar breeder and steals food from other birds (kleptoparasitism). The small animals, insects, and the eggs and young of other birds are the primary prey for them but fish make the dominant part of their diet. They become sexually mature at 3 years and create colonies for breeding. They make their nests on the tundra, where they host an average clutch size of four eggs. Both parents incubate the egg for about 26 days and aggressively protect their nesting sites together.

The Inuit rarely ate Jaegers aside from emergencies. These birds were generally disliked among Inuit and were more often killed because of their habit of stealing food.

About 28% of all bird species are threatened worldwide, making seabirds one of the most vulnerable bird groups. Along with the effects of global warming, lack of food and predation by the Arctic foxes leading to a total breeding failure have been the biggest pressures for these birds.

In addition to these threats, their numbers are also declining because of the effects of the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak. Although the Arctic Skua is globally listed as the least concern by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (global), it is identified as a priority species for conservation and stewardship in the Bird Conservation Region Strategies in Canada.

Mikkelsen and Weir (2023) have worked on the phylogenomics for the seven species of the Skua family Stercorariidae and revealed that mitochondrial capture and nuclear introgression characterize Skua Species proposed to be of hybrid origin. They further highlighted a complex biogeographical history of interchange between the Arctic and Antarctic, with unexpected close ancestry between Skuas of the northern hemisphere and Brown Skua (Stercorarius antarcticus) of the southern hemisphere. The dynamic history of introgression during pelagic seabird radiation is highlighted by these findings.

There is a lack of genomic data for the arctic seabirds and the responses of arctic species to past change can uncover many secrets. Whole genomes from environmental samples will probably be recovered by future metabarcoding analyses, enabling a more precise interpretation of changes in Arctic Skua and associated communities.

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the ongoing Avian flu is one of the greatest threats to multiple seabirds including the Jaegers. Genomics could emerge as a pivotal tool for the identification and monitoring of such emerging infectious diseases.