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breeding irregular in location, year, and number of pairs; van Halewyn and Norton 1984) to northern South America (northern Venezuela and nearby islands, French Guiana), including cays in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands; Uruguay coast and northern Argentina. Possibly 80% of the world population breeds in the southeastern U.S. Nonbreeders occur in summer north to central California and New York, south through winter range (rare on Pacific coast south of Mexico). It winters north to central California, Gulf coast, and North Carolina, south along coasts to Peru, Uruguay, and Argentina.","areaOfOccupancy":null,"areaOfOccupancyComments":null,"numberEosComments":null,"popSizeComments":"See Spendelow and Patton (1988) for infomation on distribution and abundance of coastal U.S. breeding colonies. See Buckley and Buckley (1984) for information on eastern U.S. populations.","viabilityComments":null,"threatImpactComments":"Routinely deserts colony en masse and moves to new site if disturbed early in egg-laying period (Buckley and Buckley 1984).","shortTermTrendComments":"Buckley and Buckley (1984) reported that eastern U.S. populations apparently were stable. 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Instead, the separation distance is arbitrarily small such that occurrences are of of practical size for data management purposes. <br><br>Evidence from a number of species of seabirds indicates that even though the 'home ranges' of individual nesting seabirds may be immense when foraging trips are taken into account, little movement or feeding overlap may occur between nearby colonies. For example, Thick-billed Murres may commute up to 170 kilometers one way on a feeding trip from the colony, but birds from a colony only 8 kilometers away may forage in a completely different direction; even birds from different sub-colonies only 1.5 kilometers apart mostly fed in completely separate areas (Gaston and Hipfner 2000).  <br><br>Most seabirds have strong breeding site fidelity; e.g., Thick-billed Murres (Gaston and Hipfner 2000, Gaston et al. 1994), Gray-backed Tern (Mostello et al. 2000), Red-footed Booby (Schreiber et al. 1996).","versionDate":"2004-10-20","versionAuthor":"Cannings, S., and G. 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Be cautious about creating EOs for observations that may represent single events.","mappingGuidance":null,"separationBarriers":"None.","separationDistanceUnsuitableHabitatat":10.0,"separationDistanceSuitableHabitatat":10.0,"altSeparationProcedure":null,"separationJustification":"Separation distance arbitrary; defined this small to aid in conservation planning. Sites more than 10 kilometers apart may be joined as one occurrence if research shows that predominantly the same individuals are using both sites.","versionDate":"2001-03-07","versionAuthor":"Cannings, S.","versionNotes":null,"lastModified":"2020-04-30T02:04:14.425472Z"}],"plantCharacteristics":null,"elementManagement":{"elementGlobalId":1168678,"eoManagementGroupName":null,"stewardshipOverview":null,"impacts":null,"restorationPotential":null,"siteConservationPlansConsidered":null,"managementMethods":null,"monitoringMethods":null,"managementProgramContacts":null,"monitoringProgramContacts":null,"managementResearchPrograms":null,"managementResearchNeeds":null,"biologicalResearchNeeds":null,"additionalTopics":null},"occurrenceViabilities":[{"eoRankSpecsDetailId":209726,"eoRankSpecsGroupName":null,"locationUseClass":{"id":1,"locationUseClassDescEn":"Not applicable","locationUseClassDescEs":"No se aplica","locationUseClassDescFr":"Sans objet","displayOrder":1},"excellentViability":null,"goodViability":null,"fairViability":null,"poorViability":null,"viabilityJustification":"Use the Generic Guidelines for the Application of Occurrence Ranks (2008).<br>The Key for Ranking Species Occurrences Using the Generic Approach provides a step-wise process for implementing this method.","versionDate":null,"versionAuthor":null,"versionNotes":null,"lastModified":"2020-12-05T04:07:59.179522Z"}],"references":[{"id":1066919,"citation":"American Ornithological Society (AOS). 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[as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in <i>The Auk</i>]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.","shortCitationAuthor":"American Ornithologists' Union (AOU)","shortCitationYear":1998,"referenceCode":"B98AOU01NAUS","lastModified":"2020-02-25T14:38:12.673494Z"},{"id":507348,"citation":"American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 2006. Forty-seventh supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. The Auk 123(3):1926-936.","shortCitationAuthor":"American Ornithologists' Union (AOU)","shortCitationYear":2006,"referenceCode":"A06AOU01EHUS","lastModified":"2020-02-25T18:13:17.492391Z"},{"id":124410,"citation":"Bent, A.C. 1921. Life histories of North American gulls and terns. U.S. Natl. Mus. Bull. 113. Washington, D.C.","shortCitationAuthor":"Bent","shortCitationYear":1921,"referenceCode":"B21BEN01NAUS","lastModified":"2020-02-25T18:12:51.304479Z"},{"id":463505,"citation":"BirdLife International. 2004b. 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Buckley. 1984. Seabirds of the north and middle Atlantic coast of the United States: their status and conservation. Pages 101-133 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.","shortCitationAuthor":"Buckley and Buckley","shortCitationYear":1984,"referenceCode":"A84BUC01NAUS","lastModified":"2020-02-25T18:12:30.945016Z"},{"id":158841,"citation":"Castro, I. and A. Phillips. 1996. A guide to the birds of the Galapagos Islands. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.","shortCitationAuthor":"Castro and Phillips","shortCitationYear":1996,"referenceCode":"B96CAS0100LA","lastModified":"2020-02-25T14:38:18.84546Z"},{"id":158672,"citation":"Chardine, J. W., R. D. Morris, J. F. Parnell, and J. Pierce. 2000a. Status and conservation priorities for Laughing Gull, Gull-billed Terns, Royal Terns and Bridled Terns in the West Indies. Pp. 65-79 in E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee (editors) Status and Conservation of West Indian Seabirds. 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