Macquarie Island Brown Skua breeding and diet data

Published: 2020-11-17

The brown skua (Stercorarius antarcticus), also known as the Antarctic skua, Subantarctic skua, southern great skua, southern skua, or hākoakoa (Māori), is a large seabird that breeds in the subantarctic and Antarctic zones and moves farther north when not breeding. By 2020, the process to eradicate feral cats, rabbits, rats and mice from Macquarie Island was complete. These data were collected as parted of a study to examine the effects of the removal on indigenous fauna. This dataset contains data on brown skuas at Macquarie Island: 1) count data from a series of surveys of brown skua nest numbers and breeding success conducted from 2008/09 to 2017/18; 2) historic skua nest count data and concurrent estimates of rabbit abundance (1974/75 to 2009/10); 3) stable isotope data from feather samples taken from skua chicks during the 2017/18 season to compare stable isotope ratios between different feather types; 4) stable isotope data from feather samples taken from skua chicks from 2008/09 to 2017/18; 5) a small dataset of stable isotope data from skua prey tissue samples; 6) the nest locations of skuas surveyed in the seasons 2009/10, 2012/13 and 2017/18.