'There were no birds.'

RESOLUTE BAY – Canadian Wildlife Service researchers are having another disappointing season this summer as they search for the ivory gull, a rare seabird that has dramatically declined in number over the last two decades.

"There were no birds," said Chanti Davis, who visited the Brodeur Peninsula earlier this summer in search of the rare seabirds.

Well, they did spot six ivory gulls, but nothing like the healthy colony of some 50 birds reported there during the 1980s.

Counts of ivory gulls in Nunavut in the early 1980s found about 2,400 ivory gulls, while a survey done in 2005 found only about 200 birds. Surveys in 2006 found 400 birds. It amounts to an 80 per cent decline.

A visit to the Brodeur Peninsula last year turned up similar poor results. At that time, researchers hoped poor ice conditions had simply deterred the birds from nesting at the site for the season. Now, it's not looking like that's the case.

The birds are also known to inhabit the southeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, the eastern coast of Devon Island, and Seymour Island, a tiny island just north of Bathurst Island.

Whether the ivory gulls have plummeted in number, or simply moved to a new location, is hard to say. Nunavut has thousands of kilometres of unvisited coast line where the birds may be.

"It's true educated guesswork," says Mark Mallory with the CWS.

Researchers like Mallory have no firm evidence of what would have caused such a drastic decline in the number of ivory gulls. But they do have a number of hunches.

Climate change may be bad news for the ivory gull. The birds spend their winters floating through the icy waters of Davis Strait, and are known to nest in ice-capped rocky peaks.

Hunters in western Greenland, who are particularly fond of shooting birds, may also be responsible in part for ivory gull's decline. Banded ivory gulls have been seen for sale in Greenland's outdoor markets.

The ivory gull isn't actively hunted in Nunavut, although some hunters have expressed affection towards the bird for its brash behavior. It's been known to swoop in after a polar bear or whale kill to plunder some of the fat, right in front of a hunter's eyes.