Autumnal Migrants on the Campeche Bank
1953; Oxford University Press; Volume: 70; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4081323
ISSN1938-4254
Autores Tópico(s)Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy
ResumoEXT•NI)ING for approximately 400 miles along the western and northern coasts of the Yucatan Peninsula is a vast area of shoals and islets known as the Campeche Bank.Within the bank there are but four groups of small islands which are sufficiently above the sea to support a permanent terrestrial flora and fauna.These groups are known as Cayos Arcas (20 ø 13' N., 91 ø 58 • W.), Arrecifes Triangulos (20 ø 58 • N., 92 ø 20' W.), Cayo Arenas (22 ø 07 • N., 91 ø 24' W.), and Arrecife Alacran (22 ø 23 • N., 89 ø 40 • W.).All lie between 80 and 100 miles from the mainland and, because of their extreme isolation and the dangerous nature of the surrounding water, are visited only by an occasional fisherman and the ship which supplies the lighthouse keepers seven or eight times each year.The only publications relating to the avifauna of this area appear to be those of Dampier (1700), Marion (1884), Ward (1887), and Kennedy (1917).The first three merely mention the resident avifauna of the Triangulos and Alacran in passing; the last is concerned with a brief visit to Arrecife Alacran in May, 1912, during the nesting season of the numerous seabirds.Goldman (1951) collected on both Cayos Arcas and Arrecifes Triangulos in June, 1900, but his ornithological observations have never been published, although his specimens have been used in taxonomic and faunal works.After several years of negotiation in an attempt to arrange for transportation to these islands, I had the good fortune to secure the assistance of American Vice-Consul Abraham Katz, of Mirida, Yucatan.Mr. Katz obtained the generous co6peration of Captain Aaron Rodriquez V., captain of the port of Progreso, Yucatan, who permitted me to accompany the government-chartered ship, the "Oscar Coldwell," on one of its regular visits to supply the lighthouses.Although my primary objective in visiting the islands was to observe the resident avifauna, which consists solely of seabirds, it was discovered that migrants were present in abundance.This provided an unusual opportunity to obtain information bearing on the problem of migration across the Gulf of Mexico, which in the past few years has become a controversial topic with Lowery (1945Lowery ( , 1946Lowery ( , 1951) ) taking the stand that spring trans-Gulf migration is of regular and normal occurrence, while Williams (1945Williams ( , 1947) ) holds that it occurs irregularly and accidentally.Autumnal trans-Gulf migration has not been con-
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