International Black-legged Kittiwake - Conservation Strategy and Action Plan

The black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla, hereafter kittiwake) is a small pelagic seabird and is the most numerous gull species in the world. It has a circumpolar distribution, and breeds in the arctic and boreal zones of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s breeding distribution is widespread and ranges across the North Atlantic from the west coast to the Barents Sea, including Arctic Canada, Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, mainland Norway, Svalbard, Murman Coast, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land. In the Pacific, the kittiwake breeds in the Russian Far East and Alaska, USA. The kittiwake spends most of the non-breeding period offshore. Most of those breeding in the North Atlantic spend the winter in the North-West Atlantic, over the shelf, slope and deep waters off Newfoundland and Labrador and south of Greenland, whereas the Pacific birds stay in cool, productive waters north of the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone.