Ravens Observed Killing Roosting Kittiwakes

Under the auspices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the authors conducted in 1987 a week-long survey of the birds in the southwest corner of Chagvan Bay (58 degree 40'N, 161 degree 47'W), Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, in the Bristol Bay-Kuskokwim Bay region of Alaska. The authors here report observing a pair of Common Ravens (Corvus corax ) simultaneously attack and kill two roosting Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla ). Although this amounted to only a single sighting, firsthand observations of coordinated hunting tactics of this nature are so unusual that they would seem to merit special attention.