SU MMA RY C alifornia gulls (Larus californicus) of known age and sex were censused on their breeding colony in 1979, 1980 and 1984 through 1993. Ages of 235 males and 196 females ranged from 4 to 27 years. Age classes used in the analysis were limited to 17, 4 through 19, and 20 or more as a ® nal age category because data on gulls over 20 were sparse. Survival declined with age in a way that was parsimon iously modelled with a quadratic function. Other factors, sex and time, did not explain any variation in survival. Resighting depended on age, sex and time. Younger adu lts skipped breeding more frequently than did older adults, and females skipped breeding more frequently than did males. There was also good evidence for time dependence in resighting probability, but its inclusion in the model occurred at the expense of interpretability and precision. In a data set such as this, resighting probability may assume more importance than a merè nuisance parameter' . In this study, resighting history measured attendance at the breeding ground . In turn, attendance rates may be a manifestation of reproductive strategy, which can also have consequences for survival. In this situation, there may be heterogeneity in both survival and resighting probability that is unexplained by the model. W hile such complexity may well be a nuisance to deal with, it can also point to important biological questions.

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This study investigates how densities of ringed seals were affected by construction and oil production activities at Northstar, an artificial island built in the nearshore Alaskan Beaufort Sea. Intensive and replicated aerial surveys of seals on landfast ice were conducted during six spring seasons: for three seasons before island construction began (1997–1999); after a winter of intensive island construction (2000); and after more limited construction plus drilling (2001) and drilling plus oil production (2002). A Poisson regression model was used to examine seal densities relative to distance from Northstar after allowance for environmental covariates. Post hoc power analysis indicated that the study design and Poisson regression approach had high power to detect small‐scale changes in seal densities near Northstar if such changes had occurred. However, seal densities during spring were not significantly affected by proximity to Northstar in 2000–2002. Habitat, temporal, and weather factors did have significant effects on seal densities. This study shows that effects of the Northstar oil development on local distribution of basking ringed seals are no more than slight, and are small relative to the effects of natural environmental factors. An understanding of environmental effects is essential when assessing potential impacts of industrial activity on ringed seals.