PORTLAND (AP) – A Massachusetts group that trains members of the public to study seabird mortality plans to expand its program to Maine.

Becky Harris of the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network in Boston will visit two Maine Audubon sites in May and June to offer free training for interested volunteers.

The group, based at Tufts University, is trying to identify some of the reasons seabirds die in the Gulf of Maine.

Harris said no one has collected data to explain seabird mortality on the East Coast of the U.S., though studies are done on the West Coast and throughout Atlantic Canada.

“We’ll pick up mass mortality that has gone unnoticed or is unreported,” she said. “Marine birds in general fall through the cracks.”

Maine volunteer coordinator Stella Walsh said it is easier to measure seabird death onshore than at sea.

“When they are three miles out to sea, it’s hard to keep track of them,” Walsh said.

The group’s East Coast effort began a year ago in Massachusetts.

Harris has worked since then to start programs in Long Island, N.Y., and Rhode Island.

Network volunteers, who include birders, students, and people involved in marine mammal studies, are asked to walk a few miles of a designated stretch of beach at about the same time every month.

Harris said volunteers are asked to walk their beaches once or twice a month, throughout the year.

When volunteers find dead birds, they measure their wings and claws,clip a claw and take a photograph if they choose.

Clipping a claw will help mark the birds that have been included in the survey. Harris said it also will help determine how long a dead bird has remained in an area before decomposing.

Volunteers get kits with data sheets, a ruler, calipers and latex gloves, as well as a field guide to help them identify birds.

Harris said because dead birds do not always look like live birds, even accomplished birders may need help identifying them.

She said their work will provide baseline data about bird mortality and help determine mass mortality from events like oil spills.

AP-ES-03-29-04 0216EST