Bermuda Petrel
Encyclopedia
The Bermuda Petrel, Pterodroma cahow, is a gadfly
Gadfly petrel
The gadfly petrels are seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. These medium to large petrels feed on food items picked from the ocean surface....

 petrel
Petrel
Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group...

. Commonly known in Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

 as the Cahow, a name derived from its eerie cries, this nocturnal ground-nesting seabird
Seabird
Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...

 is the national bird of Bermuda, and a symbol of hope for nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

 conservation. It was thought extinct for 330 years. Its dramatic rediscovery as a "Lazarus species
Lazarus taxon
In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon is a taxon that disappears from one or more periods of the fossil record, only to appear again later. The term refers to the account in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead...

", that is, a species found to be alive after being considered extinct for centuries, has inspired documentary filmmakers.

Breeding

Initially superabundant throughout the archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

, the Cahow is a slow breeder, but excellent flier, and spends its adult
Adult
An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....

 life on the open sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

s. At five years old it returns to its former nesting place and begins breeding, laying only one egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

 per season. Cahows mate for life.

History and conservation

The Cahows' eerie nocturnal cries stopped the early Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

 seafarers settling the islands out of superstition, as they thought the isles were inhabited by devils. Instead they put ashore hogs as a living foodstore for passing ships, and so began the onslaught on the Cahow's existence. Following Bermuda's colonisation by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, introduced species like rats
RATS
RATS may refer to:* RATS , Regression Analysis of Time Series, a statistical package* Rough Auditing Tool for Security, a computer program...

, cats and dogs, and mass killings of the birds by early colonists decimated numbers. Despite being protected by one of the world's earliest conservation decrees, the Governor
Governor of Bermuda
The Governor of Bermuda is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. The Governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government...

's proclamation "against the spoyle and havocke of the Cohowes," the birds were thought to have been driven to extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

 since the 1620s.

In 1951, 18 surviving nesting pairs were found on rocky islets in Castle Harbour, and a program was set up by David B. Wingate
David B. Wingate
Dr David Balcombe Wingate OBE, born October 11, 1935, is an ornithologist, naturalist and conservationist. He was born in Bermuda.In 1951 he helped Robert Cushman Murphy and Louis S...

 to build concrete burrow
Burrow
A burrow is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a space suitable for habitation, temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of locomotion. Burrows provide a form of shelter against predation and exposure to the elements, so the burrowing way of life is quite popular among the...

s and wooden bafflers for the nesting tunnel
Tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

s in order to keep out the slightly larger, competing 'Bermuda longtail'
White-tailed Tropicbird
The White-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon lepturus, is a tropicbird, smallest of three closely related seabirds of the tropical oceans and smallest member of the order Phaethontiformes. It occurs in the tropical Atlantic, western Pacific and Indian Oceans...

, and to restore the nearby Nonsuch Island
Nonsuch Island, Bermuda
Nonsuch Island is part of the chain which makes up Bermuda. It is located in St George's Parish, in the northeast of the territory. It is 5.7 ha in area and is situated at the eastern entrance to Castle Harbour, close to the south-easternmost point of Cooper's Island...

 to be a future viable base for the species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

.

Enjoying legal protection, the species has started to make a good recovery, the main threat for the future is lack of suitable breeding habitat
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...

. Hurricane Fabian
Hurricane Fabian
Hurricane Fabian was a powerful Cape Verde-type hurricane that hit Bermuda in early September during the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. Fabian, the sixth named storm, fourth hurricane, and first major hurricane of the season, developed from a tropical wave in the tropical Atlantic Ocean on August 25...

 destroyed many nesting burrows in 2003, and recently the larger and ecologically-restored Nonsuch Island
Nonsuch Island, Bermuda
Nonsuch Island is part of the chain which makes up Bermuda. It is located in St George's Parish, in the northeast of the territory. It is 5.7 ha in area and is situated at the eastern entrance to Castle Harbour, close to the south-easternmost point of Cooper's Island...

 is being repopulated with chicks, their translocation timed so they will imprint on these surroundings.http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2008/03/Bermuda_Petrel.html This work is being undertaken by the present Bermuda Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros assisted by the Australian petrel specialist Nick Carlile. Nonetheless, the global population of this bird in 2005 was only about 250 individuals.

External links

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