ACAP-listed Black Petrels on New Zealand's Great Barrier Island are having a good season

Black Petrel; photograph courtesy of the Black Petrel Action Group

Elizabeth ‘Biz’ Bell, Managing Director of Wildlife Management International (WMIL) has reported on the latest breeding season of the globally Vulnerable and ACAP-listed Black Petrels Procellaria parkinsoni that breed on Hirakimata/Mount Hobson on New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island, via the Facebook page of the Black Petrel Action Group.

'Biz' Bell; photograph by Ed Marshall

She writes “it’s been a good season so far, with 301 breeding pairs recorded within the 482 study burrows (slightly down from last year’s 319).  At the February check, 233 were still on eggs, 53 had chicks and 15 breeding attempts had already failed (due to infertile eggs, rat predation and other reasons).  There were also 98 burrows in use by non-breeding birds, some that were caught for the first time and now sport new individually numbered bands.  A number of young birds (not yet breeders) were caught for the first time back at the colony as well as some individuals that had not been seen for 12 or even 19 years!  The WMIL team will be back in the study colony around the end of April/early May to band surviving chicks and confirm just how well the breeding season has gone.”

A Black Petrel portrait by ABUN artist Virginia Nicol for ACAP in graphite pencil; after her own photograph

John Cooper, ACAP information Officer, 18 March 2022