At-sea tracking shows Cape Verde Shearwaters travel to the coasts of Mauretania and Senegal

“This massive dataset is the result of the work coordinated by the University of Barcelona since 2007, and will help develop marine protected areas and marine spatial planning © Universitat de Barcelona”

A consortium of 13 local and international organisations coordinated by BirdLife International has been surveying colonies of and at-sea tracking seven species of procellariiform seabirds that breed on islands of Cabo Verde some 600 km off the west coast of Africa.  One of these species, the endemic and Near Threatened Cape Verde Shearwater Calonectris edwardsii, has been shown to travel eastward to inshore waters off West Africa.  From the above map it is notable that practically all of the species’ at-sea yellow tracks fall within the 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones of Mauretania and Senegal, as well as of Cabo Verde itself.

A Cape Verde Shearwater at sea

“This means that, for the first time, we know where these birds are going to find their food and thus, plot where birds interact with fishing vessels”, explains Herculano de Andrade Dinis, the Executive Director of Projecto Vitó, a local NGOs who [sic] has been key in the research.”

Read more at “How Cabo Verde is becoming a safe haven for seabirds” and visit a website dedicated to Cabo Verde seabirds (in Portuguese).

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 13 November 2020