ROSEAU, Dominica--More than 150 years after it was believed to have been wiped out in Dominica, the rare 968 diablotin, also known as the black-capped petrel, has been rediscovered.
A team of scientists from Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) and Dominica’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries made the discovery over the mountains of Dominica, according to a release issued on Wednesday.
The seabird – considered one of the world’s rarest seabirds with an estimate of only 1,000 to 2,000 pairs remaining – was once abundant in Dominica, but thought to be wiped out in the late 1800s due to overhunting and the introduction of mammalian species, EPIC said. The last confirmed nesting of the bird in Dominica was in 1862.
But observations made with radar and supplemented by detection of vocalisations recently showed large numbers of petrels flying between the sea and potential nest areas in the island’s highest peaks.
“Finding this colony of petrels on Dominica is a real game changer for black-capped petrel conservation. For years we thought the only remaining colonies of petrels were on Hispaniola, where nesting habitat is diminishing at an alarming rate and pressures of human activity are significant,” EPIC co-founder and lead scientist Adam Brown said.
“Dominica is an island nation where nature conservation is a high priority and forests needed by petrels are well protected, so we now have a huge new opportunity to undertake conservation efforts to preserve this imperilled species.”
Biologists from EPIC and the Forestry, Wildlife and Parks Division of Dominica’s environmental ministry teamed up in January 2015 to do a systematic survey of the entire island to locate diablotin.
EPIC explained that it is a very difficult bird to study, as it comes to shore for only a few months of the year to breed, flying into forested mountains at night to underground burrows.
A portable marine radar array and night vision scopes allowed biologists to locate, identify and count flying petrels in the dark.
Now the bird has been rediscovered, the next step is to confirm breeding by locating active nests. Biologists will make expeditions into the mountains early next year when breeding petrels are expected to return to the island.
EPIC said that while Dominica’s forests appear to offer prime nesting habitat to petrels, they also make it challenging to locate burrows. ~ Caribbean360 ~
