Trends in numbers of petrels attracted to artificial lights suggest population declines in Tenerife, Canary Islands

The secretive breeding behaviour of petrels makes monitoring their breeding populations challenging. To assess population trends of Cory’s Shearwater Calonectris diomedea, Bulwer’s Petrel Bulweria bulwerii and Macaronesian Shearwater Puffinus baroli in Tenerife from 1990 to 2010, we used data from r...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Rodríguez, Airam, Rodríguez, Beneharo, Lucas, Matthew P.
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:España
Recursos:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/45113
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/45113
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Canary Islands
light pollution
population size
rescue campaigns
seabirds
Descrição
Resumo:The secretive breeding behaviour of petrels makes monitoring their breeding populations challenging. To assess population trends of Cory’s Shearwater Calonectris diomedea, Bulwer’s Petrel Bulweria bulwerii and Macaronesian Shearwater Puffinus baroli in Tenerife from 1990 to 2010, we used data from rescue campaigns that aim to reduce the mortality of fledgling petrels attracted to artificial lights as proxies for trends in breeding population size. Despite increases in human population size and light pollution, the number of rescued fledglings of Cory’s Shearwater and Bulwer’s Petrel increased and remained stable, respectively, whereas numbers of rescued Macaronesian Shearwaters sharply declined. In the absence of more accurate population estimates, these results suggest a worrying decline in the Macaronesian Shearwater’s breeding population.