Endangered
Barau's Petrel
Pterodroma baraui
Barau's petrel is a medium-sized gadfly petrel from the family Procellariidae.
Appearance
Barau's petrel is around 40 cm long, and has white undersides and forehead. Its bill is black and its upper parts are dark, with a moderately distinct "M" pattern across the wings and back.
Range and habitat
Barau's petrel ranges across the Indian Ocean from Réunion to Western Australia and Indonesia. With the exception of a single nest found on the island of Rodrigues the bulk of the population is thought to nest on Réunion. Its main breeding site is the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean.
Habitat labels include shrubland and forest.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The breeding biology of the species has not been studied but it is inferred that they have a 55-day incubation period and take around 100–120 days to fledge a chick. Unlike most burrow nesting procellariids, Barau's petrels begin to return to their colonies diurnally, returning in the late afternoon and riding the thermal updrafts to conserve energy.
Sites that have been identified by BirdLife International as being important for the conservation of the species include the Grand Bénard – Tapcal and Piton des Neiges – Gros Morne Important Bird Areas (IBAs) on Réunion where breeding colonies exist.
In crisis
Barau's petrel is considered to be an endangered species. While the shooting of the species has now been stopped, and the population seems to have recovered, it is currently threatened by introduced species (especially feral cats, who threaten both chicks and adults) and light pollution.
Barau's Petrel is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Barau's Petrel, Wikidata item Q790267. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
