Critically Endangered
Galápagos Petrel
Pterodroma phaeopygia
The Galápagos petrel is one of the six endemic seabirds of the Galápagos.
Appearance
A narrow white line on each side of their rump is often present. In contrast, their face and underparts are white, but the underwings have black margins and a diagonal bar that extends from the coverts to near the base of the wings. While all Hawaiian petrels have entirely white foreheads, many Galápagos petrels have black freckles.
Published measurements include mass about 429.
Range and habitat
The Galápagos petrel is endemic to the Galápagos Islands. Like other gadfly petrels, these subtropical seabirds are highly pelagic and are maladapted to the terrestrial habitats. Therefore, they are usually found far from the land and will only return to their nest to breed.
When breeding season arises, they return to their large colonies located on the highlands of some Galápagos islands.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Even so, it is still unclear what behavior they exhibit when it is not the breeding season. As a result, they only frequent landmasses for a prolonged period during the breeding season.
Also, these petrels are gregarious and typically form large discrete breeding colonies. Many petrels have nocturnal habits, among them the Galápagos form. Pterodroma species reach sexual maturity at age 5-6 and generally nest once every year from then on.
In crisis
The populations of Galápagos petrels have declined substantially over the last three generations (60 years) due to anthropogenic disturbances. Introduced predation (i.e. Feral cats, dogs, pigs, and rats) and agricultural expansion have decreased the species' overall breeding success, survivability, and quality of habitats and nesting colonies. Although many conservation efforts are underway, its populations are currently still declining with an estimate of 6,000–15,000 mature individuals remaining.
The species is now classified under "critically endangered" in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Galápagos Petrel is Critically 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 Galápagos Petrel, Wikidata item Q1274614. 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.
