Whenua Hou diving petrel

The tubenose

The subspecies was first described by Johannes H.

Range and habitat

The Whenua Hou diving petrel (Pelecanoides georgicus whenuahouensis) known also as Kuaka, is a highly endangered subspecies of the South Georgia diving petrel that is endemic to New Zealand. While formerly considered a unique population of the South Georgia diving petrel, differences in habitat preference and analyses of phenotypic differentiations indicates that it could be considered as a distinct species. Only one extremely small population (less than 150 individuals) currently exists, breeding on the predator-free Whenua Hou island.

Based on subfossil remains, this subspecies formerly nested on Auckland Island and Stewart Island, and possibly on the Chatham and Macquarie islands as well.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

It was extirpated from Auckland due to nest destruction by New Zealand sea lions, while on Stewart it was extirpated due to nest predation by the introduced Polynesian rat. While the petrel's foraging areas are unknown, an oil spill over this area would be devastating for this subspecies.

In crisis

The remaining population itself is highly threatened by storm events. One such event in 2003 led to the collapse of many dunes, killing many birds.

Whenua Hou diving 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 Whenua Hou diving petrel, Wikidata item Q55648765. 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.