Critically Endangered
Balearic shearwater
Puffinus mauretanicus
The Balearic shearwater is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae.
Appearance
This bird looks like a flying cross, with its wing held at right angles to the body, and it changes from dark brown to dirty white as the dark upperparts and paler undersides are alternately exposed as it travels low over the sea. Apart from its less contrasting plumage, this species is very similar to the Manx and yelkouan shearwaters found elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
Balearic shearwater is 34–39 cm (13–15 in) in length and has a wingspan of 78–90 cm (31–35 in).
Range and habitat
This species breeds on islands and coastal cliffs in the Balearic Islands.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
It is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls, higher pitched than the Manx shearwater's.
In crisis
The Balearic Shearwater is listed critically endangered by the IUCN and is one of Europe's most endangered seabirds. The Balearic shearwater is considered critically endangered with extinction by the IUCN. Recent models estimate a mean decrease of 7.4% per year and a mean extinction time of 40.4 years.
It is under severe threat from the development of holiday resorts near its breeding sites. Predation from introduced animals such as cats and rats also cause problems.
Balearic shearwater 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 Balearic shearwater, Wikidata item Q704081. 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.
