Endangered
Zino's Petrel
Pterodroma madeira
Zino's petrel or the freira, is a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus, endemic to the island of Madeira.
Appearance
It has a grey back, grey wings with a dark "W" marking across them, and a grey upper tail. The undersides of the wings are blackish, apart from a triangle of white at the front edge near the body, and the belly is white with grey flanks. The head has a mottled whitish-brown forehead, a dark cap, and a dark spot below and behind the brown eye.
This long-winged petrel is 32–34 cm (13–13 in) long with an 80–86 cm (31–34 in) wingspan, and an average weight of 290 g (10 oz).
Range and habitat
Zino's petrel is endemic to the main island of Madeira, where it breeds on inaccessible and well-vegetated ledges in the central mountains between Pico do Arieiro and Pico Ruivo. The typical ledge plants are endemic hemicryptophytes and chamaephytes, but grasses may also be present. It was formerly more widespread, since subfossil remains have been found in a cave in eastern Madeira, and on nearby Porto Santo Island.
Zino's petrel or the freira, is a small seabird in the gadfly petrel genus, endemic to the island of Madeira. Zino's petrel has a very restricted range on the mountaintops of a single island and is one of Europe's most endangered seabirds.
Habitat labels include Madeira.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Zino's petrel, like its relatives, feed on small squid and fish. Zino's petrel breed two months earlier than the Desertas petrel on Bugio, only 50 km (31 mi) away.
The birds return from sea to their breeding grounds in late March or early April and courting occurs over the main breeding area during the late evening and early morning hours. The nest is a shallow burrow or old rabbit tunnel up to 140 cm (55 in) long in thick soil on vegetated ledges.
In crisis
It is one of Europe's most endangered seabirds, with breeding areas restricted to a few ledges high in the central mountains of Madeira. Eggs, chicks and adults have been subject to predation by introduced cats and rats, and in the past have been taken for food by local shepherds. Predator control, and other measures such as the removal of grazing animals that trample the burrows, have enabled the population to recover to 65–80 breeding pairs. The species remains listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.
The population eventually recovered and was stable at 160 individuals by 2018. Predation by introduced rats meant that breeding success in the small population was low, and no young at all fledged in 1985.
Zino'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 Zino's Petrel, Wikidata item Q1272830. 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.
