The Herald petrel (''Pterodroma heraldica'') is a species of

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

and a member of the gadfly petrels. Its range includes the

south Pacific Ocean South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

and

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

Description

The bird is in size, with an

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

. It was formerly considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

with the Trindade petrel and Henderson petrel. This

petrel Petrels are tube-nosed seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes. Description The common name does not indicate relationship beyond that point, as "petrels" occur in three of the four families within that group (all except the albatross f ...

has various colour morphs: dark and light, as well as intermediates between the two.

Habitat and range

The Herald petrel nests on oceanic

islands An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

and

atolls An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gro ...

, on

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

ledges, ridges or rocky slopes. On some islands, nesting birds are threatened by feral cats and rats. Found primarily in the south

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, it has been seen in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. In May 2007, a Herald petrel tagged on

Raine Island Raine Island is a vegetated coral cay in total area situated on the outer edges of the Great Barrier Reef off north-eastern Australia. It lies approximately north-northwest of Cairns in Queensland, about east-north-east of Cape Grenville on ...

in 1984 was observed off the coast of

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

in the

. This greatly increases the known life span and range of the species. In 2009 it was identified as this species, from what was previously an unidentified ''Pterodroma'' species, to be breeding on Round Island, north of Mauritius, in the

. In August 2017,

Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) is a business division of the Department of Environment and Science within the Government of Queensland. The division’s primary concern is with the management and maintenance of protected areas ...

s (QPWS) staff confirmed a Herald petrel chick had hatched on

after sighting an adult Herald petrel taking care of a single egg in a nest in June 2017. The sighted chick was the first time a Herald petrel was seen to breed in 30 years. Raine Island is the only known Herald petrel breeding site in Australia.

Conservation status

This species is evaluated as "

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed as critically endangered under the Australian ''

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...

'' (EPBC Act), effective July 2002, and under the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended f ...

's Nature Conservation (Animals) Regulation 2020 (November 2021 list). While there was previously a recovery plan in effect for the species from 2005 to 2015, as it has a high level of protection from government agencies, with relatively few, well-managed threats on the Raine Island population, there is no recovery plan operational . A 2018 study ranked the species ninth in a list of Australian birds most likely to go extinct.PDF
/ref>

References

* '' Seabirds, an Identification Guide'' by Peter Harrison, (1983) * ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Vol 1'', Josep del Hoyo editor, * "National Audubon Society" ''The Sibley Guide to Birds'', by David Allen Sibley,

External links

*
Dropbox images and footage of the Herald Petrel chick on Raine Island, provided by QPWS, 22 August 2017
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q600047 herald petrel herald petrel Birds of the Pacific Ocean Vulnerable fauna of Australia Nature Conservation Act endangered biota herald petrel herald petrel