About
The Leach’s Storm Petrel is a small seabird that breeds in large colonies on coastal and offshore islands across the Northern Hemisphere. With an average age of 25+ years, they are quite long-lived for their size. They prefer to live in concealed areas such as rock crevices and burrows, coming out at night to feed on fish and other marine life that comes to the surface of the ocean after dark. Canada has considerable global responsibility for Leach’s Storm-Petrel, hosting around 40% of the world’s breeding population. The colonies in Atlantic Canada represents about one-third of the global population, with the species’ largest colony at Baccalieu Island in Newfoundland.
Challenge
For reasons that are not entirely known, Leach’s Storm-Petrel has experienced severe declines over the past several decades. It was designated as Globally Threatened in 2016 by BirdLife International and uplisted to Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Because of it’s extensive breeding range in the north Atlantic, developing a holistic conservation plan requires international collaboration. Thirteen pressures have been identified that are having a negative impact on the North American population, including non-native predators, plastic pollution, and light pollution causing strandings.
Solutions
To address these pressures, Global Conservation Solutions is partnering with Birds Canada to develop an international conservation plan to save Leach’s Storm-Petrel in eastern North America. Through a series of facilitated workshops, the international team of 11 NGOs, provincial and federal government agencies, and academic institutions are designing effective strategies to reduce pressures on the Leach’s Storm-Petrel population. By applying the Conservation Standards framework, the plan also captures key knowledge gaps that will help us better understand this species’ ecology and life history, which in turn will allow the team to both evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategies.
Results
The team continues to design effective solutions to conserve and restore Leach’s Storm-Petrel and its habitat, but this hasn’t stopped the team from taking action in the meantime! Research and monitoring efforts continue to keep an eye on the situation, and community education and engagement is also underway to increase public awareness of the threats that Leach’s Storm-Petrel faces and how to get involved in conserving this incredible species!
