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Puffinus gravis
– Least Concern
Taxonomy
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Kingdom:
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ANIMALIA
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Phylum:
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CHORDATA
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Class:
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AVES
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Order:
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PROCELLARIIFORMES
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Family:
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PROCELLARIIDAE
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Scientific Name:
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Puffinus gravis
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Species Authority:
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(O'Reilly, 1818)
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Common Name/s:
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Assessment Information
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Red List Category & Criteria:
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LC ver 3.1 (2001)
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Year Assessed:
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2004
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Assessor/s:
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BirdLife International
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Evaluator/s:
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Stattersfield, A., Ekstrom, J. & Butchart, S. (BirdLife International Red List Authority)
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Justification:
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Puffinus gravis breeds at three main sites: Nightingale and Inaccessible islands in the Tristan da Cunha group, and Gough Island, both Tristan da Cunha (to UK) (Snow and Perrins 1998, Carboneras 1992d). A minimum of 5,000,000 pairs are thought to breed at Tristan da Cunha, and 600,000 to 3,000,000 pairs at Gough (Carboneras 1992d). Birds also breed in small numbers in the Falkland Islands (to UK), where the only confirmed site is Kidney Island (no more than 15 pairs recorded in 1987 (Woods 1988)), though there is a slight possibilty of breeding near Wineglass Hill, East Falkland, where one has been caught (Woods and Woods 1997). Adults begin a transequatorial migration in April, moving north-west to South America, up to Canada, past Greenland and onto the north-east Atlantic before returning south in November to the breeding islands (Carboneras 1992d, Harrison 1983). The species breeds on sloping ground, mainly in areas of tussock grass or Phylica woodland. It feeds mostly on fish, squid and fish offal (attending trawlers, sometimes in large numbers), and also on some crustaceans (Carboneras 1992d). Several thousand adults and ca. 50,000 chicks are harvested every year from Nightingale Island by Tristan Islanders, which could lead to the collapse of the population without research into sustainable harvesting levels (Carboneras 1992d). There is no real evidence of threats to the tiny confirmed Falkland breeding population, although predation by feral cats at Wineglass Hill would be a threat to any breeding there (R. Woods in litt. 1999). This species has a large range, with an estimated global breeding extent of occurrence of 50,000–100,000 km². It has a large global population estimated to be 16,500,000 individuals (Fishpool and Evans 2001). Global population trends have not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e., declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
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History:
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| 1988 | - | Lower Risk/least concern (BirdLife International 2004) |
| 1994 | - | Lower Risk/least concern (BirdLife International 2004) |
| 2000 | - | Lower Risk/least concern (BirdLife International 2000) |
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Geographic Range
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Range Description:
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Puffinus gravis breeds at three main sites: Nightingale and Inaccessible islands in the Tristan da Cunha group, and Gough Island, Tristan da Cunha (to UK) (Snow and Perrins 1998, Carboneras 1992d). This species has a large range, with an estimated global Extent of Occurrence of 52.8 million km. A minimum of 5,000,000 pairs are thought to breed at Tristan da Cunha, and 600,000 to 3,000,000 pairs at Gough (Carboneras 1992d). Birds also breed in small numbers in the Falkland Islands (to UK), where the only confirmed site is Kidney Island (no more than 15 pairs recorded in 1987 (Woods 1988)), though there is a slight possibilty of breeding near Wineglass Hill, East Falkland, where one has been caught (Woods and Woods 1997). The species has a large global population estimated to be 16,500,000 individuals (Fishpool and Evans 2001). Adults begin a transequatorial migration in April, moving north-west to South America, up to Canada, past Greenland and onto the north-east Atlantic before returning south in November to the breeding islands (Carboneras 1992d, Harrison 1983). The species breeds on sloping ground, mainly in areas of tussock grass or Phylica woodland. It feeds mostly on fish, squid and fish offal (attending trawlers, sometimes in large numbers), and also on some crustaceans (Carboneras 1992d). Global population trends have not been quantified, but several thousand adults and c.50,000 chicks are harvested every year from Nightingale Island by Tristan Islanders, which could lead to the collapse of the population without research into sustainable harvesting levels (Carboneras 1992d). Although there is no real evidence of threats to the tiny confirmed Falkland breeding population, predation by feral cats at Wineglass Hill would be a threat to any breeding there (R. Woods in litt. 1999). Despite this, the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e. declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
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Range Map:
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 (click for detailed map)
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Countries:
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Native:
Brazil; Falkland Islands (Malvinas); France; Ireland; Portugal; Saint Helena; Spain; United Kingdom; United States
Vagrant:
Algeria; Angola; Aruba; Australia; Cayman Islands; Denmark; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Gabon; Germany; Ghana; Gibraltar; Israel; Italy; Lebanon; Liberia; Morocco; Netherlands; Netherlands Antilles; Saint Lucia; Suriname; Sweden; Virgin Islands, British
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Habitat and Ecology
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System:
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Terrestrial; Marine
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