The islands have been identified as an Important Bird Area, by BirdLife International because they are home to a breeding population of about 500 pairs of Pycroft's Petrels.
The smaller islands in the group have been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because they provide nesting sites for up to 3000 breeding pairs of Pycroft's Petrels.
petrel | Snow Petrel | Zino's Petrel | Wilson's Storm Petrel | Hacienda San Antonio de Petrel | Antarctic Petrel | Northern Giant Petrel | Pycroft's Petrel | Fea's Petrel | Deserta's Petrel | Cape Petrel | Bulwer's Petrel | Wilson's Storm-Petrel | Wilson's Petrel | White-faced Storm Petrel | White-chinned Petrel | White-bellied Storm Petrel | Tristram's Storm-petrel | Storm petrel | Pincoya Storm Petrel | Magenta Petrel | Leach's Storm-petrel | Leach's storm-petrel | James Pycroft | giant petrel | Collared Petrel | Black-capped Petrel | Bermuda Petrel | Beck's Petrel |
The petrel was first described by Enrico Hillyer Giglioli in 1869 and named in honour of the Italian zoologist Professor Filippo de Filippi.
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On the Juan Fernández Islands, the bird is no longer believed to be nesting on Robinson Crusoe Island but Santa Clara Island had a few hundred birds present in 1991, a number not likely to increase because there is limited availability of suitable nesting sites on the island.
Schmitz is known for his extensive natural history studies, both on the island of Madeira, where he described the Madeiran Wood Pigeon and Zino's Petrel as well as studying the local ants, and in Palestine.
18 species of seabird, the Black-footed Albatross, Laysan Albatross, Bonin Petrel, Bulwer's Petrel, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Christmas Shearwater, Tristram's Storm-petrel, Red-tailed Tropicbird, Masked Booby, Red-footed Booby, Brown Booby, Great Frigatebird, Spectacled Tern, Sooty Tern, Blue-gray Noddy, Brown Noddy, Black Noddy and White Tern nest on the islands, most of them (16) on Tern Island.
Opposing the motion were Laurie Pycroft—who founded Pro-Test, which organized the debate—Sir Colin Blakemore, Professor John Stein, and Professor Lord Robert Winston.
Gould's Petrels were brought back from the edge of extinction by pest eradication programs on Cabbage Tree Island and a translocation program which established a second population on nearby Boondelbah Island.
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The Collared Petrel (P. brevipes) is sometimes regarded as a third subspecies but is often split as a separate species.
In 2008, he confirmed the continuing existence of the mysterious Beck's Petrel (Pseudobulweria becki), known until then from 2 specimens collected in the 1920s and a handful of tentative sight records.
It consists of brown granodiorite and supports a relatively luxuriant vegetation of lichens and mosses, along with nests of Snow Petrels and Wilson's Petrels.
Mānana is a State Seabird Sanctuary—home to over 10,000 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, 80,000 Sooty Terns, 20,000 Brown Noddys, 5-10 Bulwer's Petrels, and 10-15 Red-tailed Tropicbirds, and numerous Hawaiian Monk Seals.
Paul Alexander Zino (9 February 1916 - 3 March 2004) was a Portuguese ornithologist after whom Zino's Petrel (Pterodroma madeira) is named.
Fea's Petrel (P. feae), Deserta's Petrel (P. desertae) and Zino's Petrel (P. madeira) of the North Atlantic were formerly treated as subspecies of this bird.
The Portuguese name Freira means "nun"; the inhabitants of Curral das Freiras (Nun's Valley) near the breeding site claimed that the nocturnal wailing of the petrels in the breeding season were the calls of the suffering souls of the nuns.
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The petrels breeding in the high central mountains of Madeira were first recorded in 1903 by German naturalist and priest Ernst Johann Schmitz, who failed to realise that they were different from the Fea's Petrels he had seen in the Desertas.