Endangered seabird returns to a Pacific island for the first time in more than 100 years

Seabirds petrels have returned to a Pacific island for the first time. Invasive rats once drove these endangered birds out of Kamaka Island more than 100 years ago.

The long-awaited return of the birds is the result of years of effort by several organizations to restore and revitalize the tiny French Polynesian island found in the South Pacific. Researchers have recorded Polynesian petrels returning to the area and hope that this place will become a safe haven for their nesting, IflScience writes.

Scientists have been fighting for many years to get rid of rats from Kamaka Island. After all, the petrels that used to live here nest on the ground and their eggs and newborn young were particularly vulnerable to rodent attack. This made the birds leave the island, marking a decrease in the population in their habitat.

Using drones, the team of experts was able to completely eradicate the invasive rodents from the island in 2022.

The next important step was to encourage the birds to return to the island, and this is where the team had to get a little creative. They used a "social attraction" strategy that involved recording the sounds of a storm-petrel colony on a neighboring island.

Along with four live-in burrows and motion-sensing cameras, the team installed two solar-powered sound systems on Kamaka to broadcast the recorded sounds.

According to the researchers, in March 2024, just before the breeding season, the first petrel was spotted on the island. And by June, experts had already spotted several birds in their burrows.

"The results of our social attraction efforts were quickly apparent – Polynesian storm-petrels began visiting at the start of the nesting season and became regular visitors, while also spending time in the nest boxes," said Thomas Ghestemme, a scientist from SOP MANU, an organization that participated in the project.

The scientists emphasize that the successful outcome of their project is a positive sign for Polynesian storm petrels, of which there are only 250 to 1,000 individuals left in the wild.

"This remarkable progress brings hope for the future, as the Polynesian storm-petrels reclaim their island home. These seabirds bring critical nutrients from the ocean to the island, which cascades down into the surrounding marine environment benefiting fish and corals," said , the landowner of Kamaka Island.

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