Tropical shearwater

How it lives

It breeds in colonies on islands, rocky islets and coral reefs, and nests in rock crevices, self-dug burrows and other ground cavities. It lays a single white egg, which is incubated for about 50 days, and the chick leaves the nest about 75 days after hatching. Colonies are on oceanic islands and atolls. Threats named include introduced predators and loss of habitat.

Where it goes

The sources I read do not describe set migration routes. Outside the breeding season it stays in offshore waters, in the western Indian Ocean and across parts of the Pacific. It nests on islands from East Africa to southern India, and from southeast Japan to French Polynesia.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

Least Concern worldwide (IUCN, 2018). The total population has not been counted. More than 100,000 pairs nest in Seychelles, with about 26,000 pairs on Aride Island alone. Estimates for the Line Islands are 1,000 to 10,000 pairs, and for the Phoenix Islands 10,000 to 100,000 pairs. In the Pacific, 54 colonies are recorded in the waters of American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Micronesia, Palau, Phoenix Group, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna. Several subspecies are recognised, and the population appears stable.