Critically EndangeredBalearic Shearwater
Puffinus mauretanicus
8 countries14 parks
Species group · Birds
WAnimals has 5 species of shearwater, in the family Procellariidae.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
3 species in this group are in a threatened category according to the IUCN.
Recorded in 41 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
The most threatened seabird in Europe; it breeds only in the Balearics.
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It is one of the most threatened seabirds in Europe, breeding almost entirely in the Balearic Islands, with a small world population.
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It is a strict Spanish endemic: every colony in the world is in the Balearics, and Spain is therefore directly responsible for the future of the species.
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One documented bird reached 50.9 years of age, an exceptional lifespan.
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Left behind by its parents, the chick loses weight on its own for over a week before it first takes to the air.
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The English word "puffin" originally belonged to this bird and was later transferred to the seabird that carries it today, because the two nest in much the same way.
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Its night-time call at the colonies is a guttural moaning likened to a baby crying or a cat mewing, and on several Mediterranean islands it has fed legends of tormented souls on the cliffs.
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Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 5.
The chicks that leave the nest in autumn are disorientated by artificial lights and come down on roads and in villages: in the Canaries and the Balearics, rescue campaigns are organised every year to collect thousands of young shearwaters and return them to the sea.
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