Birds · Charadriiformes · Laridae

Audouin's Gull

Ichthyaetus audouinii

Least Concern

The species is abundant and widely distributed; it faces no significant short-term risk. See full glossary

Audouin's gull is an elegant gull with a dark red bill banded in black, almost endemic to the Mediterranean. It was on the brink of extinction in the 1960s, with fewer than a thousand pairs worldwide. Its recovery was spectacular thanks to the colony in the Ebro delta, which came to hold two thirds of the world population by feeding on the discards of the fishing fleet. It is a success story with a fragile dependency.

Weight

500 g – 770 g

Size

44 cm – 52 cm

Lifespan

22 years

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Nocturnal

Active mainly at night.

Social structure

Colony

Lives in large concentrations, often for breeding reasons.

Sighting difficulty

Easy

OceanIslandsCarnivore Nocturnal Colonial Bird Ocean Islands

31countries 22parks 1dive sites19same family

Fun facts

GeneralAlmost 90% of the world population breeds in Spain, above all in the Ebro delta.
conservaciónIt is a gull all but endemic to the Mediterranean, far scarcer than other gulls, and depends heavily on colonies concentrated on a handful of islands and deltas.
It went from fewer than a thousand pairs in the 1960s to more than twenty thousand, and Spain came to hold 90% of the world population: it is one of the greatest recoveries of a seabird in Europe.
Its success depended on fishery discards in the Ebro delta, and restrictions on those discards, together with the arrival of foxes at the colony, have caused it to disperse and to decline again.
It is one of the few gulls that hunts at night out at sea: it chases pelagic fish that rise to the surface in the dark, behaviour uncommon in its family.