Back from the dead: The Bermuda petrel was thought extinct for nearly 400 years

The Bermuda petrel is a ‘Lazarus species’ — a species whose extinction was so certain that it seems to have been raised from the dead.

By Ellie O'Byrne

Sunday, May 05, 2019 - 07:00 PM

The amazing tale of the Bermuda petrel, a seabird thought extinct for nearly 400 years, has lessons for Ireland’s blasé approach to conservation, West Cork bird expert Paul Connaughton tells Ellie O’Byrne

There aren’t many good news stories in conservation, not to mention ones as dramatic as that of the Bermuda petrel.

The Bermuda petrel, or cahow as it is sometimes known, is what’s called a “Lazarus species” — a species whose extinction was so certain that it seems to have been raised from the dead.

Like the dodo, the Bermuda petrel was an island-dwelling bird whose existence was threatened by man. When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, it’s thought there were up to a million of the nocturnal seabirds on the then-uninhabited Bermuda Islands.

In the 1500s, passing Spanish sailors, and the rats and pigs they brought with them, feasted freely on the birds and their eggs during pitstops on the North Atlantic islands. In the 1600s, just 20 years after British settlement on Bermuda, the Bermuda petrel was declared extinct.

As dead as the dodo, or so it was thought.

Almost 400 years later, in 1951, Bermudan teenager David Wingate was one of a party of naturalists who rediscovered 17 nesting pairs of the grey and white bird, clinging to life on four rocky islets close to Bermuda’s Castle Harbour. He became Bermuda’s first conservation officer and worked tirelessly to support the petrel’s re-establishment until his retirement; now in his eighties, he still visits the seabirds he dedicated his life’s work to.

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Rare Cahow bird spotted off Kerry coast

One of the world’s rarest birds — once thought extinct for over 300 years — has been spotted off the Kerry coast.

The Bermuda petrel, better known as the Cahow, was observed by crew members of the Celtic Voyager — the Irish Marine Institute’s research vessel.

The “astonishing” sighting of the endangered seabird took place off Kerry on Monday. Within hours, the Bermuda Audubon Society confirmed the report through data emitted by the bird’s electronic geolocator.

The medium-sized Cahow is the national bird of Bermuda.

It is currently being “laboriously brought back from the brink” by conservationists with only about 180 of the species known to exist.

A slow-breeding ground-nester, the bird was wiped out during the 1600s when colonisation of the North Atlantic island introduced species such as boars, cats, dogs and rats.

It was rediscovered on the island in 1951.

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A rare chance to listen

People thought Dr David Wingate was cracked when he first talked about saving an almost extinct seabird and restoring cedar blight ravaged Nonsuch Island.

Fifty-two years later, no one’s laughing. Thanks to his efforts, cahow birds are back from the brink of extinction and Nonsuch Island is a protected paradise of native and endemic trees.

Dr Wingate, 78, will reflect on his pioneering life’s work tonight at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) as part of the Lionfish Taskforce lecture series. His lecture is entitled ‘Turning the clock back on Nonsuch: The making of a sanctuary for Bermuda’s pre-colonial heritage against the onslaught of invasive species’.

“We lobbied the government to declare Nonsuch Island a nature reserve in 1961,” said Dr Wingate. “Certain people thought it was a crazy idea.”

At that time, Nonsuch Island, which had previously been a boy’s reform school, among other things, was completely without trees thanks to the cedar blight in the 1950s.

“To me it was paradise,” said Dr Wingate. “I was newly married and looking for a home. I was given the opportunity to live on the island as caretaker for the Public Works Department.

“I was employed on a grant to study the cahows. There was a Parks Department but no national parks legislation until 1986.

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