Zino's Petrel

Pterodroma madeira

Breeds only on a single mountain ridge in Madeira. Fewer than 200 pairs deliver from the Atlantic dark.

Population: ~130–180 individuals (65–80 breeding pairs), roughly 160 individuals as of 2018 counts
Habitat: High-altitude mountain ledges and crags above ~1,650 m on Madeira, nesting in burrows/rabbit tunnels and rock crevices on steep, thickly-vegetated slopes with endemic scrub (hemicryptophytes and chamaephytes); forages far out over open ocean outside the breeding season.
Fun fact: Thought extinct since the mid-20th century (last confirmed in the early 1940s), Zino's Petrel was rediscovered in 1969 when conservationist Paul Alexander Zino played a Fea's Petrel call to a local shepherd, who recognized it and led researchers to the last remaining nesting ledges — one of the great 20th-century seabird rediscoveries.
Range: Endemic breeder to the island of Madeira (Portugal), confined to about six cliff ledges in the central mountain massif between Pico do Areeiro and Pico Ruivo — Europe's most range-restricted seabird; non-breeding dispersal is at sea over the central/tropical North Atlantic, with winter distribution still poorly understood.
Diet: Small fish, squid (including the bioluminescent species Electrona risso), and crustaceans, caught by surface-seizing at night over open ocean.
Size: 0.33 m
Wingspan: 0.83 m
Lifespan: 16 years

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