Zino's Petrel, one of the rarest birds in the world. Birds restricted to islands are particularly susceptible to extinction. T MAUL / FREIRA CONSERVATION PROJECT

By James Corcut
Friday, 3 September 2010 Europe’s rarest seabird, the Zino’s Petrel, found only in Madeira, has suffered potentially devastating losses from a forest fire which struck the birds’ breeding area on the Atlantic island. The fire on Madeira’s central mountain massif killed 25 chicks – 65 per cent of this year’s young birds – with only 13 fledglings found alive in their underground burrows. These remaining few will have to contend with the effects of severe soil erosion which the fire has caused. Three adult birds also died. One of the rarest birds in the world, Pterodroma Madeira was once believed to be extinct and was only rediscovered in 1969. Since then its numbers have been down to a few tens of pairs, but intense conservation action in recent decades has seen its population grow and almost 80 pairs now nest on the island. In recent weeks, forest fires ravaged parts of Madeira, and eventually hit the heart of the central massif, whose mountain ledges support a number of endemic plants and animals (some of the wild flowers surviving because they are inaccessible to goats). The petrels breed on ledges 5,250ft up where there needs to be enough earth for the birds to burrow and make their nests. They face numerous threats, ranging from predators such as rats  and cats  to habitat degradation and human disturbance: in 1991 the remains of 10 Zino’s Petrels were found on one ledge, all of them apparently killed by cats. Shepherds used to collect juvenile birds for food, and egg-collectors have raided nest burrows in the past. …

Forest fires in Madeira put future of Europe’s rarest seabird under threat