Like other seafaring petrels, Zino’s are slender, medium-sized birds, with a body just over one foot long and a three-foot wingspan. They spend months at sea and can fly for long periods, picking up food from the ocean surface with their short sturdy beaks as they glide over it.
Each breeding season they return to Madeira, a Portuguese island off the northern coast of Africa, after spending the intervening months at sea. (One of the great mysteries of petrels is that no one knows where they go during the many months they are off at sea.) They arrive during the darkness of night, flying up the steep valleys of the high mountains to their nesting sites among the sheer rock pinnacles. If there is no nest burrow available, the younger birds will dig new ones. As with all the petrels, Zino’s lay only one egg. About two and a half months after hatching the fledgling launches itself into the darkness: it will not return to the colony for up to five years.
The continued existence of the Zino’s Petrel is linked to the story of Dr. Paul Alexander “Alec” Zino, a dedicated amateur ornithologist, and his son Frank. Alec had become increasingly interested in seabirds during an ornithological expedition to the remote islands of the Selvagens archipelago (midway between Madeira and the Canary Islands), home to many fascinating seabirds and which today, thanks to Alec’s efforts, are a fully protected sanctuary. His involvement with Zino’s Petrel began in 1940 – but we must go back in time to realize how exciting this all is.
Believed Extinct
Our story begins in Madeira, in1903, when a few dead birds were found and taken to Father Ernesto Schitz, a priest with a keen interest in natural history. He identified them as the Fea’s Petrel. Thirty years later those “Fea” skins were examined by a petrel expert Gregory Matthews who realized, to his excitement, that he was looking at the remains of a completely different species, unknown to science. Since no one had seen a live bird since 1903 he naturally assumed it was, by then, extinct.
And then, in 1940, a single dead petrel was found and taken, for identification, to Alec. He immediately recognized that this bird was none other than the one wrongly identified by Father Schitz – Clearly it was not extinct after all! After this he and his son Frank, and some of their friends made repeated trips to Madeira’s high mountains where the birds were most likely to breed, listening for the calls of petrels. But they heard nothing, and saw no signs.
Then Alec had an idea – because this new species was so similar to the Fea’s petrel in appearance, perhaps its call was similar too? He had made excellent recordings of Fea’s, and these he played to shepherds in the high mountains. To the excitement of father and son, one of the shepherds recognized it at once. Frank wrote: “Lucas (the shepherd) said the calls were ‘souls of shepherds who had died in the mountains’ and that they were to be heard near Pico Cidrao, in the central massif.”
And so, in 1969, Alec, Frank and Gunther “Jerry” Maul (who had stimulated their fascination with petrels in the first place) drove to Pico Areero, high in the mountains, then climbed down to a “stone table.” Remembering that night Frank wrote: “It was bitterly cold and very dark; ideal for listening.” There they huddled, waiting.
“Suddenly,” Frank remembered, “my father nudged me and said ‘Did you hear it?’ We both listened all the more intently and heard this noise above that of the wind. ‘Yes!’ we both called in delight – waking Jerry whose snoring we had been registering!!!” The “calls” stopped!! Soon, though (with Jerry wide awake from laughing), they heard the real calls and listened, entranced to the sounds that have been described (by Malcolm Smith) as “ghostly nocturnal wailing.”
Collectors and Rats: Horror Stories
Later that year Alec had men searching the mountains for nesting burrows. He went on a short trip which he had planned with another bird enthusiast, a man of the cloth whom I shall refer to simply as N. In the event, N missed the boat. After some time he went to Alec’s office to see if he was back, and he found a group of the men who had come to report they had found nests with birds in them.
What should have been a truly joyous occasion then went horribly wrong. “N organized the men to go up the next day to rob the nests!” When Alec got back he received a phone call from one of his men to say that they had the birds and eggs!! He rushed up the mountain and found “a horror scene. A collection of birds (live) and eggs, which N was hoping to take with him.”
There were no wildlife laws back then that could help Alec in this situation, Frank told me, and he had no authority to act. Nevertheless, “he managed to negotiate that all the birds except two be released and he would try and return all the eggs except two to the nests.” The birds were released, and presumably survived, but, bad weather made it impossible to even try to return the eggs.
After that the Zino’s kept very quiet about things for fear of further collectors. But Alec and Frank continued to return during the breeding season and observe the little colony. “It was not encouraging,” Frank told me. “The breeding success at the known nesting sites was terribly low.”
During the season of 1986 they began systematic monitoring of the colony: at the one known nest ledge there were only six nests with eggs in them. And not one of the young birds survived the summer – the reason? Almost certainly predation on eggs and chicks by rats. This finding was shocking, and led to the launching of the first serious conservation organization, Freira Conservation Project (FCP), for predator control and systematic monitoring of the Zino’s colony. “On the 12th September 1987,” Frank told me, “we pulled a ball of down out of a nest – the first chick we had ever handled! It was ringed, returned to its nest, and eventually fledged.” Now that they were controlling the rats, at least that one chick survived that year, although it was the only one.
Then in 1992, just as they thought that they were winning the battle against rats, “we suddenly lost 10 birds to cats on one of the breeding ledges… almost 25% of the known breeding population,” said Frank. The new conservation group, FCP, as well as baiting and killing rats, then began trapping cats (since then about 10 cats per year have been caught in the breeding grounds). As a result the breeding success of the petrels began to improve during following seasons.
Looking back over those years, from the discovery of the few nesting birds in 1969, it seems amazing that the colony survived. They only lay and hatch one egg – and they were up against cats, rats – and egg collectors. It is lucky that the petrels can live up to 50 years – otherwise the species would probably have become extinct with such high predation rates. How fortunate, too, that the Zino’s and their group of enthusiasts had determined never to give up.
A National Park and Hope for the Future
It was really exciting when a team of FCP climbers discovered another small breeding colony. “The number of breeding pairs almost doubled over night!” said Frank. FCP then obtained funding to buy the breeding area from the private owners. And the government set aside a large area in the central mountains and laurel forests for a national park. Most important for the petrels, sheep and goats are no longer allowed to graze the high mountains. Fences were erected and shepherds whose flocks were excluded were compensated. This resulted in massive restoration of vegetation, much of which is endemic. It is believed that Zino’s petrels used to nest in many other areas, and it is hoped that they will soon try new nesting sites. To encourage them, some artificial burrows have been constructed.
“Things are now running smoothly,” said Frank, whose grown son Alexander and daughter Francesca are now involved in carrying on the family’s protection of the Zinos’ Petrel. In his last email Frank told us there were about 60 to 80 nesting pairs during the last breeding season. The Parque Natural de Madeira has taken on the conservation programs initiated by the FCP. “And we even have ecotourists coming to hear the birds at night.” How I should love to experience that myself!
Frank ended by recalling “the huge honor that my father and I felt when the name Zino’s Petrel, suggested by W.R.P (Bill) Bourne, stuck. It is very humbling and makes me all the more determined that all should go well for the future of this now less-rare species.” One thing is certain – but for Alec and Frank, the Zino’s Petrel would be extinct, its eerie nocturnal calls silent forever.
