Townsend's Shearwater
Puffinus auricularis
Endangered, small black-and-white shearwater, endemic to Mexico. Found around Socorro Island mainly from November to May, and rarely offshore between Jalisco and Oaxaca. It is usually found with feeding flocks of other shearwaters, boobies, and terns. Flight is fast and strong, wheeling fairly high in strong winds. Blackish above and white below with blackish undertail coverts, fairly long tail, and white patches or saddlebags that wrap up around the base of the tail. Similar species: Black-vented Shearwater is dark brownish above without the strong black cap of Townsend’s.
Taxonomy
Its relationships are unresolved. Its closest relatives are probably, but not certainly, the Hawaiian shearwater (Puffinus newelli) and possibly the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) (Austin, 1996; Austin et al., 2004). It formerly contained the former as a subspecies and was long considered a subspecies of the latter. The relationship of the Rapa shearwater, P. myrtae in regard to these species are also in need of research; this taxon was until recently placed in P. assimilis (Austin et al., 2004), but now raised to full species status by the IOC and the NACC (North American Classification Committee) of the AOU.
- Scientific name
- Puffinus auricularis
- Authority
- Townsend, CH, 1890
- Order
- Procellariiformes
- Family
- Procellariidae
- Genus
- Puffinus
Range and habitat
- Breeding range
- PO : montane Socorro and Clarion is. (Revillagigedo Is., far w of c Mexico)
- Non-breeding range
- to coastal waters from s Baja California to Oaxaca (nw to sw Mexico)
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Conservation
This species breeds around Cerro Evermann on Isla Socorro in the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, though formerly present on Clarion Island and San Benedicto. The main threat to this species comes from feral cats introduced to Socorro in the early 1970s. These cats usually prey on shearwaters immediately after landing, where a lack of understory renders them exposed. Sheep and goats are also destroying breeding habitat. The Isla Clarión was eradicated in 1988, when habitat and nesting sites were destroyed by introduced pigs, sheep and rabbits, the final of which competed against the shearwaters for nesting burrows. Despite this, some breeding habitat remains to the north and north-west of Socorro's summit, where introduced animals have yet to ravage. The current mature population is estimated between 249 and 999 birds. Due to the presence of these threats, it has been classified as critically endangered. Further threat is posed by light pollution from a recently constructed airstrip and possible volcanic eruptions, the latter eradicated the San Benedicto population. Sheep and pigs have since been eradicated from Clarion, though rabbits have yet to follow. On Socorro, sheep eradication is currently in progress. <p>The species is named for Charles Haskins Townsend (1859–1944), an eminent American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
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