The Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is undoubtably the most globally endangered bird species that lives among us, to the point that it is one of the few European species that are listed as ‘critically endangered’ on the IUCN red list. Its world population is estimated at around 2,500 pairs and all of them breed in the Balearic Islands, although, outside the nesting season, their range is much more extensive and can be found throughout the western half of the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic as far north as the British Isles and as far south as off the Senegalese coast.
Beyond the smallness of its world population, the main causes of threat to the Balearic shearwater are accidental catches in fishing gear, predation by colonies of mammals and light pollution, which causes the young, when leaving the nest, to become disoriented by city lights and collide with buildings or fall to the ground where they are extraordinarily vulnerable.
In this conference, Oriol Alamany will tell us about his photographic conservation project, carried out over three years, and whose objective was to capture in images all the work carried out by scientists to be able to better understand this species and, consequently, to know what to do to get your safeguard. The Balearic shearwater is a world heritage, but the responsibility is largely ours.
