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title: "ACAP-listed Black Petrels on New Zealand's Great Barrier Island are having a good season"
---

# ACAP-listed Black Petrels on New Zealand's Great Barrier Island are having a good season

*![Black Petrel Action Group](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Petrels/B/Black/Black_Petrel_Action_Group.jpg)  
Black Petrel; photograph courtesy of the Black Petrel Action Group*

 [Elizabeth ‘Biz’ Bell](https://www.wmil.co.nz/team), Managing Director of Wildlife Management International ([WMIL](https://www.wmil.co.nz/)) has reported on the latest breeding season of the globally [Vulnerable](http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/22698150) and ACAP-listed Black Petrels *Procellaria* *parkinsoni*that breed on Hirakimata/Mount Hobson on New Zealand’s [Great Barrier Island](https://www.acap.aq/news/news-archive/60-2013-news-archive/1361-acap-breeding-sites-no-24-great-barrier-aotea-and-little-barrier-hauturu-islands-new-zealand-only-breeding-sites-of-the-black-petrel), via the Facebook page of the [Black Petrel Action Group](https://www.facebook.com/Black-Petrel-Action-Group-229756540415467).

 ![Biz Bell Ed Marshall](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/People/Biz_Bell_Ed_Marshall.jpg)*'Biz' Bell; photograph by Ed Marshall*

 She writes “it’s been a good season so far, with 301 breeding pairs recorded within the 482 study burrows (slightly down from last year’s 319).  At the February check, 233 were still on eggs, 53 had chicks and 15 breeding attempts had already failed (due to infertile eggs, rat predation and other reasons).  There were also 98 burrows in use by non-breeding birds, some that were caught for the first time and now sport new individually numbered bands.  A number of young birds (not yet breeders) were caught for the first time back at the colony as well as some individuals that had not been seen for 12 or even 19 years!  The WMIL team will be back in the study colony around the end of April/early May to band surviving chicks and confirm just how well the breeding season has gone.”

 *![Virginia Nicol Black Petrel drawing graphite pencil own photo](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Petrels/B/Black/Virginia_Nicol_Black_Petrel_drawing_graphite_pencil_own_photo.jpg)  
A Black Petrel portrait by [ABUN](https://abun4nature.org/) artist Virginia Nicol for ACAP in graphite pencil; after her own photograph*

 *John Cooper, ACAP information Officer, 18 March 2022*