- Galápagos petrels are rarely seen, yet critically endangered. These large seabirds endemic to five islands in the Galápagos archipelago face significant threats from numerous invasive species.
- In the 1980s, their population plummeted to crisis levels, but sustained conservation efforts have since slowed their decline.
- Conservationists are tackling invasive species and efforts are expanding to privately held farms that host important petrel breeding sites.
- Experts point out that the various organizations working on petrel conservation need to coordinate their efforts so that they can plan effective interventions where most needed.
Critically endangered Galápagos petrels spend much of their life at sea, but as they return to breed in the only place they call home, a litany of threats awaits.
Over the last 60 years, in particular until the 1980s, the population of the Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) declined significantly, with only 15,000 individuals remaining today, according to the latest IUCN Red List assessment of the species. And although that number could be as high as 20,000 as new colonies are being discovered, pressure from invasive species that prey on the bird and degrade its habitat keeps the petrel on the edge. But decades-long conservation efforts have refined strategies to protect these seabirds, while a new initiative will involve thousands of Galápagos private landowners in securing their fragile nesting grounds.
“Even though it’s an oceanic bird, you don’t see them that often,” Paola Sangolquí, a marine conservation coordinator with Ecuadorian NGO Jocotoco, told Mongabay in a video interview. The petrels spend most of their time out on the open water, hunting squid and fish. When they return to land, it’s to the upland and remote areas of the Galápagos islands of San Cristóbal, Floreana, Santa Cruz, Isabela and Santiago, where they nest in burrows or natural crevices.
These tend to be far from the islands’ human settlements, and because the birds are also largely nocturnal, that makes them even more difficult to spot.
“They nest in these foggy, misty areas up in the highlands, surrounded by dense vegetation,” Sangolquí says. “It combines two different worlds for two different stages of their life.” She adds the petrels are also loyal to their nests, returning to the same spot year after year.
“Galápagos petrels are amongst the most elegant and acrobatic fliers,” says James Gibbs, vice president of science and conservation at the Galápagos Conservancy. “But when they get on land, they can barely walk.” Their specialized feet, also known as patapegada or “sticky foot,” allow them to reach their high nesting grounds and dig burrows.
The petrels play a key role in the archipelago’s ecosystems, as they bring marine nutrients back to the islands, increasing soil fertility and plant growth.
According to Sangolquí, the seabirds face a combination of threats: “Most of them are related to human activities.”
Humans have introduced nonnative species to the Galápagos since they first arrived on the islands in the 16th century. To date, more than 1,600 different species of plants and animals have been introduced there, of which about 95% have become established. Among these, black rats, pigs, dogs and cats remain the primary threat to the islands’ nesting seabirds, including the petrels, as they prey on eggs and chicks. Sangolquí and her team published the first visual evidence of a rat invading a nest only last year, although rat predation has long been known as a driver of nesting failure.
Livestock like cattle, goats and donkeys trample the petrels’ nesting grounds, while fire ants swarm their burrows. As each breeding petrel pair lays only one egg per year, they’re very vulnerable to losses.
Invasive plants, too, have proved to be harmful. Species like the Himalayan blackberry, guava and Cuban cedar grow rapidly, blocking entrances to burrows and crowding out the petrels’ landing sites.
Other poorly understood threats include fishing bycatch and light pollution that can disorient birds returning from sea. In some cases, birds tagged for monitoring by the Jocotoco team became lost during the journey back.
The lack of historical data on petrel populations also makes it difficult to understand the species’ past distribution and abundance. Until the 1980s, the Galápagos petrel was considered the same species as the Hawaiian petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis, also known as the dark-rumped petrel) as they’re visually quite similar, Gibbs tells Mongabay.
Once that genetic wrangling was sorted out and the Galápagos petrel confirmed as its own species in a 1997 study, it became clear that its population was in “dire straits,” Gibbs says. “We don’t really have much of a historical record of abundance,” he says. “But clearly they have declined and declined dramatically.”
It’s due to this rapid historical decline that the species is critically endangered today, says Rob Martin, who leads conservation assessments for birds at Birdlife International.
But intensive monitoring and conservation action taken in recent decades have begun turning that situation around, and the plight of the Galápagos petrel has the potential to become a conservation success story, Martin says.
“There’s always the ultimate goal to try to prevent extinctions, to try to ensure that bird populations are strong and healthy across the world,” he says. A Red List assessment is planned for the species next year. “To see effective conservation taking place is always pleasing.”
A conservation-dependent seabird
High on the priority list to protect the Galápagos petrel is controlling the multiple invasive species that threaten it.
Organizations like Jocotoco and the Galápagos Conservancy are undertaking extensive work, in partnership with the Galápagos National Park Directorate, to eradicate and control invasive predators like black rats and strip back invasive plants crowding out petrel nesting sites. Conservation efforts focused on this species began back in the 1980s.
On some islands, such as Floreana, the goal is eradication. That island is also the site of one of the world’s largest island ecosystem restoration projects, which aims to bring back native species. Last year saw the reintroduction of 158 giant tortoises after 180 years of absence.
On other islands with larger human populations, such as Santa Cruz and San Cristóbal, invasive species need constant management. A preprint paper shows that such sustained efforts to control rodent populations on Santa Cruz across 25 years have been the major factor in ensuring that petrels’ reproduction is successful.
“Most years in this intensively managed area, the petrels are enjoying reproductive rates like you see in healthy populations of petrels around the world,” says Gibbs, who co-authored the paper. But in one of the years monitored, the rat-baiting program collapsed due to a lack of resources — and so did petrel reproduction.
For Gibbs, that shows conservation programs are working, but also highlights that in some locations petrels are “utterly dependent on it.”
Expanding to private lands
A key step to ensuring ongoing conservation of the petrel is getting private landowners involved, says Sangolquí. Around 97% of the land area across the Galápagos Islands falls within the national park, which is where the bulk of conservation work has taken place. But on some islands, like San Cristóbal, most of the petrel populations nest on private lands.
“That’s why it’s important to focus not only on the protected area, but also beyond where we have very significant nesting activity,” Sangolquí says.
That’s led to partnerships with farmers on San Cristóbal and Santa Cruz, the most populous island, the idea being to include them in the long-term conservation of petrels.
Landowners also benefit from invasive species control on their land, which can help reduce crop losses. In turn, conservationists monitor petrel nests on farmland and call farmers to help with interventions such as placing rat baits or removing invasive plants.
“I don’t like the term, but it’s like a win-win situation,” Sangolquí says. “In the long term, if we want our work to have an impact, we need to come up with a model in which farm owners feel that they also receive a benefit from protecting this bird.”
It’s a bottom-up model that can ultimately be applied to other species of seabirds, says Jajean Rose, director of Jocotoco US: “It’s meant to be collaborative and mutually beneficial, as opposed to top-down.”
The bigger picture
Across the five islands inhabited by petrels, several organizations are monitoring and implementing measures to protect them. But it’s still not possible to say how exactly the species is doing, Sangolquí says, as each organization has its own metrics and methods.
Part of her vision is developing a unified monitoring protocol involving all the different organizations involved in petrel conservation, such as the Galápagos National Park Directorate, Jocotoco, the Charles Darwin Foundation, the American Bird Conservancy, and the Galápagos Conservancy.
“The idea is that we can share, or have a common methodology, in which we can share this data, and it can be compared across different islands,” Sangolquí says.
Ultimately, that would form the basis of clear decision-making for authorities about where to target interventions. She adds that they plan to take this protocol to the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP), an international treaty to protect 31 seabird species; if adopted, the methodology could be applied elsewhere.
“We want this to be an example of how, beyond organizations, real teamwork can lead to impactful results for protecting and species,” Sangolquí says. “We want this to be replicable at a regional level, not only in Ecuador, but in other countries in the region.”
Gibbs agrees, saying that “Standardizing methods, via a core, consistent set of measures made among populations and over time, is critical for generating reliable, interpretable monitoring data and telling us what’s going on, and what’s working and what isn’t for management.”
For her efforts in saving the little-known Galápagos petrel, Sangolquí has been named a recipient this year of a Whitley Award, a prestigious prize also known as the “Green Oscars.” The prize money will help fund the expansion of conservation efforts on private land, she says.
“What’s even more important is that we will have the opportunity to put the name of the Galápagos petrel out in the world,” she says. “It’s a unique opportunity for raising awareness about the importance of this species, the importance of protecting this species, and the importance of collaborative work if we want better conservation outcomes.”
Banner image: A Galápagos petrel chick on San Cristóbal Island. Petrels also benefit from their own protected area: Los Petreles Reserve on San Cristóbal. Set up by Jocotoco in 2018, it covers a 100-hectare (250-acre) fenced site that’s home to more than 140 nests. Image courtesy of Bryan Perez.
Citations:
Tapia-Jaramillo, I., Arica, J., Espín, A., Carrión, V., Mayorga, J. P., Sevilla, C., … Sangolquí, P. (2025). First recorded evidence of invasive rodent predation on a critically endangered Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) nestling in the Galápagos Islands. Birds, 6(3), 33. doi:10.3390/birds6030033
Cruz-Delgado, F., González, J. A., & Wiedenfeld, D. A. (2010). Breeding biology of the critically endangered Galapagos petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia on San Cristóbal Island: Conservation and management implications. Bird Conservation International, 20(3), 306-319. doi:10.1017/s095927091000002x
Browne, R. A., Anderson, D. J., Houser, J. N., Cruz, F., Glasgow, K. J., Hodges, C. N., & Massey, G. (1997). Genetic diversity and divergence of endangered Galápagos and Hawaiian petrel populations. The Condor, 99(3), 812-815. doi:10.2307/1370494
Lopes, F., Gibbs, J. P., & Carrión, J. (2026). Twenty-five years of monitoring reveals that uninterrupted rodent control is the fundamental driver of breeding success in the Galapagos petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia. bioRxiv. doi:10.64898/2026.03.29.715149
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