More than just the driest desert in the world: a long and uncertain battle to conserve the storm petrels of the Atacama Desert

ABSTRACT

The storm-petrels (Oceanitidae and Hydrobatidae) are a diverse and threatened group of marine birds. Three species of storm-petrels are breeding in the Atacama Desert: Elliot’s Storm Petrel (Oceanites gracilis), Hornby’s Storm Petrel (Hydrobates hornbyi), and Markham’s Storm Petrel (H. markhami). After seven years of research and monitoring, here, we summarise the process of developing a conservation plan and discuss six research and management priorities needed for the conservation of the Atacama Desert storm-petrels.

KEYWORDS:

• Conservation
• Hydrobatidae
• Hydrobates
• light pollution
• Oceanitidae
• Oceanites

Acknowledgements

We thank the funding of WAN Conservancy, American Bird Conservancy, Mohammed Bin Zayed Fund, and the Packard Foundation. We thank Matías Garrido and Erik Sandvig for reviewing the English. We thank the anonymous reviewers for suggested improvements to the manuscript. FM thanks the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) for his PhD funding (DoctoradoBecasChile/2019-72200117). HVN was funded by FONDECYT-POSTDOCTORADO 3190618. We thank to the volunteers of 'ROC' involved in research and conservation of Atacama storm-petrels.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

HVN was funded by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico FONDECYT grant number [3190618].