Almost 10% of the world's yelkouan shearwaters breed in Malta

Almost ten per cent of yelkouan shearwaters, a protected Mediterranean seabird, breed on the Maltese coast, a new study has found.

Ornithologists Marie Claire Gatt and Benjamin Metzger tracked and followed the movements of a number of young seabirds, also known as a garnija or Puffinus yelkouan, thanks to technology which gave them data on the young birds’ movements in real-time.

Ornithologist Marie Claire Gatt fitting one of the birds with a tracking device.

Despite spending most of their lives at sea, hundreds of shearwaters live nestled in Malta’s coastal cliffs between November and July, as breeding pairs attempt to hatch and raise a single chick. Outside of the breeding season, the birds can remain at sea without approaching land for months on end.

In collaboration with the Mediterranean Science Commission’s International Seabirds Project, the study sought to find out more about juvenile yelkouan shearwaters, as following maturity little is known about this stage of their lives.

With the help of the Birdlife Malta Seabird team, Gatt and Metzger fitted five adult and 14 fledgling yelkouan shearwaters with GPS-GSM transmitters that allowed them to track the birds’ migration...