The Cahow's Return
A seabird thought extinct for nearly 300 years was found nesting on rocky islets off Bermuda.
What was reported
Early visitors to Bermuda knew a seabird, the cahow, whose eerie night cries are said to have given the islands a reputation as the 'Isle of Devils'. Settlers, and the pigs and rats they brought, ate the birds, and by the 1620s they were thought to be extinct.
On 28 January 1951, an expedition led by the ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy and Louis Mowbray found cahows nesting in crevices on small islets in Castle Harbour. A 15-year-old local boy on the trip, David Wingate, went on to devote his life to saving them.
Explanations offered
The Bermuda petrel is real, and still endangered. Only a handful of pairs survived. Decades of conservation, including artificial burrows and moving chicks to safer Nonsuch Island, have brought the population back to well over 100 breeding pairs.
- When
- 28 January 1951
- Where
- Castle Harbour, Bermuda
- Witnesses
- Robert Cushman Murphy, Louis Mowbray and the teenage David Wingate
- Status
- Confirmed
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