17 June 2019

For a young shearwater it is beautiful to live in a rat-free island!

Zannone was declared rat-free 10 years ago, after a project of rat eradication commissioned by the Park Authority in collaboration with the UTB of the Corpo Forestale dello Stato. Following the removal rats, the reproductive success of Sopoli's shearwaters has gone from values ??close to zero to a value of 90% recorded in recent years.

Last summer two webcams were installed in two Scopoli's shearwater's nests in Zannone, and soon it will be possible to follow these mysterious birds during the delicate nesting phase. At the end of February - beginning of March, after having spent the winter at sea, Scopoli's shearwaters return to the coasts to reach the nesting sites. At the beginning of June the female lays the egg - only one per year - which is hatched by both the adults for about 50 days. Hatching takes place in July and both parents participate actively in breeding the chick, returning to the nest to feed it only during the night. The chick will leave the nest for its first flight into the sea around mid-October, and it will return to the colony only after a few years, when it will be ready to reproduce.

The webcam monitoring was carried out by Ispra in the context of the Life Ponderat and in collaboration with the Circeo National Park.

Online, on youtube, the video that shows the growth and the flight of a chick of Berta maggiore born in Zannone.