A seabird that glides low over the sea on long wings. It breeds on Mediterranean islands; around Malta, birds gather offshore in the evening during the breeding season and return to their colony after dark.
It is the larger of the shearwaters seen in Malta and glides on long wings just above the waves.
Researchers examined 529 carcasses of Cory’s and Scopoli’s Shearwaters. In the pooled two-species sample, birds from the Mediterranean had more ingested plastic than those from the northeastern Atlantic.
Age also mattered in the combined sample: fledglings had higher values than post-fledglings. The study proposed separate mass-based comparison thresholds of 0.0098 grams for fledglings and 0.0041 grams for post-fledglings.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In a pooled study of 529 birds from two shearwater species, plastic loads were higher in the Mediterranean sample and in fledglings. The researchers propose comparing plastic mass using thresholds suited to each age stage.