It’s not every day that a rare and endangered seabird shows up at work, but that’s exactly what happened to Darnell Carbon in Dominica’s Morne Trois Pitons National Park. While reporting for duty at the Cable Car Dominica Company, Carbon discovered a juvenile Black-capped Petrel grounded at the site. Despite efforts to encourage it to fly, the bird stayed put. Carbon took the initiative to keep it safe throughout the day and overnight. By morning, he was able to successfully release the bird back into the air, giving this elusive species another chance at survival.
The discovery of this young Black-capped Petrel is evidence that this species persists on Dominica, although EPIC and others have searched for years and never found a nesting colony. This breakthrough is critical for global conservation efforts of the Black-Capped Petrel (Pterodroma hasitata), a seabird classified as endangered by the IUCN with only 1,000–2,000 breeding pairs remaining. For decades, the only known active breeding habitat was believed to be limited to steep, forested mountains in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. However, the Dominica discovery provides further evidence that they may still be nesting on other Caribbean islands, but these sites have not yet been discovered.
This discovery also builds on more than a decade of work by EPIC and its partners to protect the Black-capped Petrel across the Caribbean. EPIC’s Co-founder Adam Brown is a longtime member of the International Black-capped Petrel Working Group and he pioneered the use of marine radar in the Caribbean to detect petrels as they fly in at night to return to their nesting burrows on steep mountainous slopes. EPIC also partnered on a 2023 expedition to Dominica where the team deployed a trained sniffer dog to help find nesting burrows within the island’s dense vegetation. These innovations are critical in helping identify undiscovered nesting sites and guiding future protection strategies.
Why is this so important? First, protected forests on Dominica offer a safer sanctuary compared to the heavily deforested and predator infested regions of Hispaniola. Second, finding active nests would allow conservationists to focus on protecting nesting burrows, controlling invasive species, and preserving forest cover—actions that could significantly improve breeding success. And third, the discovery energizes groups like EPIC and its partners that work diligently to conserve the Black-Capped Petrel.
In addition, this discovery boosts hope that there are other undiscovered nesting sites across the Caribbean in places like Guadeloupe and Cuba. Discoveries like this fuel global efforts to locate, protect, and stabilize populations of this endangered seabird. Dominica’s petrel sighting is a “gamechanger” as it broadens the species known range, strengthens conservation potential, and offers a fresh lifeline to one of the world’s rarest seabirds.