With so few Black-capped Petrels left in the world, EPIC’s research priorities are to track the population status of this endangered species, identify threats, and implement conservation actions to minimize those threats. Our research and monitoring programs help us understand petrel habitat needs and threats to survival, which informs our efforts to prioritize and test critical protections. EPIC also shares our data and techniques globally and participates on working groups to further the impact.

Research activities include:
• Direct monitoring of petrel populations at known nest areas including data tracking of nesting success of petrels on-the-ground at the only known nesting colonies in Hispaniola,
• Remote monitoring of nest area activity including the use of high-tech camera traps and song-meter acoustic recording units whose data are downloaded and analyzed,
• Monitoring of known petrel flyways with the use of RADAR technology,
• Tracking the flight patterns within flight corridors of migrating petrels as they move between the sea and mountain nest areas using RADAR technology,
• Expeditions to identify new petrel nest areas and flyways throughout the Caribbean region, using historic data to find promising locations, then RADAR technology to determine if there are Petrels present.
EPIC has led the way on several Petrel research initiatives and the program is led by one of the world’s experts on the endangered Black-capped Petrel, Adam Brown, who is also co-founder of EPIC.