Today I met some conservationists who were out in a search for this bird to do a 'head count' of how many they still had in their area. I only spent some of the day with them so I don't know the total they counted, but they were telling me that overall in the world there are only about 3 million of these birds left. They told me about what the main problems and reasons as to the birds falling numbers. The biggest problem is that the white chinned petrel has some characteristics that mean that they end up in prime fishing spots at the wrong times, so they end up being by-catch. They have no real safe place or time as they have been reported all year round as being by-catch somewhere. They have started cutting this down by creating bird-scaring lines, streamer lines and night-set lines and these have all been having a good outcome. They have cut down the number of the birds become by-catch by 14,700 from 2003 to 2009. What the conservationists were saying was that the birds have a very diverse living area. This makes it hard to prevent by-catching of the white chinned petrel. So at the moment we are going to have to deal with cutting down the numbers in important places such as breeding habitats and so on.
I was very privileged to have met those conservationists today as they have told me great problems that many endangered species are having in Chile. This really opened my eyes to greater problems. In my other countries I am also going to look at different endangered species and compare but mainly contrast the problems different climates and places can create in animals lives.
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