The Bermuda petrel (Pterodroma cahow) is a member of the Gadfly petrels, and it is among the 35 species of this genus. It is known by the name cahow in Bermuda, a name based on the eerie cries it has.
Several Bermuda petrels. Image by Richard Crossley, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Like you would expect from the name, this petrel is endemic to the Bermuda islands, a rather small group of islands found east of the United States in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
These days we can only find the Bermuda petrel on Castle Islands, some small islands and islets located in the south-eastern corner of Bermuda. These islands are part of the Castle Harbour Islands Nature Reserve, which was created to prevent the Bermuda petrel from going extinct (again).
Satellite image of the Bermuda islands. Image is Public Domain.
How the Bermuda petrel became “extinct”
The Bermuda petrel was believed to have been abundant on the Bermuda islands before the English settlers arrived in the early 1600s. At this point some sources claim that there were up to 500,000 birds on the islands, but their numbers decline rapidly once the settlers begun to live on the islands.
Not only were the birds directly hunted for food, but the settlers also brought animals such as rats, cats, pigs, and dogs, which all posed a threat to the petrels who lived in burrows on the ground.
You would not believe how fast the settlers managed to eradicate the entire species, and by the 1620s (so only 20 years!), no one could really find anymore Bermuda petrels, and at this point everyone just accepted the fact that they were extinct.
Rediscovery in 1951
Almost 350 years later, two scientists by the names Robert Cushman Murphy and Louis S. Mowbray traveled to the Bermuda islands and discovered a small remnant population on four different offshore islets.
Their original paper can actually be read online, and it includes black-and-white pictures of the birds they found. They were certain that this bird was in fact the Bermuda petrel, despite it being a species that had almost achievement a mythical status at that point.
There had been several false rediscoveries in the past, where scientists had misidentified another bird and claimed it to be a Bermuda petrel, but the discovery by Murphy and Mowbray was the first official rediscovery.
Once they were rediscovered, conservation programs quickly began, and this program managed to increase the 18 breeding pairs from the 1960s to a much higher number. I think that the Bermuda petrel was very lucky to get immediate recognition as a species that needed protection, because it might not have survived for much longer if it did not. While it might seem obvious to us today that it should receive protection, the conservation efforts in the 1950s and 60s were far from what they are today, so this was not a given fact at that time.
The Bermuda petrel’s status today
After it was rediscovered, the government on the island has taken action to protect it, and as mentioned above, they created the Castle Harbour Islands Nature Reserve in order to protect it. This area is actually prohibited to enter for the general public, unless you have special permission to do research on the islands. This area is also completely free of rats, one of the animals that were responsible for their initial decline.
A Bermuda petrel chick. Image by Depotgrl, posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Right now there are several different conservation efforts in place to take care of the species, and conservationists are working to increase their breeding sites, and thus eliminating the risk that is taken when a species only lives in a single area. However, the Bermuda islands are mostly filled up with houses and other structures, so there's not many suitable places for the birds anymore.
There was 117 registered breeding pairs during the consensus in 2017, so the population is still pretty small compared to most other species of bird. The IUCN Red List considers the species to be Endangered, meaning that it is not facing immediate threat of extinction right now. It is however completely dependent on conservation efforts to keep this status, and it would most likely go extinct rather soon if the islands were no longer protected.
Thanks for reading
I hope you enjoyed the post about the Bermuda petrel - the bird who did not go extinct after all! It's a pretty cool story in my opinion, and hopefully we will make another rediscovery like this in the future!
About 
Hey, I'm
Join the community!
community!I love nothing more than to engage with my readers, so please join the
I always reward users who post good comments, so please take the opportunity to share your views and get a small upvote in exchange for it.