The SOS Cagarro campaign aims to engage people and organizations in the rescue of Cory’s Shearwater fledglings disoriented by artificial lights in Azores. Using the data collected on Faial Island during the rescue campaigns from fifteen years (2005–2019), a new study examines the variations in body mass and body condition with respect to rescue date (a proxy of fledging date) and surface oceanic conditions using satellite imagery data. The results showed that late fledglings were in poorer body condition than early ones. Inter-annual variations in fledging body condition were observed but they were not related to surface oceanic conditions fluctuations. However, annual mean fledgling body condition was positively correlated with sea surface temperatures measured in the autumn of the previous year in a northern feeding area used by adults throughout the breeding season. This research can be useful to improve the management and success of the SOS Cagarro campaign, but also that of other rescue campaigns of seabird fledglings. Because body mass is especially important to their survival at sea as higher energy reserves give them more time to learn to feed efficiently, new actions or protocols can be developed in the rescue program. For example, when resources are limited, i.e., few volunteers and massive fallout, the rescue effort might focus on the birds with the greatest chance of survival, i.e., the fattest birds with more energy reserves. More info at: Cuesta-García et al. 2022. Targeting efforts in rescue programmes mitigating light-induced seabird mortality: First the fat, then the skinny. Journal for Nature Conservation
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October 2023
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