Action

Action Synopsis: Bird Conservation About Actions

Provide supplementary food for petrels to increase reproductive success

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    19%
  • Certainty
    14%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

A replicated controlled study in Australia found that Gould’s petrel Pterodroma leucoptera chicks provided with supplementary food had very similar fledging rates to both control and hand-reared birds, but were significantly heavier than other birds.

 

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A replicated, controlled study on Cabbage Tree Island, New South Wales, Australia, in 1995 (Priddel & Carlile 2001), found that the fledging rate of 30 Gould’s petrel Pterodroma leucoptera chicks provided with supplementary food was identical to that of control (unmoved, parent-fed) birds and not significantly different from translocated and hand-reared chicks (29/30 fed chicks fledged vs. 30/30 translocated chicks and 29/30 controls). Fed chicks were also heavier than both translocated and control chicks. Approximately 25 g of supplementary food was provided every three days, in addition to parent-provided food, starting at approximately three months old and continued until fledging. This study is also discussed in ‘Provide artificial nesting sites’, ‘Translocate individuals’ and ‘Artificially incubate and hand-rear birds in captivity’.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Williams, D.R., Child, M.F., Dicks, L.V., Ockendon, N., Pople, R.G., Showler, D.A., Walsh, J.C., zu Ermgassen, E.K.H.J. & Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Bird Conservation. Pages 137-281 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2020. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.

 

Where has this evidence come from?

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Bird Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Bird Conservation
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What Works in Conservation provides expert assessments of the effectiveness of actions, based on summarised evidence, in synopses. Subjects covered so far include amphibians, birds, mammals, forests, peatland and control of freshwater invasive species. More are in progress.

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