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BC Conservation Data Centre: Species Summary


Ardenna grisea
Sooty Shearwater

 
Scientific Name: Ardenna grisea (Gmelin, 1789)
Scientific Name Synonyms: Puffinus griseus
English Name: Sooty Shearwater
 
Classification / Taxonomy
Scientific Name - Concept Reference: American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1998. Check-list of North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. [as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in The Auk]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.
Classification Level: Species
Species Group: Vertebrate Animal
Species Code: B-SOSH
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family
Animalia Craniata Aves Procellariiformes Procellariidae
   
Conservation Status / Legal Designation
Global Status: G5 (Oct 2025)
Provincial Status: SNRM (Mar 2015)
BC List: Not Reviewed
Provincial FRPA list:   
Provincial Wildlife Act:
COSEWIC Status:
SARA Schedule:
General Status Canada: 4 - Secure (2005)
Migratory Bird Convention Act: Y
   
Ecology & Life History
General Description:
Global Reproduction Comments: Breeds mostly during October-May in southern South America (Hilty and Brown 1986). Eggs are laid usually in late November. Clutch size is 1. Incubation lasts about 56 days. Chick remains in burrow for about 3 months; begins to fly at 100+ days after hatching (Terres 1980). Nests in colonies.
Global Ecology Comments: May form huge flocks in nonbreeding season. Often in loose flocks of a few to 50 or more birds (Costa Rica, Stiles and Skutch 1989).
Migration Characteristics:
(Global / Provincial)		 
    Nonmigrant:
    Local Migrant:
    Distant Migrant:
    Within Borders Migrant: 		N /
N /
Y /
na /
Global Migration Comments: Makes long transequatorial migrations between breeding and nonbreeding ranges, though some birds may spend the nonbreeding period south of the equator. Migrates along Atlantic coast of U.S. May-June; to Canada Labrador, and southern Greenland July-late September. Moves eastward out to sea in late northern summer. Millions of migrants occur off U.S. Pacific coast in northern spring and summer (Briggs and Chu 1986). Sporatically common to abundant off Pacific coast of Costa Rica mainly May-October (Stiles and Skutch 1989).
Habitats:
(Type / Subtype / Dependence)
Global Habitat Comments: Pelagic. In spring and summer off California, concentrates in relatively shallow, cool waters, especially where strong thermal gradients mark the edge of upwellings (Briggs and Chu 1986). Nests in burrows on islands.
Food Habits: Invertivore: Adult, Immature
Piscivore: Adult, Immature
Global Food Habits Comments: Feeds on small fishes, squids, and crustaceans. Also eats offal thrown overboard from ships. Feeds on food items made available by feeding of small tuna in eastern Tropical Pacific (Au and Pitman 1986).
Global Phenology:
Provincial Phenology:
(1st half of month/
2nd half of month)
Colonial Breeder: Y
Length(cm)/width(cm)/Weight(g): 4/ / 787
Elevation (m) (min / max): Global: 
Provincial: 
   
 
Distribution
Endemic: N
Global Range Comment: BREEDS: on islands off southeastern Australia, New Zealand, and southern South America (Wollaston and Deceit, probably also Huafo and Mocha, off Chile; off Tierra del Fuego; Falkland Islands). RANGES: at sea widely in Pacific and Atlantic Oceans; north to southern Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands in Pacific and to Labrador and Greenland in Atlantic; fairly common off east coast of North America, abundant off west coast (National Geographic Society 1983).
 
Authors / Contributors
Global Information Author: HAMMERSON, G.
Last Updated: Sep 05, 1995
Provincial Information Author:
Last Updated:
   
References and Related Literature
American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1983. Check-list of North American Birds, 6th edition. Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, Kansas. 877 pp.
Au, D. W. K., and R. L. Pitman. 1986. Seabird interactionswith dolphins and tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific. Condor 88:304-317.
Briggs, K. T., and E. W. Chu. 1986. Sooty shearwaters off California: distribution, abundance and habitat use. Condor 88:355-364.
Campbell, R.W., N.K. Dawe, I.McT. Cowan, J.M. Cooper, G. Kaiser, and M.C.E. McNall. 1990. The Birds of British Columbia, Vol. 1. Nonpasserines: Introduction, Loons through Waterfowl. Royal B.C. Mus. in association with Environ. Can., Can. Wildl. Serv. 514pp.
DeGange, A. R., and R. H. Day. 1991. Mortality of seabirds in the Japanese land-based gillnet fishery for salmon. Condor 93:251-258.
Godfrey, W.E. 1966. The birds of Canada. National Museums of Canada. Ottawa. 428 pp.
Hilty, S.L. and W. L. Brown. 1986. A Guide to the Birds of Colombia. Princeton University Press, Princeton, USA. 836 pp.
King, W. B. 1984. Incidental mortality of seabirds in gillnets in the North Pacific. Pages 709-715 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.
Lensink, C. J. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds in Alaska. Pages 13-27 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Publ. No. 2.
Melville, D. S. 1984. Seabirds of China and the surrounding seas. Pages 501-511 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.
National Geographic Society (NGS). 1983. Field guide to the birds of North America. National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.
Robertson, C. J. R., and B. D. Bell. 1984. Seabird status and conservation in the New Zealand region. Pages 573-586 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.
Schlatter, R. P. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds in Chile. Pages 261-269 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Publ. No. 2.
Stiles, F. G. and A. F. Skutch. 1989. A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, USA. 511 pp.
Terres, J. K. 1980. The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Van Loben Sels, R. C., and L. J. Vitt. 1984. Desert lizard reproduction: seasonal and annual variation in Urosaurus ornatus (Iguanidae). Can. J. Zool. 62:1779-1787.
 

Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for definitions of the data fields used in this summary report.

Suggested Citation:

B.C. Conservation Data Centre. 1995. Species Summary: Ardenna grisea. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jun 8, 2026).