Wildlife rescuers were busy last weekend saving some 156 stranded Leach’s storm petrels, which are a type of seabird.
The effort was a collaboration between The Rock Wildlife Rescue, CPAWS, the Canadian Wildlife Service, and members of the public.
The birds, which are nocturnal, can become attracted to the lights on land and become stranded.
Karen Brown-Gosse of The Rock Wildlife Rescue says most of last weekend’s rescues came from Bay de Verde, which is the closest piece of land to Baccalieu Island.
She says they often see mass strandings when the birds can’t see the moon.
Gosse says their teams faced some complications when trying to re-release the petrels after they had been assessed.
She says Ragged Beach was “extremely windy” and so they had to bring the 156 petrels back to the rescue centre. By the next night, they had received another 63 birds. In total, two volunteers released nearly 220 birds that night.
