Few humans get to see a Cahow up close. The birds are pelagic, spending much of their lives over the open ocean.
AS A LATE-JANUARY GALE BEARS DOWN on Bermuda, Jeremy Madeiros stares anxiously at his computer. A livestream shows hurricane-force winds and waves battering a tiny limestone island. The rock looks uninhabited, but Madeiros knows better. Dozens of critically endangered Cahows—some of the rarest seabirds on Earth—are nesting there in subterranean burrows. If the island floods, their fragile eggs could wash out to sea. That would be a setback for the birds, whose global population only recently surpassed 350. It would also be a headache for Madeiros, who’s responsible for keeping them alive.
Madeiros is the principal scientist for terrestrial conservation in Bermuda, the only place in the world where Cahows nest. That makes him the caretaker for the entire species, a job that’s equal parts ornithologist, helicopter parent, and stuntman. And Cahows, also known as Bermuda Petrels, need all the help they can get. The docile, ground-nesting creatures have flirted with extinction for centuries. They’ve been devoured by rats, cats, dogs, hogs, and humans; assailed by tropicbirds; ravaged by DDT; and most recently menaced by climate change as hurricanes have grown stronger and sea levels have risen.
The petrels’ keeper has adopted extreme measures to help them, breaking with the hands-off style of his forebear and decades of Bermuda tradition. Madeiros has been accused of meddling too much, taking risks that might extinguish the species for good. But he believes that, on a warming planet, conservationists are running out of options that don’t involve an aggressive, hands-on approach.
A week after the storm, Madeiros welcomed me aboard the , a 17-foot Boston Whaler. The 62-year-old sported his de facto uniform: slip-on leather shoes, tan work pants, and the official blue windbreaker of the Bermuda Department
