Ceramic nest modules for threatened seabird habitat in Channel Islands National Park.

Following on the success of the Año Nuevo Island habitat restoration project, MoreLab and Nathan Lynch again collaborated with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge to created a ceramic nest module for the Ashy Storm Petrel, a heavily predated seabird that makes its habitat in the Channel Islands, a National Park off the Coast of central California.

Collaborating with Michelle Hester, Executive Director of Oikonos, and a team of biologists from the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, we developed a three-nest module that is heavy enough to keep the Storm Petrel’s main predator, the Raven, from gaining entry, while also providing a module that is widely adaptable to the various cracks and crevasses the Storm Petrels call home. Ten modules were deployed in March 2014. If all goes well, we will create a great deal more modules to deploy throughout the national park, to support critical habitat for this important and threatened seabird.