Photo by Tom Oberbauer, © 1999. All rights reserved.
Isla Guadalupe Pines

            Giant, ancient pine tress (note people standing at base of tree for scale) are all that remain along the cloud-swept north ridge of this remote Mexican Island. Wild feral goats eat all the fallen pine cones or seedlings, and unless the goats are removed, these trees will become extinct when the remaining ones die of old age. It is among the roots of these trees that the Guadalupe Storm-Petrel, thought to be extinct, dug its nesting burrows. The Guadalupe 2000 expedition will endeavor to determine if any Storm-Petrels survived the predation of feral cats.