A 19th Century Stormwrecked Black-Capped Petrel From Vermont Offers Insight Into Historical Vagrancy Processes

Abstract

Specimens stored within museum collections are increasingly leveraged to reconstruct historical baselines to both decipher the legacies of past anthropogenic impacts and anticipate the consequences of future climate change on species distributions. However, the research significance of such collections can be severely constrained based on their curation histories, resulting in data being forgotten, if not lost entirely. In this Nature Note, we report the unexpected presence of a mislabeled Black-capped Petrel (Pterodroma hasitata) specimen in the historical Middlebury College Vertebrate Natural History collection, potentially representing the rediscovery of a lost specimen reported from Vermont following the 1893 New York City Hurricane. We conducted archival research at multiple institutions to substantiate the reporting of a Black-capped Petrel specimen that was “missing” from Vermont in 1893, as noted in the Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas. We further substantiated the 19th-century age of this specimen through X-ray fluorescence analysis of mercury and arsenic of more than 200 whole bird bodies and feathers across the majority of the Middlebury College collection as part of an environmental health and safety assessment. This record expands the known vagrant range of the Black-capped Petrel. This research likewise highlights the critical role of small museum collections play in piecing together historical datasets and informing modern conservation, emphasizing the importance of their preservation and digitization.