Klein Curacao, a flat 130-hectare coral island about 10 km southeast of Curacao, was left bare by guano mining and overgrazing by goats and sheep. Feral goats were removed in the 1990s and cats in October 2001, while native planting ran from 2000 to 2005. For decades, the Least Tern was the only seabird confirmed breeding there. According to the study published in ResearchGate, titled ‘ A case study of sea and shorebird breeding recovery following goat and cat eradication on Klein Curacao, southern Caribbean ’, surveys in 2021 and 2022 then confirmed eight further sea and shorebird species. Documented nesting rose from 140 pairs of a single species in 2002 to more than 430 pairs in 2021 and 650 pairs in 2022.
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