The Antarctic and the surrounding Southern Ocean are currently subject to rapid environmental changes and increasing anthropogenic impacts. Seabird populations often reflect those changes and so act as indicators of environmental variability. Their population trends may provide information on a variety of environmental parameters on the scale of years or decades. We therefore provide long-term data on the cape petrel (Daption capense) population from a long-term monitoring program on Fildes Peninsula, South Shetland Islands, Maritime Antarctic, an area of considerable human activity. Our data, covering a period of 36 years, indicate some variability, but no clear trend in the number of breeding pairs between the breeding seasons 1985 and 2006. However, beginning in the 2008 season, the population decreased significantly and reached a minimum in the 2020 season. The mean annual decrease between 2008 and 2020 was 10.6%. We discuss possible causes of this strong negative population trend. Anthropogenic disturbance only affects a few breeding sites in the area and is therefore unable, on its own, to explain the consistent population decline at all the breeding sites studied. We think it more likely that reduced food availability was the main cause of the drastic decline in the cape petrel population.

南极和周围的南大洋目前正遭受快速的环境变化和日益增加的人为影响。海鸟种群通常反映了这些变化，因此可以作为环境变化的指标。它们的人口趋势可以提供关于以年或几十年为尺度的各种环境参数的信息。因此，我们提供了海角海燕 ( Daption capense)的长期数据) 人口来自对南设得兰群岛南设得兰群岛的长期监测计划的人口，南极海上是人类活动相当多的地区。我们的数据覆盖了 36 年的时间，表明存在一定的变异性，但在 1985 年和 2006 年的繁殖季节之间，繁殖对的数量没有明显的趋势。然而，从 2008 年开始，种群数量显着减少，并在2020赛季。2008 年至 2020 年间的年均跌幅为 10.6%。我们讨论了这种强烈的负面人口趋势的可能原因。人为干扰仅影响该地区的少数繁殖地，因此无法单独解释所有研究繁殖地的人口持续下降。