Within the UAE, the species is potentially impacted by oil and other marine pollution such as plastics, but the severity of these threats are essentially unknown.Across its global range, a suite of other threats have been identified, which could have an impact on individuals that visit UAE:The species is at risk from incidental capture in longline, trawl and gill-net fisheries and suffers the additional effects of depletion of prey stocks (Uhlmann 2003). The species is also subject to direct persecution, and harvesting of young birds ('muttonbirding') currently accounts for the take of around a quarter of a million birds annually (del Hoyo et al. 1992, Heather and Robertson 1997, Newman et al. 2008, 2009), but is unlikely to account for the scale of the observed decline. Investigation into the biological impact of climatic trends led to predictions of large-scale shifts in foraging distribution during the boreal summer and/or dramatic reductions in abundance and survival rate (Ainley et al. 1995, Veit et al. 1996, 1997, Spear and Ainley 1999, Wahl and Tweit 2000, Oedekoven et al. 2001, Hyrenbach and Veit 2003), and indeed it has now been noted that climate change is affecting the foraging distribution of this species at least along the Californian coast (Veit et al. 1997). Declines at monitored breeding sites appear to be linked to changed patterns in large scale oceanic cycles which reduce prey availability (Clucas 2011). Both Brown Rat Rattus norvegicus and House Rat R. rattus are present within the species breeding range, and although egg and chick predation by rats has been demonstrated, the extent of impact is unknown (Jones et al. 2008).