Bonaventure Island
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Bonaventure Island (officially île Bonaventure) is a Canadian island located 3.5 km off the southern coast of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, 5 km southwest of the village of Percé. Roughly circular in shape, it has an area measuring 4.16 km².
[edit] History
Bonaventure Island (Île Bonaventure), with Percé, was among the early seasonal fishing ports of New France, associated with the lineage of Nicolas Denys. The island became a migratory bird sanctuary in 1919 due to the 1916 Migratory Bird Convention between Canada and the United States. The province of Quebec acquired ownership of the entire island in 1971 renaming it Parc national de l'Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé (Bonaventure Island and Percé Rock National Park) in 1985. One of the largest and most accessible bird sanctuaries in the world with more than 280,000 birds, Bonaventure Island is a major tourist destination with boat and island tours from May to October.
The aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure was named after the island.
Historically, Ile Bizard, near Montréal and Laval, was called Ile Bonaventure until 1723 until its name was changed after Jacques Bizard obtained the island as a fief (seigneurie).
[edit] Birds
293 different species of birds have been recorded as visiting, migrating to, or living on Bonaventure island. The most common bird found on the island is the Northern Gannet. The island is home to the second-largest colony of gannets in the world, with over 30,000 nesting pairs. Other populous colonies include the Black-legged Kittiwake and the common murre. Seagulls, terns, black guillemots, auks, herring gulls, great black-backed gulls, razorbills, Leach's Storm-Petrels, great cormorants, double-crested cormorants, Atlantic puffins, boreal chickadees and Blackpoll warblers can also be observed on Bonaventure.
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