| any of several long-winged seabirds, often used as food, esp. Puffinus tenuirostris (short-tailed shearwater) of Australia and Puffinus griseus (sooty shearwater), which breeds in the Southern Hemisphere and winters in the Northern Hemisphere. |
muttonbird
any of several shearwaters (oceanic bird species), whose chicks are harvested commercially for meat and oil. The species principally utilized are the short-tailed, or slender-billed, shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris), in Australia and Tasmania, and the sooty shearwater (P. griseus), in New Zealand. Certain of the large petrels (Pterodroma species) are also harvested occasionally, as are some fulmars.
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