Gwennap Head identified steamships were wrecked, stranded or sank in the area. There have been none since 1923. The navigation markers feature as "the Cones of Runnel" in Hammond Innes's 1940 thriller "The Trojan Horse". Gwennap Head is part of the Porthgwarra to Pordenack Point Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) designated for its vegetation of waved maritime heath, and for being of considerable ornithological interest; especially for passage migrants. It is renowned for its relative abundance of passing marine bird species with many common species such as northern gannet ("Morus bassanus"), Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus"), common guillemot, ("Uria aalge"), razorbill ("Alca
Ron Scarlett the New Zealand owlet-nightjar, the Scarlett's duck (which was named by Storrs L. Olson), and the Hodgens' waterhen. The Scarlett's shearwater ("Puffinus spelaeus") described in 1994 by Richard N. Holdaway and Trevor H. Worthy is named in his honour too. Ron Scarlett belong to the founders of the New Zealand Archaeological Association which was established in 1954. He was also a member of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand where he has frequently written contributions for the quarterly scientific journal, "Notornis". In 1996 he was awarded an MBE for his services to science. Scarlett died at age 91 on 9