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
Black-vented shearwater central and southern California during the country's colder months. The black-vented shearwater is thought to feed on mainly small fish. This bird nests in burrows and caves; it is a colonial nester. In the past, this bird had been threatened by feral cats and other predators on its breeding islands, but the problem seems to have been largely eliminated. There is some loss of birds from commercial gill netting, and the species is classified as near threatened by the IUCN mainly due to the uncertain impact on it by the expanding fishing industry. Black-vented shearwater The black-vented shearwater ("Puffinus opisthomelas")