The yelkouan shearwater was formally described in 1827 by the Italian naturalist Giuseppe Acerbi from specimens collected in the Bosphorus, Turkey.

The yelkouan shearwater is now placed in the genus Puffinus was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.

[12] The two living Mediterranean lineages had probably separated before the end of the Pliocene (c. 2 million years ago), as indicated by molecular differences and the putative direct ancestor of the Balearic shearwater, the Ibizan fossil Puffinus nestori from the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene.

It is silent at sea, but at night the breeding colonies are alive with raucous cackling calls, higher pitched and more drawn out than the Manx shearwater's.

It is very similar to the black-and-white Manx shearwater of the Atlantic, and stray birds out of their usual range are very difficult to identify with certainty.

On Le Levant Island, one of its major breeding locations, cats kill thousands of birds each year and it is estimated that this may lead to local extinction in several decades.

[15] The study of the Menorcan colony concluded that at least in these westernmost birds, genetic variation was extremely low, suggesting that the yelkouan shearwater may have suffered a marked population decline historically and thus, while not threatened judging from its absolute numbers, it could be vulnerable to adverse effects of inbreeding.