Seabirds around fishing vessels

Storm petrels

Six species of storm petrels and white-faced storm petrels can be seen in New Zealand waters, and five of them are known or suspected to breed there. They include the recently rediscovered New Zealand petrel (Pealeornis maoriana) whose breeding location is still unknown, but is suspected to be around Hauraki Gulf. Due to their small size and black and white plumage, the different species of storm petrels are difficult to distinguish from each other, and the distribution presented here is for all species combined.

Hydrobatidae
CC-BY, Dragonfly Science

Mean number of storm petrels recorded around fishing vessels during counts carried out by government observers, binned to 0.4 degree of longitude and latitude. The size of the circle indicates the number of observations, whereas the colour indicates the mean number of birds recorded during counts. Empty circles indicate that no birds were observed. The grey areas indicate water depths of less than 1000 m.

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