Boobies and gannets
Two Sulidae species breed in the New Zealand region, the Australasian gannet (Morrus serrator) and the masked booby (Morrus serrator). The former breeds on many islands and some headlands around the New Zealand coast and is common in coastal waters. The masked booby is rare and breeds in the New Zealand region only on Kermadec Islands. The distribution presented here represents both species.
Mean number of boobies and gannets 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.
| Data | Mean count |
|---|---|
| All data | 0.43 |
| Spring | 0.74 |
| Summer | 0.34 |
| Autumn | 0.20 |
| Winter | 0.15 |
| 2009 | 0.37 |
| 2010 | 0.31 |
| 2011 | 0.85 |
| 2012 | 0.01 |
| 2013 | 1.81 |
| 2014 | 0.13 |
| 2015 | 0.18 |
| 2016 | 0.47 |
| 2017 | 0.32 |
| 2018 | 0.23 |
| 2019 | 0.60 |
| 2020 | 0.31 |
| 2021 | 0.02 |
| 2022 | 0.00 |
