Seabirds around fishing vessels

Cape petrels

Daption capense

Cape petrels, also called Cape pigeons, are very abundant in New Zealand waters. Only the subspecies D. c. australe (Snares Cape petrel) breeds in New Zealand; over 8,000 pairs breed at The Snares, Bounty, Antipodes, Auckland, Campbell and Chatham islands. The subspecies D. c. capense (Southern Cape petrel) breeds on and around the Antarctic coastline, and also visits New Zealand waters. The two subspecies are very difficult to distinguish, and the distribution presented here is for them both together.

Daption capense
CC-BY, Dragonfly Science

Mean number of Cape 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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