Seabirds around fishing vessels

Fairy prion

Pachyptila turtur

The fairy prion is the smallest and most common prion in New Zealand waters. It breeds on many islands around New Zealand. Despite having a breeding population estimated to be over one million pairs, New Zealand has only 50% of the world population of this species. Prion species are very difficult to distinguish from each other at sea, and some observers might record prions as being fairy prion because this is the most abundant species.

Pachyptila turtur
CC-BY, Dragonfly Science

Mean number of fairy prion 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.

Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map Map