Seabirds around fishing vessels

Little penguin

Eudyptula minor

The blue penguin is the most common penguin in New Zealand. It breeds on New Zealand’s main and offshore islands. The species is relatively difficult to detect when conducting vessel-based bird counts. Based on their distribution, blue penguin are most likely to be detected in inshore fisheries.

Eudyptula minor
CC-BY, Dragonfly Science

Mean number of little penguin 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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