Thanks to 100+ donors and matched funding from the BNZ Foundation, funding for over 49 GPS trackers for tākoketai black petrels has been secured.
With support committed from the Lou and Iris Fisher Charitable Trust, the campaign exceeded its goal.
Biz Bell and her team will track chicks as they begin their first journey across the Pacific in May.
The story of the tākoketai black petrel is one of vulnerability and hope. Each year, newly fledged chicks embark on their first extraordinary migration. They take off from their home in the Hauraki Gulf and fly 1,000’s of kms across the Pacific to Ecuadorian waters. Yet fewer than 10% return, and much about their journey remains a mystery.
Sleek and entirely black, with an impressive 1.1 metre wingspan, these endemic seabirds were once widespread across Te Ika-a- Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Today, they nest only on Aotea Great Barrier Island and Te Hauturu-o-Toi Little Barrier Island.
After spending several years roaming the open ocean, these small but resilient voyagers return home to breed, pairing up for life and digging burrows close to the very spot they hatched – some even attempt to move back in with their parents!
With only around 5,000 breeding pairs remaining, the tākoketai is one of our most at-risk seabirds, facing threats from fishing bycatch, predation, light pollution and habitat loss.
Protecting them is vital not only because they are unique to Aotearoa, but because as a sentinel species, their fate reflects the health of the wider ocean they depend on.
Special thank you to the Lou and Iris Fisher Charitable Trust for committing to help us exceed our goal, taking us to $24,850!
With every dollar matched by our friends at the BNZ Foundation, we are so excited to announce that funding for just over 49 GPS trackers has been secured, making this the largest black petrel tracking programme ever seen.
Biz Bell and her research team at Wildlife Management International, will be able to purchase these trackers for this summer’s black petrel chicks, ready for when they take their first flight across the Pacific in May.
Stay tuned for updates as these chicks hatch and grow, before we follow their journey towards Ecuador.
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