{"id":180672,"date":"2025-12-12T19:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T19:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/180672\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T19:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T19:10:08","slug":"doc-tracks-muriwai-gannets-to-map-potential-bird-flu-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/180672\/","title":{"rendered":"DoC tracks Muriwai gannets to map potential bird flu spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October, 15 gannets from the colony in West Auckland had a small tag carefully taped to their central tail feathers.<\/p>\n

The solar-powered tags transmit their GPS location data every two minutes through the mobile network.<\/p>\n

DoC principal science adviser on marine issues Graeme Taylor said the tracking data gathered revealed the birds were travelling 40-60 kilometres offshore to find food, and could venture as far south as Port Waikato and north to Dargaville Beach for a meal.<\/p>\n

\"OverOver 1000 gannet pairs breed each year at Muriwai Beach. Photo \/ Michael Craig <\/p>\n

He said before this study they did not know anything about the movements of gannets from Muriwai and it was eye-opening to discover their activity.<\/p>\n

It was important to know how far New Zealand\u2019s gannet colonies moved in terms of distance to weigh up the risk of a bird flu outbreak, as overseas in the North Atlantic, tens of thousands of gannets had been wiped out by the sudden emergence of bird flu, he said.<\/p>\n

Bird flu is a contagious viral disease that causes mild to severe illness or sudden death in birds.<\/p>\n

Last year, a strain of bird flu on an Otago free-range chicken farm<\/a> led to 80,000 chickens being killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still a long way away. We\u2019re hopeful the longer it stays away, or if it never gets here, that\u2019d be great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AA gannet with a tag departing from the Muriwai colony. Photo \/ Erin Whitehead<\/p>\n

DoC has further concerns for how gannets might be impacted by offshore windfarm proposals across the country.<\/p>\n

The birds are known to circle up high over the ocean to locate shoals of fish in the distance, and this could put them within the zone where wind turbines are operating.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe classic gannet behaviour is they\u2019re up quite high circling around, they see a fish below, and do that really powerful dive plunging down to 15 plus metres deep,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When gannets shoot underwater they briefly shut their eyes and fold their wings right back over their tail, before swimming back up to the surface to consume the fish above the water.<\/p>\n

In foggy or stormy weather the gannets may be unable to see the wind turbine blades because of poor visibility.<\/p>\n

\"DoCDoC workers carry out the delicate process of attaching a tag to a gannet’s tail feathers. Photo \/ Erin Whitehead<\/p>\n

However, Taylor said it\u2019s not yet known if they will be smart enough to avoid the wind turbines completely.<\/p>\n

Scientists conducted a similar study on the gannet colony at Farewell Spit last summer and found the birds flew as far north as Kawhia Harbour off Waikato\u2019s west coast and as far south as \u014ckarito on the South Island\u2019s West Coast.<\/p>\n

These long-distance foraging trips were a surprise to the research team, who thought the birds would mainly stay in the Cook Strait area.<\/p>\n

The tracking of these 15 chosen gannets from Muriwai will continue until they moult their tail feathers in 2026.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October, 15 gannets from the colony in West Auckland had a small tag carefully taped to their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7972,35875,13083,1389,26034,22195,94796,1379,114948,134,5838,23226,42034,3180,111,139,69,17976,6046,49160,35108,383,61,26671,9202],"class_list":["post-180672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-beach","tag-bird","tag-chosen","tag-conservation","tag-department","tag-doc","tag-flock","tag-flu","tag-gannets","tag-health","tag-help","tag-map","tag-muriwai","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outbreak","tag-potential","tag-prevent","tag-spread","tag-study","tag-to","tag-tracking","tag-tracks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}