Researchers at DOC are tracking tākapu/Australasian gannets from the iconic Muriwai nesting colony to better understand their flight paths.
A coastal seabird, tākapu disperse widely to feed on squid and fish in waters over New Zealand's continental shelf, including harbours, estuaries and bays. Their detailed flightpaths have previously been unknown to researchers.
In October 2025, 15 tākapu from the Muriwai colony in West Auckland were fitted with a small 19 g tag carefully taped to their central tail feathers. The solar powered tags collect GPS location data every two minutes when the battery charge is high. The tags transmit data through the mobile network until the birds moult those tail feathers in 2026.
Graeme Taylor, Principal Science Advisor at the Department of Conservation (DOC), says we have a lot to learn about the movements of tākapu.
"This project is a first step towards better understanding how far gannets travel from the Muriwai colony, what flight paths they take and how regularly, which areas are the most important for them, and the heights they are flying at."
More than one thousand tākapu pairs breed every year from August to March in Muriwai. Viewing platforms just metres away helps visitors get naturing – the colony attracts hundreds of thousands of local and international visitors annually.
"We're interested in tākapu because they were identified as a species of concern in a risk assessment looking at potential impacts of offshore infrastructure, such as windfarms," Graeme says.
"Knowing details of their flights helps both industry and government understand the potential risks of offshore development and how best to mitigate these.
"We also want to better understand tākapu movement patterns to help predict possible transmission paths of bird flu if it reaches New Zealand."
The tracking data gathered so far shows the birds are travelling as far south as Port Waikato and north towards Dargaville Beach. A lot of birds are also going 40–60 km offshore to find food.
"Tākapu are known to circle up high over the ocean to locate shoals of fish, so we expect they might interact with offshore wind farms," Graeme says.
The Muriwai tākapu data will add to the knowledge base from a similar project tracking tākapu from the colony at Farewell Spit (at the tip of the South Island) last summer. The Farewell Spit birds flew as far north as Kawhia Harbour off Waikato's west coast and as far south as Ōkarito on the South Island's West Coast. These long-distance foraging trips were a surprise to the research team, who thought the birds would mainly stay in the Cook Strait area.
You can get naturing and visit the Muriwai gannets via Auckland Council's Maukatia Gannet Track.
