Following the Shearwaters

Milford Sound, New Zealand. Photo: GFNMS

By Carol Preston

New Zealand Wildlife & Wonders Tour: November 8 – 21, 2009

Experience firsthand the global connection between our own Gulf of the Farallones upwelling ecosystem and exotic New Zealand. Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is collaborating with EuroPanache to offer a series of educational field trips accompanied by scientists and naturalists to explore global wildlife connections in some of the major upwelling regions in the world.

In November of 2009, our first such trip will provide a unique opportunity to follow the Sooty Shearwaters that feed in the Gulf of the Farallones upwelling ecosystem back to their nesting grounds in a wild, remote and spectacular area in New Zealand. This two-week trip will also include visits to forests dripping with moss, waterfalls, gorges, glaciers, and of course, night walks to spot New Zealand’s iconic kiwi.

Fiordland Crested penguins, fur seals, albatrosses, whales and dolphins are just some of the wildlife we will encounter. The Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association is supporting these educational tours by making these opportunities available to their members.

During the Northern Hemisphere’s late summer, millions of Sooty shearwaters migrate eight thousand miles from New Zealand to the Gulf of the Farallones to feed on the abundant food available from our upwelling season. Usually, from March through August, cold water wells up from the deep and delivers nutrients. Upwelled nutrients fertilize sunlit surface waters along our coast, nourishing blooms of plantlike plankton (phytoplankton) that form the foundation of the ocean’s food web.

In good upwelling years, when the wind and ocean currents are just right, giant blooms of microscopic phytoplankton cloud the Gulf. Phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton and fishes, which in turn provide a feast for seabirds, seals, whales, sharks and humans.

The California Current along our coast is one of just four major coastal upwelling ecosystems in the world. These four upwelling ecosystems support huge food webs. The other three major upwelling systems are driven by the Benguela Current along the coast of South Africa; the Canaries Current off the coast of Morocco; and the Humboldt Current off the coast of Chile and Peru.

Together these regions make up only about one percent of our world’s oceans but account for well over 50% of the marine life. These biological hotspots offer incredible opportunities to see how climatic patterns are affecting some of the most diverse marine life on our planet.

Let this specially developed travel experience to New Zealand upwell your spirit and imagination. For more information on the special Farallones Sanctuary/New Zealand Wildlife and Wonders Tour click here:

 

Franz Joseph Glacier, New Zealand. Photo: GFNMS