35 articles
Granite headlands, golden sand and golden kelp: New Zealand's smallest national park meets scallop country at the top of the South Island.
Tom Okafor ·
South of New Zealand lie wind-torn islands wrapped in some of Earth's densest kelp forests. A guide to the Auckland and Campbell islands' wild underwater world.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Plunging from thirty metres at highway speed, the Australasian gannet runs the baitfish economies of southern kelp coasts. Meet Morus serrator, the takapu.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A Coastal Atlas guide to the Bay of Plenty — golden kelp at its warm limit, volcanic islands, subtropical fish visitors, Moutohorā's sanctuary, seasons and how to see it all.
Tom Okafor ·
800 km east of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands sit in the Roaring Forties: southern bull kelp, rock lobster, Moriori heritage and the Chatham Rise.
Tom Okafor ·
Between New Zealand's two islands, ferocious tides mix subtropical and subantarctic water into kelp reefs of rare variety — Wellington to the Marlborough Sounds.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
A Coastal Atlas guide to the Coromandel Peninsula — golden kelp reefs, the Cathedral Cove marine reserve, kina barren science, offshore islands, visibility seasons and access.
Tom Okafor ·
Beneath Milford Sound's dark freshwater layer lies a shallow reef of black corals and kelp. How to dive Piopiotahi: operators, seasons, gear and the signature sites.
Tom Okafor ·
Milford, Doubtful and Dusky: a guide to Fiordland's drowned glacial fjords, where a dark freshwater lid hides kelp forests and shallow-growing black coral.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Aotea Great Barrier Island guards the outer Hauraki Gulf — golden kelp reefs, kina barrens, dark skies and a community living at the edge of Auckland's weather.
Tom Okafor ·
Endemic to New Zealand, the green-lipped mussel filters big southern water, builds reef — and anchors one of the world's most admired shellfish farms.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Kaikōura packs a submarine canyon, sperm whales and bull kelp into one coastline — and the 2016 earthquake that lifted its reefs rewrote them in a night.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Kapiti Island rises out of Cook Strait's tidal machinery — a predator-free bird sanctuary above water, and protected kelp reefs, seals and blue cod below.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
1,000 km northeast of Auckland, the Kermadec Islands hold kelp at its warm edge — volcanoes, tropical fish and one of New Zealand's great marine reserves.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
About a kilogram of slate-blue determination, the little penguin fishes southern Australia's kelp coasts by day and comes ashore by dark. Meet Eudyptula minor.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Marbled, thick-lipped and built to crop kelp: the marblefish of New Zealand and southern Australia, a herbivore with the reef's strangest tools.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds are drowned river valleys where kelp beds, mussel farms, dolphins and a famous shipwreck share startlingly calm water.
Tom Okafor ·
The Otago Peninsula stacks a mainland albatross colony, sea lions and penguins above forests of giant kelp and rimurapa. A guide to New Zealand's wildlife headland.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Off New Zealand's Tutukaka Coast, the Poor Knights Islands protect the clearest, warmest kelp forests in the country — and fish that belong to a warmer sea entirely.
Tom Okafor ·
A coastal atlas guide to New Zealand's subantarctic islands — surf-gripped bull kelp, endemic penguins and parakeets, sea lion recovery, and the mouse eradication that worked.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Granite islands wrapped in storm-built bull kelp, penguins found nowhere else and no landings allowed: inside the Snares Islands' kelp coast, 200 km south of Bluff.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Southern bull kelp (Durvillaea) grips the roughest surf coasts on Earth with the strongest holdfast of any kelp. Honeycomb blades, Māori pōhā, ocean rafting.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Taputeranga Marine Reserve, the Island Bay snorkel trail, orcas in the strait: a guide to Wellington's kelp-fringed south coast, ten minutes from the CBD.
Tom Okafor ·
Pāua, New Zealand's iridescent abalone, is a taonga species, a prized kaimoana and a carefully managed fishery. Its biology and cultural story.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Bladder kelp beds, a storied pāua fishery, tea-coloured inlets and daylight kiwi: a guide to Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand's southern kelp coast.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Eroded volcano harbours, Hector's dolphins, bull kelp and pāua reefs: a field guide to Banks Peninsula and Akaroa, Canterbury's wild maritime backyard.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Goat Island — Cape Rodney–Okakari Point — was New Zealand's first marine reserve and remains its finest shore dive: big snapper, crayfish and golden kelp in five metres.
Tom Okafor ·
Kekeno — the New Zealand fur seal — was hunted nearly to extinction by the early 1800s, then recovered under protection. Ecology, biology and where to see them.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Foveaux Strait runs shallow and fast between the South Island and Rakiura — a coastal atlas guide to its bull kelp reefs, Bluff oysters, great whites and shipwreck coast.
Tom Okafor ·
Dunedin's doorstep grows forests of giant kelp and southern bull kelp, patrolled by sea lions and hoiho penguins. A guide to Otago's cold southern reefs.
Tom Okafor ·
Kina is Aotearoa's endemic sea urchin — treasured kaimoana, a kelp grazer, and the engineer behind New Zealand's barren reefs. Here is its biology and its story.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Northland is New Zealand's subtropical-temperate crossover — Ecklonia radiata reefs, kina barrens, the Poor Knights, and reserves that showed how reefs recover.
Tom Okafor ·
Dive beneath the dark freshwater layer of Milford and Doubtful Sounds, where black corals grow at snorkelling depths. Access, seasons, sites and safety.
Tom Okafor ·
The greenbone — also called butterfish — is New Zealand's own kelp grazer, a beak-toothed odacid that changes sex, varies in colour, and moves kelp energy into fish.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The Catlins is New Zealand's most overlooked kelp coast — bull kelp surf fringes, rare sea lions, yellow-eyed penguins and a Jurassic forest under the tide.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·