ZECO TRAVEL TALK

We are delighted to welcome Simon Bellingham to the expedition leader team! Simon developed a passion for wildlife as a young child growing up in rural Zimbabwe where he fostered his love of the bush during holidays in remote regions such as Mana Pools National Park. Although he went on to obtain a Master’s Degree in Chiropractic, his passion for nature could not keep him away from the lure of the wilderness and he soon resigned from the comforts of life as a doctor for a career in wildlife. Read more

It’s not often that the partners of Zegrahm Expeditions visit a place where none of us have ever been. So when the Clipper Odyssey pulled into the Chatham Islands, our final destination on the inaugural Wild Edge of the Pacific trip, the excitement was palpable.

The previous evening, while sailing in from Gisborne (on the “mainland,” as the Chatham Islanders prefer to call the North Island), had given the birders a taste of what lay in store when we’d encountered a single magenta petrel. The sighting of this almost mythical species, one of two critically endangered seabirds restricted to the Chatham group, occurred at the end of an entire day’s sea-watching from the deck… and in the middle of a staff meeting! Peter and I emerged to find a small posse of hardened birders, their expressions a mixture of delight and apology. Read more

Dr. Jack Grove, Zegrahm Expeditions’ cofounder and expedition leader, recently contributed to a report that outlines how climate change, overfishing, and tourism have negatively impacted the Galapagos Islands’ delicate ecosystem. In just a few decades, 45 Galapagos species are thought to have already disappeared or are teetering on the verge of extinction. The report was originally published in the scientific journal, Global Change Biology, and has been picked up by BBC News and circulated by Metropolitan Touring in Quito, Ecuador, among other news sources. Read the full text from the BBC article.

In addition to Jack’s work on this ground-breaking white paper, he also contributed to Tui De Roy’s, Galapagos: Preserving Darwin’s Legacy. This book is an authoritative, up-to-date survey from a variety of authors and researchers on the natural history, ecology and conservation of the Galapagos. Read the book review here. Read more

In late November, just before departing for our epic Fiji to Chatham voyage aboard the Clipper Odyssey, Peter Harrison described the epic rediscovery of three “lost” seabird species. Two of these, the almost mythical Fiji petrel and the similarly rare Vanuatu petrel, both unrecorded by ornithologists for over a century, survive around the tropical islands of Fiji and Vanuatu respectively, while the third, the New Zealand storm petrel, was known from only three specimens collected in the 1800s… until its dramatic rediscovery in the cool waters of the Hauraki Gulf North of Auckland in early 2003.

When we created the itinerary for this inaugural journey to the Kermadecs a few years ago, Peter went on to suggest that passengers who combined these two southwestern Pacific voyages might have a chance of seeing all three species. It was upon that revelation that I realized I just HAD to be on these voyages!

Approaching the Chatham Islands at the end of the first of two Wild Edge voyages, I am happy to report what can only be described as spectacular success so far: Read more

Our first-ever Wild Edge of the Pacific expedition will voyage some of the most remote island groups in the world. Extremely isolated and rarely visited, these wild outposts offer a safe haven to many rare and endemic species. Beginning our voyage in Fiji, it will take a full two days to reach our next destination, the Kermadec Islands. With so many seabirds traveling in the Clipper Odyssey’s wake these days at sea are a thrilling time to be on deck, observing Pacific Ocean specialties such as dark-phased wedge-tailed shearwaters, black-winged petrels, white-necked petrels, and black noddies.

It was during this time at sea that an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime sighting was made—on December 1, 2009, at 21° 32´ S, 179° 18´ W, at a water depth of 12,000 feet, water temperature 76.2 °F—two Fiji petrels were seen. Read more

Zegrahm Expeditions Program Manager and wildlife enthusiast, Ted Kenefick, recently traveled to Brazil’s Pantanal: read his “report from the field” below.

Pantanal. The rough translation from Portuguese to English is less than romantic— “swampland.” To me, Pantanal means—magic. I had traveled to the region several years ago and as I concluded my trip and passed underneath the sign marking the start of the Transpantaneira Road and the entrance to the Brazilian Pantanal, I vowed to return.

In October of 2009, I made the return trip. As I write on a rainy autumn evening in Seattle, my thoughts drift south, far south to this place of miraculous sunsets, vistas of open space stretching to all horizons, and a myriad of wildlife. Surely a visit to the Pantanal is one of the greatest natural history experiences of the Western Hemisphere, perhaps even on the entire planet, but somehow knowledge of this place seems to have “flown under the radar.” Read more

This species has, quite literally, come “back from the dead.” Considered to be extinct for over 150 years this species was recently rediscovered. This gives the New Zealand storm petrel iconic status in the bird world. People are well familiar with the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker and recent claims for its continued survival are now thought very doubtful. A happier story is that of the Bermuda (or cahow) petrel, once thought to be extinct but now rescued from the abyss of extinction by the work of David Wingate. Interestingly, in recent years, three birds—all seabird species—have reappeared from the black hole of extinction. The New Zealand storm petrel is one of them. The other two, Beck’s petrel and Fiji petrel, were photographed just weeks ago off Vanuatu and Fiji.

The upcoming Zegrahm expeditions—Wild Edge of the Pacific and New Zealand to New Guinea—give potential opportunity for seeing all three of these “back from the dead” species. Stay tuned for updates on the Zegrahm blog.

Click here to read a first-hand account of the New Zealand petrel’s rediscovery.

This recently published book by Rodney Russ & Aleks Terauds is a comprehensive study of the seven oceanic island groups to the south and east of New Zealand. Each chapter features a different island with descriptions of the flora, fauna, geography, geology, human history, and glorious color photographs. More than just a coffee-table book, the authors leave no stone unturned when it comes to describing the wonders of these unique islands. Read more