Zee and the Storm-Petrel
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Zee will be lying low in the coming months, while I head to New Zealand to sketch seabirds for a Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship. (See more Adventures of Zee.)
Here's one last sighting of Zee with the long-lost New Zealand Storm-Petrel. This little seabird, thought to be extinct for the entire 20th century, was recently found nesting on an island just 50 miles from New Zealand's biggest city.
The storm-petrel's tenuous recovery depends on ongoing conservation efforts, including constant vigilance to keep invasive cats and rats away from its breeding grounds.
Stay tuned to learn more about this storm-petrel and other seabirds of New Zealand, appropriately known as the "seabird capital of the world" (and as a global leader in saving these very important, very endangered animals!).
Endangered Not-a-Seagull
/This endangered black-billed gull debuted in my 2012 graduate thesis, titled “Don't Call It a Seagull," but is now a fitting ambassador for my next project on New Zealand seabird conservation.
Nat Geo & New Zealand!
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Left to right: Destry Maria Sibley, Isaí Madriz, Toby Cox, Lilly Sedaghat, And me. Photo by Randall Scott/National Geographic.
Off to New Zealand for nine months to sketch seabirds! I've been awarded a Fulbright-Nat Geo Storytelling Fellowship to write and illustrate stories about seabird conservation for National Geographic. Just finished a week at Nat Geo HQ in Washington, DC, where I presented my project and got trained. My four fellow Fellows are headed to Mexico, Chile, Kyrgyz Republic, and Taiwan.
Stay tuned for more info.