About Leucocarbo carunculatus (Gmelin, 1789)
Leucocarbo carunculatus (Gmelin, 1789), commonly called the New Zealand king shag, is a large cormorant that measures 76 cm long and weighs 2.5 kg. It has black and white plumage, pink feet, and white patches on its wings that look like bars when the wings are folded. Yellow-orange swellings called caruncles are located above the base of its bill. Its grey gular pouch turns reddish during the breeding season, and a blue eye-ring shows its relationship to other blue-eyed shags. This species displays sexual dimorphism: males are larger than females, and this size difference is already noticeable 17 days after hatching. Prehistorically, New Zealand king shags lived in coastal colonies on both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand. Today, they are visible from Cook Strait ferries in Queen Charlotte Sound, opposite the start of the Tory Channel. They live and breed year-round in the coastal waters of the Marlborough Sounds across nine occupied colonies, and are non-migratory, only moving between these different colonies. The nine colonies are located at Stewart Island, Trio Island, The Twins, Duffers Reef, Blumine Island, Tawhitinui, Hunia Rock, Rahuinui, and White Rocks. The most frequently observed breeding colonies are Duffers Reef, North Trio Island (Kuru Pongi), White Rocks, and Tawhitinui. Annual surveys record fluctuating numbers of breeding pair nests across these colonies. North Trios (Kuru Pongi) and Duffer's Reef are the largest colonies, each holding over 100 nests. As of 2022, the total estimated population of this species is 792 individuals.
