PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY
The red-billed gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae scopulinus), also known as tarapunga, is native to New Zealand including the Chatham Islands and subantarctic islands.
It is now usually treated as a subspecies of the silver gull, Australia’s most common gull.
Nationally, tarapunga are in decline but, according to NZ Birds Online, with predator control on Otago Peninsula, red-billed gulls numbers have risen 6%-10% annually in the 20 years since 1992, leading to a three- or four-fold increase in the local population.
