Mark W. BRABYN
Tour Guide Operator
New Zealand Nature Safaris was founded in 1993 by
Mark Brabyn. His dream was to use tourism to support conservation. Mark was
inspired by his love of tramping in New Zealand's wild places and his
passionate interest in wildlife. His tramping experiences started with family
and club trips in the hills around Wellington and progressed to adventures in
the South Island mountains. He studied zoology at university and researched the
enigma of whale strandings, then assisted with overseas research projects
including killer whales and bald eagles in Alaska, elephants and chimpanzees in
Uganda. Mark wanted to share his appreciation of nature and to motivate people
to care about the special places, plants and animals on our planet.
Mark bought a minibus, printed some simple brochures,
and began guiding safaris in the South Island. In 1994 his friend Malcolm
O'Neill started running the North Island safaris. Mark and Malcolm built up the
business and employed other guides, seeking people with extensive outdoor
experience, a wide range of skills and lots of enthusiasm. Safari itineraries
have been modified and new trips added in a process of continual improvement.
Today our most popular Hiking Safaris have weekly
departures during the summer season and we run around 90 safaris each year. We
have expanded our business to include selling excellent trips run by other New
Zealand operators enabling us to provide a greater diversity of experiences
catering for a wider range of people. We now use the name Hiking New Zealand
because it describes more accurately the focus of our trips making it easier
for people to find us.
Our dream to put something back into conservation is
now reality with the founding of the NZ Wildlife Research Fund in 1998. Each year
we make a substantial donation to support conservation research on Hectors
dolphins.
http://www.hikingnewzealand.com
WHALE WATCHER
Observations on Whale Strandings:
- Correlation between stranding sites and magnetic minima
were also identified along the east coast of the United States (Kirschvink
1990), while in New Zealand, no relationship could be found between
magnetic fields and locations of either mass or solitary strandings
(Brabyn & Frew 1994).
Gently sloping sandy beaches, often with an adjacent sand spit or peninsula are common to many mass stranding sites world-wide (Brabyn & McLean 1992). - Other oceanographic and geomorphological
characteristics, including complex topography, nearshore intrusions of
deep water, funnel shaped basins, turbidity, heavy surf, and wind-driven
onshore currents have been suggested to influence strandings [Best, 1982
#53; Brabyn, 1992 #63; Geraci, 1993 #61;
Smeenk, 1993 #154]. Some of these conditions may interfere with echolocation or give misleading echolocation signals [Brabyn, 1992 #63; Geraci, 1993 #61;
Publications:
- Brabyn, M. & Frew, R.V.C. (1994) New Zealand heard strandings sites do not relate to geomagnetic topography. Marine Mammal Science, 10, 195-207.
- Brabyn, M.W. & McLean, I.G. (1992) Oceanography and coastal topography of herd-stranding sites for whales in New Zealand. Journal of Mammalogy, 73, 469-476.
http://whale.wheelock.edu/archives/ask00/0067.html
Prepared by Bob Dalrymple, PO Box 122, Dapto, NSW Australia 2350
eMail: bob@relativelyyours.com