NATURE DIARY

Hazardous hot-water bottle

Winter is not here yet but already many of you will have snuggled into bed with a hot-water bottle filled with boiling water. I’m recovering from a serious burn to my thigh and hip from a split hot-water bottle after doing just that.

The shock and ongoing pain have made me vow never to use a hot water bottle ever again! Is there any other safety warning that gets so blatantly ignored?

Also, did you know there is an expiry date number stamped on the neck of the hottie? Please check yours and throw it out if it is past its use-by date. I discovered mine ran out in 2018.

foreshadowed by our important trading partners. Efficient mitigation/reduction of our emissions goes hand in hand with adaptation.

The pursuit of zero carbon

SUBMITTED BY CYNTHIA McCONVILLE

Immortalised by Beatrix Pottter’s Mrs Tiggywinkle , the European Hedgehog is often overlooked and underestimated as a pest. Described as having a voracious appetite, hedgehogs are having a devastating effect on our wildlife. When it comes to eliminating them in New Zealand researchers identified a psychological barrier to eradication. A problem they dubbed “the Beatrix Potter effect.”

The European hedgehog first arrived in New Zealand in 1894 when a Mr Cunningham of Merivale, Christchurch imported 12 British hedgehogs in exchange for 12 weka.

During their first night ashore the hedgehogs escaped and became the progenitors of all our hedgehogs.

New Zealand is a hedgehog paradise. A plentiful food supply, no cold European winters and few predators means their assault on our wildlife is unchecked. On the menu are invertebrates, ground nesting birds, eggs and small lizards. One study in the Waitaki river basin found a hedgehog with 283 native weta legs in its stomach. Divided by six that was 47 weta eaten by one hedgehog in a single 24-hour period.

By 1939 hedgehogs were gazetted as vermin and a bounty of sixpence per snout was imposed. Over the following nine years bounties were paid out on 53,600 snouts. New Zealand Geographic reported “it was common to see a length of fencing wire in the corner of a farmer's shed threaded with salted hedgehog snouts awaiting a trip to town to cash them in.” New Zealand has no national strategy for eliminating hedgehogs. They are conspicuously absent from the Government’s Predator Free 2050 programme and there are no clear estimates of the population but one 10-year study in the Tasman Valley recorded 5,813 kills. On a local note, records show that hedgehogs arrived in Tākaka in 1961.

Contact Us

PHONE: 027 525 8679

EMAIL: admin@gbweekly.co.nz

OFFICE HOURS: Monday-Wednesday 9am-5pm

USUAL DEADLINE FOR ALL SUBMITTED ITEMS

9am Tuesday.

USUAL DEADLINE FOR ALL ADVERTISING/LETTERS Noon Tuesday.

LATE SURCHARGE:

Until 4pm on Tuesday (if space available): classified ads $5; display ads 10% surcharge (min $5).

ARTICLE IDEA OR REQUEST

We welcome your suggestions. Please contact us.

SUBMISSION OF A WHAKAARO

We welcome readers to submit a whakaaro. Please contact us with your idea first.

AGENT:

Stitch ‘n Sew, 71 Commercial Street, Tākaka.

ADVERTISING COSTS: www.gbweekly.co.nz

Classifieds: 60c/word.

Display ads: contact us for details or see the website.

The editor reserves the right to make final decisions on layout of submitted ads. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of information in this publication, The GB Weekly does not accept any responsibility for errors or omissions or for any consequences arising from reliance on information published. The content of submitted material is not necessarily endorsed by the owners. Copies can be bought and we have a subscription service.

We are lucky to have our wonderful staff at Golden Bay Community Health – thank you for your kind, non-judgemental care and dressings.

Julie Sherratt

Mitigation or adaptation in climate crisis?

The recent debate about the mitigation/adaptation conundrum seems to say …. Well, we may have been sleeping at the wheel of the climate change wagon for more than 30 years but, oh well, now it is too late and only adaptation is a practical way out of our climate change pickle. Anyway, NZ is way too small to make any difference on the global emissions trend. There are some wrong assumptions in this argument, namely that mitigation is a waste of money and time and that NZ can freeload on our trading partners’ climate change programs without consequences. Not to mention the ethical responsibilities we as a nation should have towards the 80 per cent of the world’s population which is already suffering from the effects of the climate crisis without even having done much to cause it.

The 2007 Economics of Climate Change, produced by the eminent English economist, Nicholas Stern, concluded that any mitigation dollar is better spent than latter adaptation dollar. Rod Oram in his communications on climate change is making the same point and concludes that mitigation (reduction) of our internationally high per capita emissions profile helps our economy, helps to partly restore our tarnished "green and clean" image and, last but not least, efficient mitigation goes a long way towards fulfilling treaty obligations like the Paris Climate Change Agreement and anticipating trading barriers

Klaus Thoma

As I read all the articles on "the pursuit of zero carbon emission by 2050", I believe it is an unreachable goal.

If one follows the arguments by Bryan Leyland and his ilk the cost of putting money into wind and solar energy is a waste of time, money, human effort, emotion and resource (as is tidal ebb and flow due to tidal amplitude being so small in New Zealand's coastal waters).

The fact is when there is no wind or sunshine (especially at night) there is no power generation. If and when they are producing power, there is no efficient way of storing it. The cost of finding a way to store the energy from these power sources is enormous and greater than the return of what power is produced from them.

In my opinion, hydro-thermal power, hydro power, and nuclear power are the only practical zero carbon emission sources.

Why is New Zealand being so stubborn in not accepting nuclear power?

Why are we sacrificing our cost of living and our quality of life in this pursuit for zero carbon emission?

Reg Turner

Letters To The Editor

The GB Weekly welcomes letters to the editor. Please email your letter to us at admin@gbweekly.co.nz by 12pm Tuesday. Include the writer’s full name, home address and daytime phone number. Letters will be printed over the name of the writer; names are withheld only when compelling reasons can be established. Letters must not exceed 250 words. Letters that are too long will not be considered. All correspondence is at the discretion of the manager, who reserves the right to decline, edit, or abridge letters without explanation or further discussion. Links to third party websites will not be published. The views expressed are those of the correspondents and are not necessarily endorsed or shared by The GB Weekly.

Golden Bay’s biggest and ‘best ever’ one-day event is run by a very small team of volunteers but our small team is aging and new committee members are urgently needed to keep the show running.

In particular we are seeking an Administrator, Minute taker and Treasurer – these positions are critical to the running of the show and funding is available to remunerate these positions.

If this sounds like you or if you’d like to help in other ways please come along to find out how it all works. If you can’t make the AGM but would like to help please contact Jean: