Forest & Bird Magazine 321 August 2006

FOREST BIRD Number 321 • AUGUST 2006

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Save Our Sealions • Butterflies • Southern Right Whales Maungatautari • Kiwi • Hauraki Magic • Whio • Taiko • Wairau

SAVE OUR SEALIONS

Tui De Roy/Roving Tortoise Photos

New Zealand sealion pups, Auckland Islands

Dear Friend Our native sealion pups need your urgent help. These vulnerable youngsters will die of starvation if their mothers are among the sealions that drown in squid trawl nets around the Auckland Islands every year.

Each female sealion killed in a squid trawl net further threatens this vulnerable species. The population is estimated to be at its second lowest in ten years and last season’s pup production was down on the previous two years.

Two thousand sealions have drowned in squid nets since 1980 causing an estimated 1,000 pups to die of starvation, unable to survive without their mothers to feed them.

This high death toll is a continuing concern for the survival of the species. The New Zealand sealion is the rarest of the world’s five sealion species.

More than 1,200 Forest & Bird members and supporters wrote to Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton this year urging him not to approve a mid-season increase in the annual sealion ‘kill quota’. Only a handful of submissions supported such a move.

Unfortunately, he approved a 55% increase from 97 to 150.

We urgently need your support to help Save Our Sealions.

Please support Forest & Bird’s appeal.

Thank you for your generous donation.

Dr Peter Maddison Forest & Bird National President

Your donation will enable Forest & Bird to

1.

Conservation Successes Forest & Bird has helped achieve

Campaign for the 2007 sealion ‘kill quota’ to be reduced closer to zero and encourage the fishing industry to switch to jigging, a safer squid fishing method previously used in this fishery.

• Horoirangi Marine Reserve established near Nelson

2.

Advocate for the species in relation to the sealion population management plan that DOC is developing.

• North-West Wildlink Accord signed in Auckland

3.

Undertake research to identify sealion ‘hotspots’ in New Zealand waters where marine protected areas will help Save Our Sealions.

• Reductions in snapper and southern blue whiting quotas

• Robin breeding success at Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges

• Defended the Gowan River from a hydro-electricity proposal

You can make your donation: Online at www.forestandbird.org.nz

Rod Morris

Freepost using the envelope included in our recent appeal

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Freephone 0800 200 064 weekdays during office hours Using the tear-out freepost envelope device on page 53. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

FOREST BIRD N umber 321 • AUGUST 2006 • www.forestandbird.org.nz

Features

15 Making a killing?

Sea lions are worth $360,000 each – dead.

By Dave Hansford

18 Flying colours Helen Bain on New Zealand’s beautiful butterflies.

22 The right stuff

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Nicola Vallance meets the ‘Kiwi’ whales that have it.

20 Where the forest meets the sea Michael Szabo visits Maungatautari.

24 High hopes for Rimutaka kiwi ‘As seen live on TV’ by Helen Bain.

26 Whio David Young previews his new book about blue duck.

28 Hauraki magic Chris Gaskin on Auckland’s secret biodiversity hotspot.

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Forest & Bird incorporating Conservation News is published every February, May, August and November by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society Inc. The Society's objectives are to preserve and protect the indigenous flora and fauna and natural features and landscapes of New Zealand for their intrinsic worth and for the benefit of all people. Forest & Bird is a member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the New Zealand Partner Designate of BirdLife International. The opinions of contributors to Forest & Bird are not necessarily those of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, nor its editor. Forest & Bird is printed on Novatech, an elemental chlorine-free (ECF) paper which is made from wood fibre sourced from sustainably managed forests. * Registered at PO Headquarters, Wellington, as a magazine. ISSN 0015-7384. © Copyright. All rights reserved.

Editor: Michael Szabo Deputy Editor: Helen Bain PO Box 631, Wellington.

Tel: (04) 385-7374 Fax: (04) 385-7373 m.szabo@forestandbird.org.nz h.bain@forestandbird.org.nz Designer: Dave Kent Design Prepress/Printing: Astra Print Advertising: Vanessa Clegg Print Advertising Ltd, PO Box 13-128, Auckland.

Tel: (09) 634-4982 Fax (09) 634-4951 Email: printad.auck@xtra.co.nz

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. General Manager: Mike Britton Communications Manager: Michael Szabo North Island Field Coordinator: To be appointed South Island Field Coordinator: Eugenie Sage Advocacy Manager: Kevin Hackwell Services Manager: Julie Watson Central Office: Level 1, 90 Ghuznee St, Wellington.

Postal Address: PO Box 631, Wellington.

Tel: (04) 385-7374, Fax: (04) 385-7373 Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz Web: www.forestandbird.org.nz Auckland Office: PO Box 67 123, Mt Eden, Auckland.

Tel: (09) 631 7142 Fax: (09) 631 7149 Email: n.beveridge@forestandbird.org.nz Christchurch Office: PO Box 2516, Christchurch.

Tel: (03) 366 6317 Fax: (03) 365 0788 Email: e.sage@forestandbird.org.nz KCC Coordinator: Ann Graeme 53 Princess Rd, Tauranga Tel: (07) 576-5593 Fax (07) 576-5109 Email: basilann@nettel.net.nz

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32 Petrel head Brent Stephenson on the trail of the taiko.

34 Saving the Wairau What price our living rivers? asks Helen Bain.

Regulars 2 Comment Farmers are environmentalists, too by Dr Peter Maddison

3 Conservation Briefs Takahe; Maungatautari; Fred the Thread; Threatened plants; Ruataniwha Conservation Park; Bushy Park kiwi crèche and centennary; Albatross; New pepper tree; New marine reserves; Fiji; Macauley; Rangitoto; Kakapo; Ecosystem decline; Operation Ark; Eddie Bannister; Rangitata River; Southern dotterels; Manawatu Estuary; Kiwi ‘koha’; Rare mistletoe.

36 Going Places Palliser Bay, Wairarapa by Helen Bain.

38 Itinerant Ecologist Huia-eating in the Wairarapa by Geoff Park.

42 In the Field Cloudgazing by Ann Graeme and Tim Galloway

44 Branching Out 83rd AGM; “Old Blue” Awards; Distinguished Life Member; Fieldays fun; Hybrid cars; Spider hunt.

47 Bulletin 48 Conservation News Antarctic ice road; Skink rescue plan; Save Our Sealions; Dolphin deaths; Hokitika; Kaipara AMAs; Hoki; Marine protection proposal; Jackson Bay decision.

52 Book reviews COVER: Southern right whale and calf. See page 22.

PHOTOGRAPH: KIM WESTERSKOV FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

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Comment Farmers are environmentalists, too

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EDERATED Farmers President Charlie Pedersen tarred Forest & Bird with the wrong brush when he accused environmentalists of “highminded arrogance” in views that were reported in the media recently.

According to Mr Pederson, environmentalists “look upon mankind and our achievements as a negative that needs to be curbed and defeated” and “seek to turn the clock back.”

Fortunately this viewpoint is not shared by many of his fellow farmers – including those members of Federated Farmers, who he conceded “rolled their eyes” when they heard his comments.

Forest & Bird counts many farmers among its ranks, including past president Gerry McSweeney, a South Island high country farmer, and Gordon Stephenson, a Waikato dairy farmer and former head of Federated Farmers dairy section, whose conservation efforts at Maungatautari are featured in this issue on page 20. Both are Distinguished Life Members of Forest & Bird.

I have also been immensely impressed by the environmental achievements of like-minded farmers such as David Wallace, who created a mini-mainland island on his farm near Cambridge, an experiment that led to a much larger venture, the Maungatautari Ecological Island project.

Likewise I have met many farmers whose families have preserved special areas of forest habitat or streams on their properties for generations and are incredibly proud of these.

Bill Garland, who farms on the western slopes of Maungatautari and received an “Old Blue” Award from Forest & Bird in 2004, also comes to mind. He has served on major boards and committees connected with the land, including Federated Farmers, the Animal Health

Board, the Farm Environment Award Trust and the Waikato Conservation Board.

Many farmers are acutely aware that farming needs to be carried out in an environmentally sustainable way because their livelihoods depend on it. Increasingly consumers and overseas markets are demanding products grown in an environmentally responsible way – and are prepared to pay a premium for them.

A 2001 Ministry for the Environment study found that New Zealand’s clean, green image was worth an added $30,000 at the farm gate for every farmer in New Zealand, such is the value that image adds to the price their products command. It is a premium worth hundreds of millions – possibly billions – to New Zealand.

This is part of the motivation for many farmers to protect and covenant forest blocks, fence off waterways and gullies, and ensure more careful and targeted use of fertiliser to avoid leaching.

I can agree with Mr Pedersen’s statement that solutions need to be based on innovation and science. But I can’t agree with his assertion that “rolling back agriculture’s intensification would have to be matched by worldwide starvation or a matching reduction in population.”

Nowhere has it been proven that farming in an environmentally unsustainable way produces long-term financial gains, nor sustenance for the world’s poor. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Worldwide, millions of hectares of previously productive land are going out of production every year because of the effects of unsustainable farming practices. Does Mr Pederson want to take us back to the subsidised days of the Muldoon era? I mused.

Yet there is plenty of scientific evidence that ecosystems are in trouble. The most comprehensive survey of the state of the planet, conducted by 1,300 experts

from 95 countries and published last year, has concluded that human activities are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.

The United Nations study – the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – revealed that some 60% of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably, and warns that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.

“Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies continue to be degraded,” the study says.

Rather than opposing moves to reform practices on dairy farms around Lake Taupo that are causing serious degradation, Mr Pedersen would better serve the farmers he represents if he worked more constructively alongside conservation-minded groups such as Forest & Bird on initiatives that will ensure the long-term viability of farming and the environment for the benefit of all New Zealanders.

Peter Maddison. National President

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. (Founded 1923) Registered Office at Level One, 90 Ghuznee Street, Wellington.

PATRON: Her Excellency The Hon. Dame Silvia Cartwright PCNZM, DBE, Governor-General of New Zealand NATIONAL PRESIDENT: Dr Peter Maddison DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Dr Barry Wards.

NATIONAL TREASURER: Stephen McPhail EXECUTIVE COUNCILLORS: Jocelyn Bieleski, Anne Fenn, Mark Fort, Dr Philip Hart,

Donald Kerr, Janet Ledingham, Carole Long, Craig Potton, Dr Gerry McSweeney, Dr Liz Slooten.

DISTINGUISHED LIFE MEMBERS: Dr Bill Ballantine MBE, Stan Butcher QSM, Ken Catt QSM, Audrey Eagle CNZM, Dr Alan Edmonds, Gordon Ell ONZM, Hon. Tony Ellis CNZM, Dr Philip Hart, Hon. Sandra Lee-Vercoe QSO JP, Stewart Gray, Les Henderson, Joan Leckie QSM, Prof. Alan Mark DCNZM CBE, Dr Gerry McSweeney QSO, Geoff Moon OBE, Prof. John Morton QSO, Margaret Peace QSM, Guy Salmon, Lesley Shand MNZM, Gordon Stephenson CNZM, David Underwood.

2 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

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conservationbriefs

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WO young takahe were flown from offshore islands to Maungatautari in June – the first time takahe have been transferred to the North Island mainland.

The 18-month-old birds – Kina, from Maud Island, and Kelly, from Mana Island – were relocated to Maungatautari Ecological Island in the Waikato, where it is hoped they will form a breeding pair in the safety of a predator-proof enclosure.

In accordance with Maori protocol, their names were changed to acknowledge the gifting iwi and current events.

Kina was renamed Hauhunga, which means falling snow, to reflect the unusually heavy snowfall blanketing the South Island at the time of the relocation. Kelly was given the name Matariki to acknowledge the Maori New Year that coincided with the move.

Following a health check and a prayer, Matariki and Hauhunga – who had never

met before – spent a few moments together before wandering off in different directions.

The birds are too young to breed this year, but it is hoped they will bond in time to produce chicks next year.

Matariki and Hauhunga are the first of five pairs of takahe to be introduced to Maungatautari to establish a new mainland breeding population.

The Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust will hold an open day at the protected enclosure later this year so the public can see the first takahe pair once they have settled in, Maungatautari Trust Chief Executive Jim Mylchreest says.

“Raising awareness of their endangered status is one positive step we can make towards increasing their numbers in the wild; placing them in protected areas such as Maungatautari is another,” he says.

Takahe Recovery Group

Phil Brown

Takahe returned to North Island mainland

Hauhunga and Matariki were released at Maungatautari in June, the first takahe to be released on the North Island mainland.

Leader Kerri-Anne Edge says that, of the estimated 313 takahe in existence, 96 live on predator-free islands, and every year some are moved between the islands to prevent inbreeding among closelyrelated birds.

Fossil remains around Maungatautari show that a North Island takahe species once existed on the mountain, but is now extinct. After consultation with species

recovery groups, the trust decided to introduce the closely related South Island takahe.

Announcement of a $5.5 million grant from the government’s Significant Community Based Projects Fund this year will enable the completion of the pest-proof fence being built around the 47-kilometre edge of the 3400hectare site.

Helen Bain

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

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conservationbriefs More plant species threatened

L-R: Martin Gallagher MP for Hamliton West, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Maryan Street MP, Dianne Yates MP, and Sue Moroney MP present a cheque for $5.5 million to the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust to fund completion of the predator-proof fence.

$5.5 million ‘happy ending’ for Maungatautari fence

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Landcare Reserach

TAGE one of the ecological restoration of Maungatautari in the Waikato has been assured completion following an announcement

by Prime Minister Helen Clark the project will receive $5.5 million from the government’s Significant Community Based Projects Fund.

The funding will enable completion of the 47-kilometre fence around the 3400-hectare mountain and help finance pest control operations.

Maungatautari Ecological

Island Trust chief executive Jim Mylchreest said, “Once the mountain is pest-proof fenced and the pests eradicated, Maungatautari will protect a diverse range of New Zealand‘s most endangered wildlife, including more than 20 different species of birds.”

He also paid tribute to the trustees and supporters who guaranteed a loan to the trust for $2.2 million to enable the fence construction to continue over this construction season.

Orange pupa.

‘Fred the Thread’ is a new genus of moth.

‘Fred the thread’ mystery solved

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HAT is bright orange, 20cm long, looks like “a cross between a tapeworm and a thread,” and lives in a peat bog?

Corinne Watts wasn’t quite sure what she had found when she stumbled across the bizarre creature in the Torehape

Wetland on the Hauraki Plains, but it turned out to be a previously unknown genus of moth – which she has nicknamed “Fred the Thread.”

The Landcare Research invertebrate ecologist was studying the impact of wetland habitat loss on plant-

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© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

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IGHT plant taxa, including the iconic kakabeak, have had their threat status heightened to “acutely threatened.”

The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network now lists 127 taxa as acutely threatened, including 57 that are listed as nationally critical, 51 nationally endangered and 19 nationally vulnerable.

In 2004, 122 taxa were listed as acutely threatened – while some have dropped off the acutely threatened list, more have joined the list than have left.

Among those assessed as acutely threatened is the kakabeak (kowhai ngutu-kaka).

Although it is now common in cultivation and widely sold, only 153 mature plants are known in the wild, and at all sites they are threatened by introduced browsing mammals and diseases.

Others to move into the acutely threatened category are Hebe barkeri (Barker’s koromiko/Chatham Island tree hebe) and Aciphylla dieffenbachia (Dieffenbach’s speargrass), Epilobium hirtigerum (hairy willowherb) and Utricularia australis (yellow bladderwort), which

are nationally endangered, and Senecio kermadecensis (Kermadec fireweed) which is nationally critical.

On the plus side, there was good news for Cortaderia turbaria (Chatham Island toetoe), once New Zealand’s most threatened native grass, which moved from nationally critical to nationally endangered.

Other plants to improve their listing were: Bubinella modesta (was at risk, now at risk/ sparse), Embergeria grandifolia (was nationally endangered, now chronically threatened/in serious decline), and Leptinella featherstonii (was nationally vulnerable, now chronically threatened/in gradual decline).

Helen Bain

invertebrate interaction when she accidentally discovered “Fred” living inside the stems of Sporadanthus ferrugineus (a rush-like plant).

Puzzled about the identity of the orange tunnelling creature, she took it to experts, who thought perhaps it was a moth, albeit a highly unusual one.

Further searches of the peat bog yielded a pupa and then the adult – confirming that “Fred” was indeed a moth.

The process is now underway to bestow a proper scientific name.

“Fred” has subsequently been found at the two other Waikato peat bogs where S ferrugineus exists, but, like its host plant, it appears the moth does not occur anywhere else and is potentially threatened.

The Torehape Wetland is mined for horticultural peat over a 150-hectare site – only 40 hectares remain unmodified.

Operators are required to replace original wetland vegetation once the peat has been mined.

However, Corinne Watts’ study found that moving S ferrugineus plants even a short distance (more than 400 metres) away from intact wetland habitat caused complete collapse of plantinvertebrate interaction. The number of moth eggs and larva found in the plant’s stems decreased dramatically the further the plants were moved – a finding that does not bode well for the lasting survival of “Fred the Thread.”

Helen Bain

Kermadec fireweed is now critically endangered.

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conservationbriefs Ruataniwha Conservation Park opened

Sunrise on the Ben Ohau Range

NEW conservation park in the South Island high country was opened in July.

The Ruataniwha Conservation Park, west of Twizel, covers more than 37,000 hectares of rugged mountains, tussocklands and beech forest in the ranges and valleys bordering Lake Ohau and Lake Pukaki.

The park comprises existing conservation areas and land that has come out of tenure reviews of former high country pastoral leasehold properties.

It includes one of the few remnants of dryland Hall’s totara woodland, glacially smoothed landscapes, the 1522-metre Ben Ohau peak, alpine herbfields, and beech forests rich in native mistletoe.

Bird species in the park include the New Zealand falcon (karearea), rock wren (piwauwau) and long-tailed cuckoo (koekoea).

The park’s rivers and streams also provide habitat for a rich diversity of native fish, including upland bully, koaro,

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai/Kiersten McKinley

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and lowland longjaw galaxias – the latter considered New Zealand’s rarest fish.

Associate Conservation Minister Mahara Okeroa, who opened the park, says its creation will give the land higher status and level of protection.

More land may yet be added to the park as tenure reviews of neighbouring pastoral leases are completed he says.

Forest & Bird South Island

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Field Coordinator Eugenie Sage says that while the creation of such parks is welcome, Ruataniwha is more fragmented than was hoped for, and did not include lands on Ben Ohau around Twizel that need protection.

She says Forest & Bird is advocating to improve the tenure review process by inspecting leases and making submissions on preliminary proposals to ensure land with

biodiversity, landscape and recreation values is restored to full Crown ownership and protection.

She says that while tenure review is contributing to the creation of new parks above 1100-metres, it is not yet improving protection of underrepresented and threatened high country environments in montane and lowland ecosystems.

Helen Bain

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Courtesy of Bushy Park Trust

Peter Heenan/Landcare Research

conservationbriefs

Bushy Park kiwi créche

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USHY Park Reserve in Wanganui has become a kiwi créche.

Following the completion of a 4.8-kilometre pest-proof fence around the 98-hectare forest reserve last year, two aerial drops of poison bait and six months’ monitoring by the Department of Conservation (DOC) of 400 tracking tunnels, the park was finally pronounced predator-free ealier this year.

This gave the all-clear for young kiwi raised in aviaries to be allowed to roam free in the Bushy Park forest until they reach 1.2 kilograms in weight – after which they are safe to be released into the wild.

Bushy Park will become one of the most important “kiwi crèche” in the North Island for western North Island brown kiwi hatched under Operation Nest Egg to be raised to release weight.

Two groups of Bushy Park Trust members, DOC staff and volunteers travelled to Mokoia Island to capture saddlebacks (tieke) in May. The birds were quarantined in special aviaries before being released into the forest at Bushy Park.

Their diet in captivity – fruit, mealworms, jam-water, cheese and fruitcake – led to weight gains of up to 25%. Next stop Weightwatchers!

Allan Anderson

Bushy Park centennary

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USHY Park in Wanganui will celebrate its 100th birthday this year.

Celebrations for the centenary of the homestead – a historic Edwardian mansion – will be held on the first weekend in November, and an open day at the homestead will allow people to see all that has been achieved since the property was bequeathed to Forest & Bird in 1962.

Improvements to the homestead, construction of a 4.8-kilometre predator-proof fence, predator eradication, gravel tracks and introduction of rare native birds combine to

create a real treasure in Bushy Park.

The 98-hectare reserve is a lowland remnant of ratapodocarp rainforest, and the jewel in its crown is “Ratanui,” the largest known rata tree in New Zealand, with a girth of more than 11.5-metres and estimated be 800-1000 years old.

To mark the centennial, at the end of the year Bushy Park Trust is publishing a history of the park, written by a local historian with help from Forest & Bird Distinguished Life Member Stan Butcher.

Allan Anderson

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Pseudowintera inseparata – a new species of pepper tree.

New pepper tree

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OTANISTS have described a new species of the endemic New Zealand genus Pseudowintera (Winteraceae).

Previously three species were recognised, P. axillaris, P. colorata and P. traversii.

The first two are well known as horopito or pepper tree – named for their peppery tasting foliage.

In the latest issue of the New Zealand Journal of Botany,

botanists Peter Heenan and Peter de Lange describe a fourth, the highly threatened P. insperata.

The new species is known in only two or three sites in eastern Northland, where there are less than 50 known plants.

The authors recognised its distinctiveness from plants cultivated in the grounds of Auckland University.

Helen Bain

Michael Szabo

Bushy Park kiwi project convenor Jo Thorne with children from Westmere School and their sponsored kiwi, “Westy.”

Albatross set to benefit from new measures

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EW Zealand breeding albatross species which winter off the coasts of South America, such as royal albatross (above) and Chatham albatross, should enjoy a more secure future, following an announcement that Argentina and Chile have backed a major international agreement to conserve these iconic seabirds.

At a meeting of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) held in Brazil in June, officials from Chile and Argentina announced their ratification of the ACAP agreement. Brazilian

officials also announced their country’s intention to ratify soon.

“This is a welcome step forward that we hope will give New Zealand breeding albatross better protection in future when they forage in waters off South America,” Forest & Bird General Manager Mike Britton says.

Several other nations or territories, including New Zealand, the USA and the Falkland Islands, have already adopted their national seabird action plan, while Chile and South Africa have plans awaiting official adoption. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

conservationbriefs © Department of Conservation

Pink maomao

Birdlife mapped in Fiji

T New Marine reserves

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HE Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve will be officially opened in September by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

The marine reserve comprises two sites: at Waikaraka, near Onerahi, and around Motukaroro Island, near Reotahi – a combined area of 254 hectares, or 2.5% of the total area of Whangarei Harbour.

A significant area around Matakohe (Limestone) Island was not included in the reserve, following opposition from tangata whenua and fishing groups.

The government has also announced that a marine

reserve proposed for New Plymouth will go ahead.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter says the reserve will reach from New Plymouth to the mouth of the Tapuae Stream, encompassing a range of marine environments typical of the Taranaki coastline, and home to 88 fish species.

However, the size of the reserve has been reduced by 116-ha to 1426-ha and will exclude part of the existing Sugar Loaf Islands Marine Protected Area in response to the views of Ngati Te Whiti and those who wish to continue surfcasting near Paritutu.

Helen Bain

HE BirdLife International Pacific Programme has published Important Bird Areas of Fiji: Conserving Fiji’s Natural Heritage, the first study to map the most important sites for birds in Fiji Launched in June at the residence of the British High Commissioner for Fiji, the study describes 14 sites in Fiji which are of global importance for bird conservation. These Important Bird Areas (IBAs) are priorities for conserving the natural heritage of Fiji for future generations.

Fiji’s rich natural heritage includes 11 globally threatened bird species such as masked shining parrot and redthroated lorikeet, and 27 endemic bird species which occur in no other countries.

The book updates the status and conservation needs of all these special birds and is

aimed at land-use planners, policy-makers, forestry managers, researchers, local land-owners and the general public.

BirdLife’s Pacific Programme has established a regional secretariat office in Suva, Fiji, which oversees implementation of similar projects in French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Palau. The Fiji IBA book is the first in a series that will soon also cover these countries.

To order copies contact: don@birdlifepacific.org.fj

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

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conservationbriefs Grey ternlets will benefit from the removal of rats from Macauley Island.

Pest purge plan for Rangitoto and Motutapu

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

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Rats removed from Macauley Island

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HE Department of Conservation (DOC) carried out a major operation to rid Macauley Island of rats in July.

Eradicating kiore or Pacific rats from Macauley, 120 kilometres south-west of Raoul Island in the Kermadec group, will allow threatened seabirds that breed on New Zealand’s most isolated nature reserve to recover.

DOC Warkworth Area Manager Rolien Elliot said eradication would benefit

threatened seabirds which breed on the island, including Kermadec little shearwater, grey ternlet and Kermadec storm-petrel, as well as endemic plants such as the Kermadec nikau.

Macaulay is also a stronghold of the Kermadec kakariki, a subspecies of the red-crowned parakeet.

It will be two years before the success of the eradication – using GPS-directed aerial drops of poison bait – can be determined.

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N eradication programme aims to make Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands the largest pest-free habitat in the Hauraki Gulf.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has been allocated $595,000 over the next three years to eradicate pests from the islands.

The two islands cover a combined area of 3800 hectares – if successful, the project will create the biggest area in the Gulf to be freed of pests.

Rangitoto and Motutapu currently have two species of rat, as well as stoats, cats, rabbits, mice and hedgehogs, which will be targeted in the ambitious project, which is expected to take up to seven years.

Feasibility studies will be conducted over the next two years and operational planning is due to begin in 2008.

Prime Minister Helen Clark,

who visited the islands in June, says she is confident the operation will succeed, and is encouraged by the success of pest eradication programmes on Little Barrier/Hauturu and Motuihe Islands.

“The scale of this operation is several times larger than that of Little Barrier Island, and just continuing to keep it pest-free will be challenging, particularly with the number of visitors both islands see each year,” she says.

A two-year DOC eradication programme of the kiore or Pacific rat on Little Barrier Island has allowed Cook’s petrels, tuatara, skinks and giant weta to thrive on the island, and Motuihe has been declared rat-free.

Rangitoto has recovered since possums and wallabies were eradicated in the 1990s, but remaining pests still prevent full regeneration of native flora and fauna on the island.

Helen Bain

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

conservationbriefs

Gideon Climo

Sirocco the kakapo – “he’s like a dog really.”

Kakapo plan for Ulva Island

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HIS year the public will be able to get up close to view a kakapo in its natural environment for the first time ever on Ulva Island, off Stewart Island.

Dil Belworthy of Ulva Island Trust says male kakapo Sirocco will be kept in an enclosure covering an acre of native bush, and will be watched over by a fulltime ‘minder’ from the Kakapo Recovery Programme.

Hand-reared as a chick, Sirocco has imprinted on humans, so will not be adversely affected by the human contact.

The trust has got Sirocco

accustomed to coming out after dusk for a feed, and visitors will be able to watch from outside the enclosure – the fence will prevent Sirocco getting too up close and personal.

Because Sirocco is infertile, his presence is not required in breeding programmes elsewhere, and the naturally solitary species doesn’t mind living alone.

Visitors will be able to travel to Ulva Island by charter boat from Halfmoon Bay. The trip and kakapo viewing costs $80 for adults and $40 for children.

Bookings can be made at www.glowingsky.co.nz.

Most ecosystems in decline, says UN report

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HE Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet, concludes that human activities are degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.

The landmark study released last year reveals that approximately 60% of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as freshwater, fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably.

Conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries, the assessmant warns that the ongoing degradation of 15 of the 24 ecosystem services examined is increasing the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously affect human well-being. This includes the emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of “dead zones” along coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and shifts in regional climate.

You can read about the report at: www.maweb.org/en/ Article.aspx?id=58

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

9

Rod Morris

conservationbriefs

Orange-fronted parakeet (kakariki) will be in the firing line if rat numbers explode this coming summer.

Operation Ark cranks up

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result in an explosion in rat numbers.

DOC’s Operation Ark – set up in 2003 in response to the devastating predation of the 2000 and 2001 mast years – is mounting a major rat control operation in highest risk sites this winter.

Operation Ark co-ordinator Richard Suggate says rat control using bait stations will protect mohua and kakariki in the Hawdon Valley at Arthur’s Pass, the southern branch of the Hurunui Valley, the Dart and Caples Valleys at the head of Lake Wakitipu, the Eglinton Valley at the head of Lake Te Anau, and in The Catlins. The programme will also benefit long and short-tailed bats

Helen Bain

HE rat pokes its nose out of the mohua (yellowhead) nest, looking like a nocturnal burglar caught red-handed.

This time the offender snapped on Department of Conservation (DOC) scientist Graeme Elliot’s “nest cam” was unlucky: the chicks in the nest had already fledged and escaped becoming the rat’s dinner – but thousands of native birds have not been so fortunate.

And this year populations of mohua and orange-fronted parakeets (kakariki) are under increased threat because of a mast year in South Island beech forests, which has produced an abundance of seed that is expected to

Eddie ‘winning the war on weeds’

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HE first time Eddie Bannister went out on an old man’s beard-clearing expedition, he got to work tackling one single vine that was strangling a native honeysuckle (rewarewa) and was still at it six hours later.

Luckily, Eddie, now aged 81, was never afraid of hard

work, and he’s been coming back for more ever since – and his efforts with the Forest & Bird Wairarapa Branch have been recognised with the Weedbusters! award for top weedbuster in the greater Wellington region.

Eddie joined Forest & Bird with his wife Noeline in the

10 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

(pekapeka) in the Eglinton Valley, and blue duck (whio) in the Hurunui Valley.

Further assessment of rat numbers will determine whether the bait stations will be followed up with aerial drops of 1080 at some sites. If aerial drops are necessary, the operation will cost $750,000, out of Operation Ark’s $1.245 million total budget.

Richard Suggate says counts of rats in tracking tunnels (using lures and ink pads) have strike rates of about 5% in normal conditions, but current levels are as high as 50% at some sites.

“We are well above the danger level in all these sites, and if numbers are this high at this time of year and we don’t do anything, they will go even higher in spring when the birds are breeding.”

Graeme Elliot knows all too well the damage wrought by predators in a mast year.

Five years ago a rat plague wiped out the entire mohua population at Mount Stokes in the Marlborough Sounds.

A small number of mohua had been discovered there in the 1970s and, following years of stoat control, their numbers had increased to form a thriving population. While conservationists had been

aware of the need to protect the birds from stoats, they didn’t see the impact of a rat explosion coming.

“It was heart-wrenching,” Graeme Elliot says. “We didn’t know that rats could be so devastating.”

Between 2000 and 2003, overall mohua numbers were halved to about 5000 birds, while numbers of orangefronted parakeet plummeted from 700 to about 150.

Graeme Elliot says current beech seed counts and observations of prolific flowering suggest this year will be an even bigger mast year than 2000 and 2001.

“I’m convinced it is a superduper one,” he says, laughing at his own scientific terminology.

DOC is hopeful that Operation Ark’s rat attack will hold back the tide of rodents enough to protect mohua and orange-fronted parakeets on the mainland. Graeme Elliot thinks the campaign will be effective.

“We’re buggered if it isn’t – but I think, yes, it will work.

But it is a never-ending battle.

We need to stop kidding ourselves about it: if we want to keep these birds on the mainland it is a fight that we are going to have to keep on fighting.”

1960s, and much of his efforts have focused on the Fensham Reserve, west of Carterton.

When farmer John Fensham died in 1943, he bequeathed his 50 hectare dairy farm, including a forest block, to Forest & Bird once the last of his daughters died, which occurred in 1978.

The reserve is one of the few pockets of mature forest left on the flat in the Wairarapa valley – most was cleared “holus bolus,” Eddie says.

Trees in Fensham Reserve include giant rimu, kahikatea, totara, beech and maire, and a walk around the reserve’s wellmaintained tracks reveals some magnificent specimens.

However, the reserve was also infested with old man’s beard, barberry, gorse and broom, and it has taken a concerted effort over the last 12 years to eradicate almost all of the pest plants. The local Wairarapa

Branch has also undertaken extensive planting, fencing and building of tracks, and maintains bait stations to control possums.

Fellow Wairarapa Branch member Liz Waddington and Wairarapa local Tenick Dennison also received Weedbusters! awards for their work at Henley Lake and Manuka Reserve in Masterton.

Although Eddie moved from his farm to a Masterton town section in 1985, that hasn’t stopped him starting a native ‘forest’ at home: he has a native nursery with “600 trees on the go,” and has planted kahikatea, titoki, rimu and matai in his garden – which he admits might start to get a bit crowded once these forest giants reach their mature height.

“I think the neighbours might start to complain.”

Helen Bain w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

conservationbriefs

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HE Rangitata River in South Canterbury is now protected by a Water Conservation Order, announced in June by Environment Minister David Benson-Pope.

Announcement of the order follows a seven-year process begun with an application

by Fish and Game in 1999 to protect the river’s outstanding values.

The order identifies the outstanding characteristics of the river and lists the waters that are to be retained in their natural state. It prohibits any new dams, limits activities that would alter the river’s flow and braided character, and protects water quality and fish passage.

The Rangitata River runs from the Southern Alps to the east coast of the South Island and is one of New Zealand’s most important braided rivers.

The spectacular scenery of the Upper Rangitata was the location for the town of Edoras in the Lord of the Rings films.

The river provides the second-largest area of largely unmodified habitat for aquatic birds in New Zealand and is probably the most important breeding ground in the world for the globally threatened wrybill (ngutuparore).

Other threatened species which breed on the river and its tributaries include blackfronted tern (tarapiroe), banded dotterel (tuturiwhatu), Caspian tern (taranui) and black-billed gull (tarapunga), and the river also supports at least 18 native species of freshwater fish. The Rangitata River is also important for recreation, being widely used by anglers, kayakers and rafters.

The order allows the continuation of the Rangitata Diversion Race scheme, which takes water from the river for electricity generation and to irrigate 64,000 hectares of farmland.

Forest & Bird South Island Field Coordinator Eugenie Sage says the Water

Brent Stephenson

Rangitata River protected

The Rangitata River is the most important breeding site in the world for wrybill, the only bird species with a bill that curves to the right.

Conservation Order will protect the river from further applications to take water, which would otherwise threaten the river’s healthy functioning and wildlife.

Reducing the amount of water in the river means smaller braids dry up,

reducing feeding habitat for wading birds such as wrybill. Streams which create a protective moat around nesting areas disappear, exposing birds to increased predation.

Helen Bain

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Tropical Rainforest & Reef

Start & finish in Cairns: 21st July to 1st August

Fraser Island and Whale Watching Start & finish in Brisbane: 11

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Uluru & Australia’s Red Heart

to 19th August

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Leading Australian conservationist and former Australian of the Year, John Sinclair, who has been organizing safaris for 38 years personally leads the following safaris which focus on World Heritage values.

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Cruises in Papua New Guinea Fly River and Torres Strait Sepik & Morobe

Start & finish in Thursday Island: 9th to 24th November 2006

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Highlands & Islands

Start & finish in Brisbane: 24th May to 6th June

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

11

conservationbriefs

Michael Szabo

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai/ Phred Dobbins

Joan Leckie

Storm-dotterel. The southern New Zealand dotterel is larger than its North Island counterpart and breeds only on Stewart Island mountain tops, where it braves the Roaring Forties.

Breeding success for southern dotterels

V

IGILANCE on the stormswept mountain tops of Stewart Island/Rakiura is paying dividends for the southern subspecies of the threatened New Zealand dotterel (tuturiwhatu). The Department of Conservation’s (DOC) latest dotterel census count, completed in autumn, has revealed that numbers now stand at 270 birds, well up on the 62 birds counted before the start of a cat control programme at the bird’s mountain breeding areas in 1992.

Unlike beach-nesting northern New Zealand dotterels, which are vulnerable to high tides, storms, introduced animal predators and off-road vehicles, the slightly larger southern subspecies breeds high above the bush line on an island lying directly in the path of the Roaring Forties. Yet apart from occasional heavy snowfalls, the birds cope with the harsh natural elements.

The New Zealand dotterel recovery programme was launched when it was established feral cats were to blame for decimating the nesting population. Southern New Zealand dotterel are particularly vulnerable to feral cat and rat predation because

they nest in the open near the edge of forest which gives feral cats plenty of cover to hunt the birds from.

On Stewart Island the southern male birds bear the brunt of feral cat attacks because they incubate the eggs at night. There is a marked difference in life expectancy between males in the southern and northern populations. DOC surveys have shown northern males live for an average of 13 years, while southern males only survive for three years which means there is also a serious gender imbalance in the small southern population.

DOC threatened species officer, Phred Dobbins, says bait stations were established in 1992 around Table Hill, a breeding ground for half the southern dotterel population.

Numbers of the endemic wading birds immediately increased. Access to Table Hill, which lies to the south of Paterson Inlet, involves nearly a full day of boating and climbing, with a small hut built for overnight stays. The 300-hectare site is ringed by over 200 bait stations, which is 30 stations for each pair of birds. From 1997 four more breeding areas were added to the recovery programme; all

12 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

Manawatu Estuary Ramsar celebration

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HE Manawatu River Estuary Trust is to celebrate mountain top sites that involve the official recognition of a one hour dinghy ride through Manawatu River Estuary Patterson Inlet, then a 1-2 hour becoming a Wetland of International Importance under climb to the tops.

Bait stations throughout the the Ramsar Convention Treaty on Saturday October 14 at five areas are serviced every 11am at the Esplanade Reserve fortnight by Dobbins and his at Harley Street, Foxton Beach. team, a task that can entail After a powhiri by Runanga some element of endurance, and drama. Dobbins recalls one o Raukawa, Conservation particularly windy day on Table Minister Chris Carter is due to present Ramsar Convention Hill, when he was physically Certificates to Joan Leckie, lifted off his feet.

Chairwoman of the trust and Extending efforts to other, more remote breeding areas has the Forest & Bird Horowhenua Branch. been considered but would be This will be followed at 12.30 more difficult, logistically, says pm with a simple picnic lunch.

Dobbins. “Currently this is a At 1.30pm there will be a low budget, long-term project.

“Welcome to the birds” walk to If it’s going to work long-term view bar-tailed godwits (kuaka) we need to run it as lean as possible to make it sustainable. and other migratory wading Yet it has to be effective as well.” birds nearby on the beach and surrounding mud flats of the It seems it is. While estuary. heavy snowfalls have caused Many of these birds will occasional setbacks to the have recently flown to New nesting dotterels, numbers Zealand from Alaska. Members have continued to increase at of OSNZ will be there to share a rate well above the recovery close up views of the birds plan target. In the latest count, through telescopes and help carried out during April and identify the different species May at winter flock sites at present on the day.

Mason Bay, Awarua Bay (near Those planning to attend Bluff) and Port Pegasus, numbers were up by 6% on the are asked to advise numbers to assist with the catering, by previous year, which in turn October 1, to Christina Paton, had increased 26% from the 6 Warren St, Foxton Beach, 2004 count.

(06) 363-5323 or malimidwe@paradise.net.nz Kathy Ombler w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Kirby Weis

conservationbriefs

Dave Wills, Howard Palmer and Chris Carter with one of the kiwi.

Kiwi ‘koha’

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ASTERN Bay of Plenty hapu Upokorehe has gifted seven North Island brown kiwi to Tuhua/Mayor Island off the coast of Tauranga.

The seven kiwi previously inhabited a 863-hectare pine forest owned by Kiwi Forestry Group near Kutarere in Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Their forest home was due to be logged, and tangata whenua of the area, Upokorehe, agreed to gift the kiwi to Tuhua to protect genetic stock of kiwi from the Kererutahi Forest and contribute to a safe Bay of Plenty kiwi population.

It is hoped that over the next few years a “kiwi crèche” will be established on predator-free Tuhua to protect kiwi till they a year old – below this age

they are most vulnerable to predation by stoats and cats.

Meanwhile sites on the mainland are being made predator-free to help future re-introduction of kiwi to the greater Western Bay of Plenty.

The Tuhua Trust Board has been working with the Department of Conservation (DOC) to restore Tuhua to a natural system of birds, reptiles, invertebrates and plants.

Tuhua has an exceptional pohutukawa forest that supports a large population of bellbirds (korimako). Other native species including North Island robins (toutouwai) and the brown teal (pateke) have already been successfully transferred to the island.

Weka return

Winning trip

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Kiwi go wild

Great spotted spotted

INE weka have been brought from Long Island in the Marlborough Sounds to Totaranui in Abel Tasman National Park. Once abundant in the park, weka were last seen at Totaranui in 2001. Kept in an aviary for a month to adjust to their surroundings, they will be protected with stoat traps.

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HE first two kiwi chicks conceived in the wild at Pukaha Mount Bruce for more than a century were released into the forest in May. The chicks were handreared after being hatched in incubators. They were joined by an additional 13 captive North Island brown kiwi from around New Zealand released into the forest.

E ANAU School student Kail Huber joined Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers on a trip to Centre Island on Lake Te Anau to monitor the kiwi chick transferred to the island from Christchurch under Operation Nest Egg. Kail won the trip in a school competition.

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WO years after the Department of Conservation (DOC) moved great spotted kiwi (roa) into Nelson Lakes National Park, the first kiwi chick has been found in the area.

“We knew eggs had hatched but this was the first chick we had actually seen so we were rapt,” DOC St Arnaud ranger Matt Maitland says.

Helen Bain

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

13

Helen Bain

conservationbriefs

Harvey Phillips strikes mistletoe gold.

Rare mistletoe ‘rediscovered’

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T TOOK Harvey Phillips five years to find what he was looking for, but the reward was worth the long wait: the discovery of a native mistletoe thought to be extinct in the Wellington region.

Earlier this year the Greater Wellington Regional Council biosecurity officer struck gold: a few strands of the yellow mistletoe Alepis flavida clinging to the branches of a black beech

east of Masterton in Wairarapa.

“I was pretty pleased,” he says, in what is obviously an understatement of the delight the self-taught botanist took from the discovery.

Five years ago a Mastertonbased Department of Conservation (DOC) worker told him the yellow mistletoe might still be out there somewhere in the Wairarapa’s rugged eastern hill country, and

he should keep an eye out for it.

“I used to work monitoring rabbits, and I spent just about all day every day riding around on a quad bike looking for signs of rabbits. I lost count of the numbers of times I rode straight into a stump or a tree because I was looking up in the trees instead of where I was going.”

He discovered the mistletoe on the banks of the Kaiwhata River, the same area where it was last seen in 1947, during a routine inspection of the 16hectare lifestyle property of Emily Friedlander and Bernard West.

They had mentioned to Harvey Phillips that they had seen mistletoe growing in the black beech – which struck him as odd, because the other types of mistletoe found in the Wairarapa do not usually grow on black beech. He checked it out, and was thrilled to become the first person to recognise Alepis flavida in the greater Wellington region for more than half a century.

Rare in the North Island, and till Harvey Phillips’ discovery believed to be extinct in Wellington, yellow mistletoe is still quite common in areas of the South Island. It uses host trees for support, nutrients and water (though it does not kill off the host tree) and can grow up to two metres across.

Harvey Phillips puts the mistletoe’s survival down to

Lilian Valder Awards 2006

Best foot forward

F

14 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

The Waikato Branch of Forest and Bird has a sum of money to be distributed each year to help groups or individuals with projects aimed at conservation.

Rod Morris

OREST & Bird invites readers to send Letters to the Editor on topical conservation subjects for publication in the November issue.

The writer of the winning letter will receive a pair of fine gumboots from Hunter. Robust, yet stylish, Hunters are the gumboot of choice of VIPs from Madonna to the Queen, and are ideal for a range of outdoor activities – including your next tree-planting!

Available to our winning letter in navy or green (please state colour preference, shoe size and gender).

Letters should be 250 words or less, and must include full name, address (not for publication) and daytime contact phone number.

intensive possum control in the area, through aerial and ground application of 1080 and trapping.

Of the several Alepis flavida plants he found, some appear relatively mature, but previously any new growth would have been browsed off by possums – a situation which had led to the once relatively common plant becoming nearly extinct. Now the possums are vitually gone here, the mistletoe will have a chance to recover.

The goal is now to ensure that the few specimens discovered survive and become a self-sustaining population. The mistletoe’s seeds are spread by bellbirds (korimiko), which are plentiful in the area, giving Harvey Phillips hope that the plant will be able to reestablish naturally. A specimen will also be stored at Te Papa’s herbarium in Wellington.

The search for the yellow mistletoe successfully completed, you would think Harvey Phillips’ quad bike trips might be safer now, but no – now he’s on the lookout for another rare red mistletoe, Peraxilla tetrapetala.

“There is anecdotal evidence that they used to collect it at Christmas, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for that one now.”

Helen Bain

This is what Tmesipteris looks like, not the photo of lanternberry incorrectly captioned as such in the May issue. Thanks to those who wrote in to point this out.

Applications with details of the project close September 30th, 2006.

Apply to: Secretary, Waikato Branch Forest and Bird.

P.O Box 11092 Hillcrest, Hamilton

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Female New Zealand Sea lions – worth $360,000 each to the southern squid fishery this season, when drowned in the fishery.

Even as New Zealand opposes whaling on the world stage, hundreds of endemic New Zealand sea lions – rarer than minke whales – are dying in our own fisheries. Dave Hansford asks some tough questions and fathoms it all out.

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VEN a full February moon fails in the ineffably black waters of the Auckland Islands Shelf. Two hundred metres beneath the raging subantarctic waves, there’s a different turmoil: arrow squid have gathered here in their countless thousands to spawn, jostling for a single anonymous embrace in the chill void.

This oceanic throng hasn’t gone unnoticed. New Zealand sea lions swoop out of the gloom, snapping at the teeming tentacles. Darkness offers their prey no defence; the sea lions’ big black eyes can see right through it.

Most are females, and some have swum more than a hundred kilometres to dine on this plenitude.

And their need is great. Most have left hungry pups ashore at rookeries like the one at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island, and they’re juggling an ever-shrinking energy budget. They gave birth in late December, and have gone the last 10 days without food while they nursed their pups.

These are not the New Zealand fur seals you can see on many rocky shores around the country – although the New

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Criag Potton

Making a killing?

Zealand sea lion (whakahao) once shared that top-to-toe range before sealing gangs exterminated it on the mainland (they’ve since returned to the Otago Peninsula, a rookery so small that it is yet to qualify as a breeding site).

Today, they’re the world’s rarest sea lion species, numbering just under 12,000 animals – they probably once numbered in the millions. For comparison, the endangered North Pacific Steller’s sea lion has a population of 80,000 animals.

New Zealand sea lions now breed at just three remote subantarctic locations – a restricted range that’s earned them a place on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) “Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction”.

Sea lions are not the only ones to take advantage of the squids’ summer mating frenzy. Each February, trawlers arrive at the subantarctic grounds to drag their vast nets through the mid-water, just as the squid rise from the bottom. With hoki quota slashed in recent years, squid is now the country’s single biggest fishery.

In 2005, the industry exported roughly 71,000 tonnes of squid – mostly to Greece – worth $168 million, and the Auckland Islands fishery yielded much of it.

Increasingly, the fishers need squid to stay afloat, but on the Auckland Shelf, that’s not all they catch. Every so often – 5.3 times every 100 tows, according to the Ministry of Fisheries – they catch a New Zealand sea lion.

Sea lions are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but clauses in the Fisheries Act let fishers off the hook because the bycatch, as it is known, is deemed to be accidental.

Before each squid season, the Fisheries Minister writes a figure – called the Fisheries-Related Mortality Limit (FRML) – that prescribes the number of sea lions the fishers can kill before he closes the fishery.

For a decade, that figure was 60-80 animals, but in 2003, and again in 2004, the fishing industry took the Minister of Fisheries – then Pete Hodgson – to court and successfully challenged for higher FRMLs. The 2005 limit of 115 was a record.

The industry quotes science – bought from the National institute of Water and Atmospheric Reserach(NIWA) and established by a High Court judge in 2004 as the standard reference after more litigation – called the Breen-Kim model, after its authors Paul Breen and Susan Kim. Essentially the model takes estimates of the sea lion population and the number of pups born each season, which are then fed into what some statisticians have called a “black box” to produce the range of FRMLs the minister can chose from. At one end – the “sustainability” end – he could theoretically write a figure of zero. At the other – the “utilisation” end – the model says he can enter up to 555.

Last season, Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton and Conservation Minister Chris Carter signed off an operational plan which stipulated that 97 sea lions would be allowed to die in the Auckland Islands fishery. But within weeks, Anderton say, his chief advisor, James Palmer, was visited by squid industry heads, and they brought a lawyer. They told Palmer that it looked like being a bumper squid season, but the limit of 97 sea lions wouldn’t let them take full advantage of it. Perhaps the minister hadn’t been aware of the full range of bycatch options open to him? “It was indicated,” says Anderton, “that an injunction would be lodged and a judicial review sought if there was no extension to the season.”

Anderton insists he wasn’t rolled, but he says, “I have to look at the facts. It’s not as if they hadn’t done it before, and won.”

Anderton held the fishery open, even though the 97th sea lion was due to die any day. After a 10-day consultation period, he gave the squid fishers another 53 animals, despite a letter of protest from Carter and Conservation Department officials, some 1200 submissions against FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

15

Michael Szabo

New Zealand sea lion pup creche at Sandy Bay, Enderby Island, Auckland Islands.

the kill hike, and advice from his own fisheries officials on Breen-Kim; “that new information does increase uncertainty in using the outputs from the model, and that you should consider this uncertainty.”

On April 11, Anderton’s office put out a press release justifying the increase to take advantage of a season in which “there are more squid than usual.”

According to Fisheries Ministry advice papers, the fishers had told him they expected to make an extra $5.8 million from the additional tows the hike would allow. The same papers pointed out that squid catches had already fallen by more than a tonne per tow since February.

Some larger vessels, which operate to tighter economic scales, had already left the fishery.

Anderton’s decision brought condemnation from Forest & Bird and other conservation groups, from the Greens, and from incensed DOC staff who are, each subantarctic summer, recording an inexorable decline in the fortunes of the New Zealand sea lion, which has already been plagued by a series of catastrophic bacterial epidemics.

In 1998-1999 a campylobacter outbreak wiped out more than half the season’s pups and at least 75 adult females at the Sandy Bay colony. In 2001-2002, another bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, raged through the same colony. It spared the adults, but pup production fell 20% – probably because many females aborted.

Klebsiella returned the following season, slashing pup births by a quarter.

Critics of the Breen-Kim model ask why, when pup births have fallen by 30% 16 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

in the last eight years, squid fishers are being allowed to kill more and more sea lions. Otago University lecturer and Forest & Bird executive member Liz Slooten says the model is fatally flawed.

She is deeply suspicious of any science bought with fishing industry money.

“Basically, they went and found someone doing population modelling who was prepared to give them what they wanted.”

The model’s upper limit of 555 sea lions is what is invoked by Anderton when he says he took a precautionary position.

That sort of talk exasperates Slooten, who says Breen-Kim throws up some nonsensical assumptions about the sea lions’ population growth. “Three per cent is the maximum you can screw out of this model, “and that’s just silly for all sorts of biological reasons. For sea lions and seals in general, that figure should be 12%.

“There are about 12,000 sea lions at the moment. If we multiply that by 3% you get 360, so how the hell can you say it’s okay to catch 555? You’d be guaranteed to drive them extinct.”

Slooten has made repeated submissions to the ministry setting out her discomfort with the model; concerns echoed in part in an independent review

by Professor Dan Goodman, director of environmental statistics at Montana State University and Paul Wade of the US National Marine Fisheries Service.

Anderton says he’s “asked the Ministry to look at the model and the criticisms levelled at it.”

Deepwater Stakeholder Group executive officer Richard Cade says nobody expects to be allowed to kill 555 sea lions – in fact they would run out of

squid quota long before that. “If you look at the past three seasons, [the average] is about 110-120 each season. So it doesn’t really matter; we don’t have the capacity to go much past that.”

He says the squid fishery was known to have killed no more than 17 sea lions this season, dead and on deck. But it’s not that simple. Fisheries Ministry observers on squid boats report all known deaths, but they were present at just 30% of tows, so their bycatch data is then extrapolated to account for all tows. Then another percentage is added: the number of sea lions that are calculated to enter a net, but escape again through a special hatch called a Sea Lion Excluder Device (SLED).

But there is debate over exactly what state the sea lions are in by the time they manage to get out. Massey University autopsies report dreadful injuries; traumatic lesions, amputations, penetrating wounds and fracture of limb bones, acute blunt trauma, contusions, haemorrhage.

Eighty per cent of sea lions are assumed to leave a net either dead or dying. The ministry added those to its observer data and came up with an estimated 110 deaths last season. Cade insists the SLEDs work better than that.

“I don’t think we were anywhere near that number, but I would accept that we were probably somewhere above 40.”

As part of his agriculture portfolio, Jim Anderton is also responsible for animal welfare issues. On May 13, he opened the AGM of the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).

“Genuine prosperity cannot be built on exploitation and cruelty and so our agricultural nation must demand high standards of animal welfare and humane treatment of all animals,” the minister told his audience.

He’s in no mood to be reminded of this now. “If we don’t want to fish, say so. Don’t say ‘Oh poor little this, poor little that.’ What about the squid? Do they suffer cardiac arrest? What about those poor bastards? Why don’t we worry about them? We’re carnivorous animals.

We eat things. If we want to stop eating things, then we’ll stop catching them and farming them and killing them.”

Whatever the toll, triple it, because the trawlers mostly catch females, which have dependent pups on shore that will surely die of starvation or misadventure. The females mated again shortly after they gave birth, so the embryo that would have been next year’s pup goes on the tally too. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

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Bull New Zealand sea lion with cow and pup.

plan, the statutes give jurisdiction to the Minister of Fisheries.

The status quo serves squid fishers a great deal better than a population management plan would, which would place the trump cards back in the hands of the Minister of Conservation, set a statutory course for the sea lions’ recovery “to non-threatened status within 20 years,” and quite possibly dethrone the Breen-Kim model and see the sea lions’ threat status upgraded to endangered.

Predictably, the industry has consistently denied any need for the plan.

Environmentalists say the ongoing conservation fiasco over sea lions leaves the New Zealand Government dangerously exposed to charges of duplicity from pro-whaling nations. As Chris Carter pounds the International Whaling Commission pulpit and vilifies the killing of minke whales for “science” as barbaric, the Japanese whalers and their allies would doubtless enjoy pointing out the hypocrisy of a nation that legislates, for a rare marine mammal – an animal more scarce than any minke whale – to be killed in the course of fishing.

Anderton damns such comparisons as “spurious.” He says that the fact that squid fishers don’t actually target sea lions puts a safe distance between the two practices, but the net result is the same.

By the end of May, the Auckland Islands squid season was over. The fleet sailed away with some 23,500 tonnes of squid – about 70% of their quota, according to Richard Cade. As seasons go, it was above average, but not the vaunted bonanza that sparked all the fuss in the first place. “This additional sea lion bycatch allowed an additional squid catch with an estimated export value of

$4.7 million, or $360,000 per sea lion,” trumpeted an Anderton press release on World Ocean Day. Back on the beach at Sandy Bay, orphaned pups – the scientists on Enderby call them “starvelings” – wait for a meal that will never come. Waiting too, are the skuas. As the pups weaken, they give up their feeble snaps at the stalking skuas. First one, then the mob, fall upon the waifs, aiming for the eyes.

This column of the balance sheet won’t be presented to shareholders, won’t appear in the fisheries ministry annual report, even in the bit that talks about “taking our environmental performance to the same world-leading standards as our fisheries management.”

Because, as the Ministry’s own advice paper pointed out to Anderton, “ethical considerations or perceptions of beauty are not a relevant consideration with regard to the Fisheries Act.” Dave Hansford of Origin Natural History Media, is a Wellington-based writer and photographer.

New Zealand sea lions, Otago Peninsula.

Janet Ledingham

Inter-departmental protocols prevent DOC scientist Dr Louise Chilvers from commenting on the impact of the squid fishery – all she’ll say is that the population is under stress. She suspects that the subantarctic is far from ideal sea lion habitat, compared to how life would have been for them on the mainland.

Studies have shown that females swim further and dive deeper, longer and more frequently than any other sea lion or fur seal in the world. In short, she says, they appear to be at their physiological limits.

“Studies tell us that the females are working incredibly hard to live and produce pups. A population that’s working that hard just to continue at low numbers is always a concern ... it doesn’t leave you much room to move.”

In the last eight years, the number of pups born yearly on the northern Auckland Islands has dropped by nearly 900. And the disease outbreaks took a toll that is only now echoing. Normally, 80 first-time breeders – eight year-old females – should return to Sandy Bay. Last season, Chilvers counted five – the pitiful campylobacter survivors of 1998.

The sealing slaughter squeezed them through a genetic bottleneck, sapping their heritable health – “which leaves populations with a naive immune system; they don’t have sufficient genetic variation to stand up to disease.”

On Figure-of-Eight Island, pup births have virtually halved. If that trend continues much longer, another rookery will vanish, leaving just two breeding locations on the planet. Trawling probably has a minor impact on its own, and nobody’s suggesting that the sea lions are going hungry because the fishers are taking all the squid, but the sea lions have problems enough already.

The Government agency most responsible for protecting them, DOC, has yet to produce the one document that might rescue them: a population management plan. After six years of false starts, it’s still at a “pre-notification draft” stage, and faces an equally glacial approval process. DOC Policy Analyst Caroline Hart says it won’t be completed in time for the next squid season, but might be enacted by the 2007-2008 one.

DOC’s dalliance has effectively handed control of sea lion bycatch to the fisheries ministry and, by extension through litigation, to the industry, because in the absence of a population management

Rod Morris

“It was indicated that an injunction would be lodged and a judicial review sought if there was no extension of the season.” Jim Anderton, Minister of Fisheries.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

17

Flying colours

With spring and then summer approaching, more butterflies will soon be on the wing. Helen Bain takes a timely look at New Zealand’s beautiful – though sometimes rare – butterfly species. Photographs by Rod Morris.

S

OMEWHERE in the lottery of evolution, New Zealand missed out on its fair share of butterfly species.

While New Zealand has about 2000 moth species, it has fewer than 30 named species of butterfly (though research by Otago Museum suggests our butterfly fauna may yet exceed 50 species).

George Gibbs, author of New Zealand Butterflies and research associate at Victoria University, says New Zealand has fewer butterfly species than might be expected in a country of this size, for reasons which remain largely mysterious.

Common in coastal areas in the North

18 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

Helm’s butterfly (Dodonia helmsii) male feeding on hebe, Mount Ruapehu. Also known as the forest ringlet, Helm’s butterfly is found mainly in beech forest. The introduction of predatory and parasitic wasps may have contributed to its increasing rarity. There are plans to reintroduce this attractive endemic species to the Waitakere Ranges as part of Forest & Bird’s Ark in the Park project.

Island, the common copper butterfly was once an insect of the dryland mosaic forest, a patchwork of tall forest, shrubland and wetland cut by rivers, which covered much of the South Island east of the main divide before being largely burned off and cut down.

Unlike the remains of birds and reptiles that once lived in this habitat, insect remains were seldom preserved. Some species of butterfly may have disappeared without our ever knowing of their colourful existence.

George Gibbs says a lot of speciation research is currently being done, and subsequent genetic work is likely to find that many of our butterfly species have diverged in the last million years in “a burst of speciation” at the end of the Ice Age. While most people think of butterflies as tropical dwellers, they occupy a range of habitats, including mountains in the case of New Zealand’s alpine butterflies.

Our tussock butterflies are found on the

eastern side of the South Island, in Otago, Southland, Canterbury and some in Marlborough.

Some native butterflies, like the red admiral, are widespread, while others, like the little coppers, are very sedentary and exist in small, localised populations that may develop their own distinct characteristics over time.

However the coppers can exist in a variety of habitats, as long as their favourite food plant, small-leaved pohuehue (Muehlenbeckia complexa) is present. The admirals’ favourite food source is the native nettle (ongaonga), though introduced nettles will do. The common and southern blues feed on exotic clover – before its introduction it is thought they probably fed on native broom – and the tussock butterflies, as their name suggests, favour tussocks and grasses.

George Gibbs says planting M complexa in your garden will attract w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Red Admiral/kahukura (Vanessa gonerilla) on lacebark, Otago Peninsula. The red admiral is found anywhere in New Zealand where its host plants – stinging nettles – grow. This long-lived species survives as an adult for about six months and they can over-winter in a dormant state.

copper butterflies, but few gardeners would be keen to plant stinging nettles, as he does in his Eastbourne garden, just to attract butterflies – “It can be quite an unpleasant customer,” he admits. He suggests blue-flowered daisies as more gardener-friendly butterfly attracters.

Butterflies are seen on the wing most frequently in late summer, though some, like the common coppers, may be found nearly year-round in warm places.

New Zealand’s moth species attract less attention than the butterflies – probably due to the fact that many are mostly nocturnal or often more drablycoloured, aiming for dull camouflage rather than stand-out hues (though there are some strikingly-marked exceptions such as the South Island tiger moth species).

Moths differ from butterflies (apart from the fact that butterflies enjoy better PR) in that butterflies have smooth antennae with clubbed ends, while moths’ antennae are feathered; butterflies sit with their wings held upright, and lack a frenulum – a series of tiny hooks, which moths use to hold their wings together.

Some moths may have one or two of these characteristics, but never all three.

A number of the butterfly species present in New Zealand, including the highly visible monarch (Danaus plexippus) are self-introduced, mostly from Australia. Trans-Tasman arrivals are still occurring – for example, in the summer of 1998-99 there was a large influx of Australian painted lady butterflies to all parts of New Zealand.

Because the largely urban-dwelling monarch eats introduced plants (particularly their favourite, swan plant) they have no harmful effects on the native New Zealand butterflies.

In September this year the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust is beginning a transect research project, asking people around the country to record the butterflies they observe. The aim, over a number of years, is to amass data on New w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Two common copper (Lycaena salustius) males on hebe, Broad Bay, Otago Peninsula. The common copper is found throughout New Zealand from sea level to about 1500 metres. Different types of copper butterfly are associated with different types of the native Muehlenbeckias.

Zealand’s butterfly populations.

More recent arrivals, inadvertently introduced with human assistance, such as the painted apple moth (Teia anartoides), pose a much more serious threat to New Zealand’s agricultural and horticultural sectors. First discovered in West Auckland in 1999 by Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison, the painted apple moth was declared eradicated in March this year, following a $62 million aerial spraying programme.

Overall endemic butterfly numbers are thought to be declining around the country, George Gibbs says. Distribution of the endemic southern blue has reduced to Otago and Southland, though historically it was found as far north as Nelson – this could be due to it being gradually overtaken by the naturally introduced common blue.

George Gibbs’ own favourite endemic butterfly species, the elusiveHelm’s butterfly or forest ringlet, also appears to be in decline. He has monitored a particular site on an Eastbourne ridgetop every summer, now finding just a few caterpillars where there were hundreds in the 1970s, and he hasn’t seen a single adult in 20 years – though he lives in hope. “That would make me very happy.”

If successful, plans to re-establish this attractive endemic species to the Waitakere Ranges as part of Forest & Bird’s Ark in the Park project with the Auckland Regional Council may also help raise his spirits.

Helen Bain is deputy editor of Forest & Bird magazine.

Southern blue (Zizina labradus oxleyi) basking on cushion bog, Rock and Pillar Range. The endemic southern blue can be distinguished from the common blue (Z labradus labradus) by its more rounded forewings, darker undersurface and more distinct patterning.

Boulder copper (Bouldenaria boldenarum) basking at Rocklands Station, Middlemarch.

The boulder copper (along with the southern blue) is one New Zealand’s smallest butterflies, with a wingspan of just 20mm.

Common tussock ringlet (Argyrophenga antipodum) male, Otago Peninsula. There are at least three similar endemic species of tussock moth which are found in the South Island and feed on grasses and tussocks.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

19

Michael Szabo

The world’s largest predator-proof fence will soon enclose the largest mainland island sanctuary in New Zealand.

Michael Szabo visits Maungatautari in the Waikato with Gordon Stephenson to find out more about time travel and the ‘halo effect.’

R

ISING 800 metres above sea level, Pukeatua stands halfway between Kawhia Harbour and Tauranga in the Waikato, next to Maungatautari.

From the rocky outcrop at the top there is an impressive panorama but it seems an unlikely landlocked place for a colony of seafaring Cook’s petrels (titi).

Admittedly the vista includes part of Lake Arapuni and the Waikato River to the south, but they won’t hold much attraction for the endangered seabirds set to be transferred here into artificial burrows by the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust.

The walk up here through mature native forest includes 600-year-old rimu and large flowering rata, not to mention tomtits (miromiro) and kereru, making the site’s suitability for seabirds seem even more fanciful.

Fortunately Gordon Stephenson is on hand nearby to provide some reassuring answers. A Distinguished Life Member of Forest & Bird and Deputy Chairman of the trust, he explains that petrel bones have been found near here towards Waitomo in the limestone kaarst country.

“It has been estimated that there were once millions of petrels in the vicinity.

They fed on squid and small fish out at sea and deposited their guano on the land when they returned to their burrows at night, bringing extra nutrients to our relatively poor soils,” he says.

Nature’s aerial “top-dressing” directly enriched the soil and flowed along creeks, contributing to the forest ecosystem and boosting insect and worm populations, thus

20 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

helping to increase habitat and food for birds, reptiles, amphibians and freshwater fish. A high proportion of nutrients on the land are thought to have come from seabirds in this way, according to Gordon.

And if that isn’t enough to convince the doubters he points out nearby Titiraupenga, a local name that also records the presence of titi or muttonbirds here, 70 kilometres from the Tasman coast, and well out of sight of the ocean.

As with other similar sites across the North and South Islands, vast colonies of ocean-going seabirds such as petrels and shearwaters once bred around inland peaks like these until the onslaught of introduced mammalian predators overran almost all of them.

It’s a familiar story. First came kiore and kuri; then ship rats and black rats, pigs, stoats and cats. Perhaps less well known is the tiny remnant of these mainland “tube-nosed” seabird colonies that remain on the North and South Islands: Hutton’s shearwaters at the Seaward Kaikoura Ranges, Westland black petrels at Papamoa on the West Coast, and sooty shearwaters (titi) and grey-faced petrels (oi) at a few isolated coastal headlands in Taranaki, Otago and elsewhere.

Most of the surviving colonies are confined to offshore islands scattered around the New Zealand coast from the Subantarctic Islands to the Kermadec Islands, and from Marlborough Sounds to the Hauraki Gulf. Many of these seabird species are now among the most threatened in the world.

But all this looks set to change here at Maungatautari, where Gordon has high hopes the next chapter in the natural history of New Zealand’s seabirds will have a happier ending.

These days, the endemic Cook’s petrel is an endangered species, breeding in large numbers only at Little Barrier Island/Hauturu in the Hauraki Gulf. A

Gordon Stephenson is a Distinguished Life Member of Forest & Bird and Deputy Chairman of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust.

few hundred more breed at predator-free Codfish Island/Whenua Hou off Stewart Island, and even fewer at the black petrel colony on Mount Hobson/Hirakimata at Great Barrier Island/Aotea in the Hauraki Gulf where feral cats still prowl.

Over recent years feral cats and kiore have been cleared from Little Barrier Island enabling Cook’s petrels to breed more successfully, with the survival rate for chicks up from 5% to more than 70% in the three years since the last kiore was killed. Now there are tens of thousands of Cook’s petrels breeding there, which means there are enough to transfer a small number of chicks to the mainland at Maungatautari, where, at 47km, the world’s largest predator-proof fence is about to be completed.

The timing is right for other reasons as well. Three of New Zealand’s unique seabird species have now been transferred to new offshore island sites where chicks have successfully fledged: Pycroft’s petrels at the Mercury Islands, fluttering shearwaters at Mana Island, and, most recently, Hutton’s shearwaters at Kaikoura Peninsula. Expertise is now growing in this pioneering field of restoration ecology, nowhere more than in New Zealand.

By transferring Cook’s petrels to Maungatautari, Gordon says, another piece of the pre-human ecological jigsaw will at last be put back in place.

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© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

N

EW ground is also being broken at Maungatautari with its innovative community-based approach to restoration ecology. Initiated five years ago by local farmer David Wallace, the project has brought together the Department of Conservation, Waipa District Council, some 30 local farmers, the owners of 16 blocks of land from local iwi, Ngati Karoki Kahukura, and hundreds of supporters from surrounding communities, including Gordon and Celia Stephenson who also farm nearby.

Local Forest & Bird branches in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty have donated funds and dozens of volunteers from their ranks have contributed time or expertise.

Part of the winning formula has been to allow private farmland inside the fence to remain the property of the farm owners, with each one being covered by a Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenant.

The trust has raised $14 million since its inception in 2002, comprising $1.5 million in community donations, $7 million in sponsorship and, most recently, $5.5 million from the government’s Significant Community Based Projects Fund – and that’s not counting the thousands of volunteer hours contributed to date. “Most of this has come from sources that traditionally have not funded conservation,” Gordon says.

At the time of writing the completion of the predator-proof fence was set to close the survival gap for some of our rarest species in August. This is only part of the plan, though, Gordon explains as he and I walk through the southern enclosure with Celia, beneath the towering trees.

He is keen to run through the list of endemic species that have been suggested for transfer here once the fence is complete and all the introduced mammalian predators are eradicated over the coming months.

Seven North Island brown kiwi were

Cook’s petrel chick and adult. The Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust plans to re-establish this endangered seabird species here on Pukeatua, which looks out over to Maungatautari.

released last year into the two predatorfree enclosures within the main fenced area, with the first takahe released recently in June. Tuatara are to be transferred to Maungatautari during the next year after Cook’s petrel and there’s even talk of kakapo one day booming from the peaks again for the first time in over a century.

“The fence is a time machine,” Gordon muses as we pause to admire a particularly tall rimu. “It will allow us to turn the clock back to around the 15th Century, before most of the introduced mammalian predators now present arrived here in New Zealand.”

“This is a project to recreate a working ecosystem over a 3,400-hectare (ha) area of the mainland. Anything smaller than about 2000-ha is probably not big enough to sustain a sufficient number of species to be self-regulating,” he adds.

“What New Zealand probably needs is a series of similar 3000-hectare areas that are pest eradicated around the country, where native species can co-exist. The native birds breeding within them can then start to spread out, creating what we call a ‘halo effect’.”

“All being well, in about thirty years’ time, the mountain will be bursting at the

seams with kiwi. Once it reaches its kiwi carrying capacity we can start taking some out once they’re old and large enough to defend themselves against stoats and release them in other areas outside the fence.”

Not long after visiting Maungatautari and meeting Gordon and Celia, I heard that he’d been unwell. Fortunately, he has since been able to get back to the mountain, recently joining the celebrations there when Prime Minister Helen Clark presented a cheque for $5.5 million towards finishing the fence and eradicating the introduced predators within its confines.

Speaking to Gordon over the phone the following day, his enthusiasm was undiminished, which gave me pause to consider the generosity of spirit this project entails. Now in his eighties, Gordon probably won’t be around to see the day, some 30 years hence, when Maungatautari is bursting at the seams with kiwi, but like many others, I’d like to be there in 2036 to recall the generosity of those who, like him, helped turn the dream into a reality.

Michael Szabo Forest & Bird's Communications Manager.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

21

The right stuff S

TRATEGICALLY positioned around our coasts, keen Department of Conservation (DOC) staff are primed for the hunt, waiting for incoming sightings from the public, so that once again we can race to “man the boats,” and begin the chase. This time, though, we’re on the whale’s side.

New Zealand is well known today as a nation that looks after its whales, but our record of whale protection hasn’t always been so clean.

Drawn by the whales in the South Pacific, whalers visited New Zealand shores as early as 1792. Initially they targeted the massive sperm whales, but as numbers of those behemoths dropped, whalers shifted their efforts to the southern right whale – named because they were the “right” kind of whale to catch: they swam slowly, floated

when dead and yielded generous quantities of oil and baleen. The baleen (bony plates in their mouths, used to sieve plankton) was used for corsets and umbrella ribs, while the oil was used for candles, lamp oil, soap, heating and perfume.

At the peak of the right whale industry in 1839, about 200 whaling vessels were working in New Zealand waters. Right whales in New Zealand waters (including the subantarctic), which numbered an estimated 16,000 before the whalers arrived, were almost obliterated over the following century, their population falling to as few as 50 by 1913.

While the population of southern right whales (tohora) in the Southern Ocean has been making a slow recovery, regeneration hasn’t been apparent to the same extent around the New Zealand mainland.

Kim Westerskov

New Zealand’s coasts are once again becoming a hotspot for whale hunting, but this century we’re pursuing them to protect them. Nicola Vallance looks at a new generation of whale hunt. Photographs by Kim Westerskov.

Southern right whale leaping. Weighing up to 50 tonnes and living up to 60 years, these coastal leviathions may have a distinct mainland population.

The question remains as to whether the mainland New Zealand whales form a distinct group from their Australian, South American and South African counterparts.

It is possible that the New Zealand population doesn’t even mix with its subantarctic cousins in the Auckland and Campbell Islands.

The likelihood of our own “home grown” population of whales is high, according to DOC scientists, due to the intense bond between right whale mothers and their calves and their “homing” tendency to return to the place of their birth. Of 26 whales photographed around the New Zealand mainland, none have

22 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

Southern right whales grow up to 15 metres long, are mostly black, lack a dorsal fin, and can be identified by the unique pale callosity

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Kim Westerskov

matched any whales living in New Zealand subantarctic waters.

DOC marine mammal advisor Helen McConnell says that while populations of southern right whales in the subantarctic regions are relatively strong, the mainland population is estimated at about 30, of which only 5-10 are likely to be breeding females. For an animal that doesn’t breed till the age of 10, this is a dire situation.

However, sightings of southern rights around New Zealand coasts are slowly increasing. After a gap in sightings of more than 35 years between 1928 and 1963, whales have begun appearing more regularly around our coasts, usually in winter or early spring when they head inshore to calve.

For three years DOC has been running an observation programme to find out

whether New Zealand has its own discrete population of right whales. However, this programme depends on fast responses from members of the public who sight southern right whales.

DOC has been collecting photographs and biopsy samples, which allow visual and genetic identification of the whales. Many people would recognise right whales as the same type of whale featured in the movie Whale Rider – they are about 14-15 metres long, mostly black, lack a dorsal fin and can be identified by the unique callosity patterns formed by barnacle encrustations on the side of their head. Like fingerprints in humans, no two whales share the same pattern.

Genetic data is obtained from the whales in what at first glimpse appears to be some kind of flashback to our whaling

Adult with calf, off Enderby Island, Auckland Islands.

ancestry. DOC staff “shoot” the whale with a modified rifle that fires a dart into the whale’s thick blubber. The dart is designed to withdraw with a tiny sliver of blubber still inside it. So far 10 whales have been identified in this way.

In many cases, DOC cannot get to the whale in time, which is where the public can help. DOC is encouraging people to alert them to sightings, take a note of the time and location, the direction the whale is going, and take a photograph (preferably of the left side of the head) if possible.

Nicola Vallance is Department of Conservation National Media Advisor DOC asks anyone who sees a southern right whale to call its hotline on 0800 DOC HOT (0800 36 24 68).

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Kim Westerskof

Kim Westerskof

patterns formed by barnacle encrustations on the side of their head. Like fingerprints in humans, no two whales share the same pattern.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

23

Helen Bain

Kiwi idol: Paul ‘Scratch’ Jansen shows one of the six kiwi to local children at the Wainuiomata Marae before it is released into the wild in the Rimutakas.

High hopes for Rimutaka kiwi Captive reared kiwi were released back into the wild in the Rimutakas recently to see if they can survive unnassisted. Helen Bain was there to watch the action live on TV.

“T

ONIGHT will be the first time for more than 100 years that kiwi have been heard calling in the Rimutaka Forest Park,” Kiwi Recovery Programme Team Leader Paul ‘Scratch’ Jansen says.

His obvious sense of satisfaction at the release of six North Island brown kiwi into the wild at Rimutaka Forest Park near Wellington in May is well-earned after more than three years preparation for the big day.

Rimutaka Forest Park covers 22,000 hectares of steep hills and valleys between the Oronogorongo and Wainuiomata rivers, south-east of Wellington, with

24 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

regenerating forest cover including nikau, kamahi, rimu, rata, miro, hinau, rewarewa and red beech.

The kiwi themselves were released in the Turere Stream catchment, a couple of hours tramp through steep terrain from Wainuiomata.

Rimutaka Forest Park Trust was formed in 1988 to stimulate public interest and participation in conservation and development of the park. The trust was initially involved in projects such as improving visitor facilities in the Catchpool visitor area, but took up Paul Jansen’s challenge to expand its work to also cover predator trapping, to allow the release of kiwi in the park.

Extensive trapping of stoats – the main predation threat to young kiwi and eggs – was carried out in the three years leading up to the kiwis’ release. More than 40 volunteers check 330 stoat traps set up over 1000-hectares in the park, which have caught an average 80-90 stoats a year.

Among the volunteer team is the trust’s Vice President Bill Milne, 80, who tramps

about six kilometres of Catchpool tracks every Tuesday to check and set traps, although he says he no longer patrols the steepest bits of park terrain: “The hills are getting steeper!” is his excuse.

Paul Jansen says the release will test whether it is feasible to allow released kiwi to breed unassisted in the wild. Under the Kiwi Recovery Programme’s Operation Nest Egg, kiwi eggs and chicks have been removed from the wild to protect them from introduced mammalian predators while they are at their most vulnerable, and the young kiwi have been returned to the wild when they weigh about 1kg – big enough to at least stand a fighting chance against their predators.

The hope is that the kiwis released at Rimutaka Forest Park will be able to breed without this intervention – if successful, the practise may be introduced in other parts of the country.

The kiwis released in the park were all bred in captivity from mixed genetic stock – originating from breeding programmes established before the importance of distinct genetic characteristics of individual kiwi populations was fully appreciated.

The two females and four males have been named by local schoolchildren, who were among about 400 people who attended a powhiri and blessing for the kiwi at Wainuiomata Marae.

While a small team carried the kiwi in bags through steep country to the release site, the crowd of supporters at the marae tuned in by video link.

The big wide world seemed a little daunting for the kiwi at first. One kiwi, Manaia, was reluctant to go into the burrow prepared for her, even with Paul Jansen providing encouragement with a gentle shove from behind.

“Maybe there’s already one in there, aye!” one of the locals suggests, to the amusement of the audience back at the marae.

The release team camped overnight in the park to check that all was well with the newly-freed kiwi, and already on their first night of freedom the kiwi could be heard calling from about 7pm till 7am.

Although the six kiwi had never been outside a kiwi house before, their chances of survival once released into thousands of hectares of forest are high, Paul Jansen says.

Kiwi released from Pukaha Mount Bruce in Wairarapa have thrived, and he expects the Rimutaka kiwi will fare just as well.

“They thin down a bit and harden up – it is amazing how hard-wired their survival skills are.” w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

Proximity to the large urban centre of Wainuiomata has raised questions about the danger dogs could pose to the kiwi.

The release area has been declared out of bounds for dogs, and walkers and hunters are asked to keep dogs on leads in the surrounding area.

The trust’s volunteer Operations Manager Susan Ellis says the release is the first time an entirely communitybased group has been responsible for reintroduction of kiwi into the wild, and its success could become the blueprint for other kiwi recovery projects around the country.

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The birds will continue to be monitored via radio transmitters, and further kiwi releases are planned this year with the hope of eventually establishing a local breeding population of 30 birds.

Volunteers’ work trapping predators will be ongoing, as even the most intensive trapping can never hope to entirely eradicate stoats from a mainland forest, trust chair Bill McCabe says.

“It is grabbing a tiger by the tail because there is no letting go. This is not the end – this is just the beginning.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird's Communications Officer.

Local MP and Minister for SOEs, Trevor Mallard, joined the release team.

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

Department of Conservation staff prepare one of the six North Island brown kiwi for release.

One of the kiwi slips off into the night.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

25

Whio

Goldeneye: At close range the whio cuts a handsome figure in its blue-grey and plum red feathers, set off by the characteristic pink bill and bright amber iris.

A natural and human history of the whio (blue duck) – New Zealnd’s ‘platypus’ – appears this year, funded in part by Forest & Bird.

Its author David Young highlights the story behind its publication. Photographs

by Rod Morris, John Shorland and Rob Suisted.

Rob Suisted

Rob Suisted

A

26

SHOCKING aspect of conservation is that the rarer the species, the greater the thrill in seeing it.

In the ecological snuff movie that is so often played out in New Zealand, hearing the blue duck’s cry in high mountain streams has in recent years taken on all the thrill of a scene from a horror movie.

Unless we are trampers, climbers or kayakers, most of urbanised New Zealand have little or no idea that this unique bird of Aotearoa not only exists, but is struggling to survive.

The largely untold whio struggle for survival is astonishing – in terms of the annals of speciation and adaptation, the whio is among the most unique of our birds. It is an indicator species, that thrives only where freshwater is swift and clear and the larvae of river flies plentiful, where forests verge on the river, and river beds are stable.

In a word, it is emblematic of pristine rivers, a habitat that is a rarity today outside of national parks, mainly because of farming impacts and our dependence on hydro-electric dams. This also means that it cannot, like other species, be transferred to an off shore island, because that kind of habitat is almost never available in such places.

The whio is unique in other ways. One of only four torrent ducks in the world, it is territorial and defends its patch vigorously.

It pairs pretty much for life, although at times it shares with humans the strains of pair-bonding. And it is a survivor of an ancient lineage, for it is without close relatives anywhere in the duck world.

Its tragedy is that the habitat it thrives in was once available almost down to sea level, and almost everywhere in New Zealand; today it lives in enforced retreat Blue duck country: Forested Te Waiiti stream in the northern Te Urewera National Park, Waimana Valley. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

John Shorland

A bird at the nest under tussock, Monkey Creek, Hollyford.

Rob Suisted

Like kiwi and wrybill, whio have a unique bill that is highly adapted for feeding. The fleshy ‘baffles’ around the tip allow them to control the flow of water into the bill as they search for insect larvae. There are tiny feelers that appear to aid in sensing the rate of flow and presence of prey items.

A family of two adults and six ducklings on the Mangapopo River

John Shorland

David Young is the author of Whio: conserving New Zealand's endangered blue duck, which is to be published by Craig Potton Publishing later this year.

A rare shot of a blue duck in flight.

Rod Morris

in restricted mountain rivers where, in addition to battling prodigious current, it must contend with introduced predators (especially stoats) for the right to propagate, and therefore exist.

It is a bird in need of considerable help and, almost a decade ago, Murray Williams, then the sole biologist studying the plight of the whio, approached me about producing a book that might help in the protection and advocacy of these extraordinary birds.

Eventually we secured sufficient financial support to embark upon this publication. It is perhaps a mark of the importance of the whio that three sources came to the party: the Central North Island Blue Duck Conservation Charitable Trust, Genesis Power and Forest & Bird’s J. Irwin Trust. The latter commemorates the name of a Waimarino farmer and money from it is required to be spent on activities within that district. Since the whio’s stronghold, the Manganui-o-te-ao River, runs through it, this crucial, “tipping point” funding made the entire project possible.

It also enabled us to commission three of New Zealand’s leading nature photographers, Rod Morris, Rob Suisted and John Shorland, whose craft graces the book, together with inveterate West Coast whio admirer, Alan Reith. Suffice to say that we all got our feet wet – often.

We also came to admire the extraordinary dedication of those who protect whio in the national parks of Te Urewera, Egmont/Taranaki, Tongariro, Kahurangi and Fiordland, as well as a few other places such as the Manganui-o-te-ao River.

Current trends indicate that this is one heart-stopping movie currently running in the New Zealand wilds that, only with public support, still has a chance of a happy ending.

27

Flight of fancy: white-faced storm-petrels, also known as Jesus birds because of their apparent ability to ‘walk on water,’ feeding on plankton.

T

he Hauraki Gulf presents many faces. First, there’s the more familiar view from Mount Eden/Maungawhau across downtown Auckland, with the Gulf stretching over the horizon beyond the inner islands of Rangitoto, Motutapu and Waiheke.

Second, walk to the lighthouse on Tiritiri Matangi Island and see the wide stretch of open water below, with Little Barrier/ Hauturu’s rugged, truncated volcanic outline dominating. Third, stand at Mangawhai Heads and a vast vista takes in Sail Rock, the great pinnacled ramparts of Hen Island/Taranga, with the clutch of the Chicken Islands/Marotere tucked in behind.

This far north you become aware of yet another set of islands in the Gulf ’s outer limits: on the horizon are the lumpy landforms of the Mokohinau Islands, 25 kilometres north of Little Barrier Island.

2 8 F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 6

Go out on the water and your perspective again changes completely. The sea, such a dynamic environment, changes from one day to the next, and even hour by hour.

Some days can be wild with big waves breaking green and strong wind blowing crests into spume, not the best time to be out in a boat, but seabirds have no such restrictions. Looking back through my journal notes, it is clear that they even appear to revel in these conditions:

“We encountered thousands of fluttering shearwaters (pakaha), along with hundreds of white-faced storm petrels (takahikae-moana), some gannets (takapu), Cook’s petrels (titi) and fleshfooted shearwaters (toanui) spread out across a kilometre, wheeling back and forth in the strong wind, catching the sunlight against black storm clouds or sitting in groups or individually riding out the storm. The stormies were foraging, dancing in the wave troughs or flicking up A view of the towering pink tinged cliffs on the east coast of Fanal Island in the Mokohinau group.

Michael Szabo

The outer Hauraki Gulf is a marine wilderness that ranks as a global hotspot for seabirds and marine wildlife.

Chris Gaskin describes the ever-changing moods of the outer gulf and the Mokohinau Islands.

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

COOL.

Chris Gaskin

and

B O R N P R O F E S S I O N A L LY

H O T,

A view of Hokoromea Atihau and stacks from Burgess Island, the main island in the Mokohinau group. As well as seabirds, red-crowned parakeets (kakariki) inhabit this area.

over breaking wave crests.”

The scene also changes dramatically according to the season. Mid-winter: “Once past Groper Rock we started to see large numbers of diving petrels. We saw birds flying past with some bouncing, like skipping stones, diving and disappearing.

Others were erupting from the water.

Further on we saw larger and larger mobs.

At one stage we were slipping through dozens visible swimming (flying) just under the water, or located by bubble trails before their heads appeared as they came up for air. An extraordinary sight with some birds right beside the boat.”

Early summer: “We headed towards the Hen & Chicks … Under the light at Coppermine we spied a large pod of long-finned pilot whales with fleshfooted shearwaters and white-faced storm petrels. The group, which included a very young one, approached us, checking us out, and swimming under the stationary boat. We photographed and filmed a little shearwater feeding close to the boat, a delightful sequence of little runs, short fluttering flights and dives, repeated over and over again. Off Hen we spied gannets diving, flesh-footed shearwaters and white-faced storm petrels with two Bryde’s whales surging through. A pod of common dolphins (aihe), including a pair copulating beside the boat as they swam along, switched their interest between fish, and riding the bow-waves of both whales and our boat.”

Nowhere is the ever-changing nature of the outer gulf more apparent than at the Mokohinau Islands. The six main islands have long been known by Maori for their hapuka and snapper fishing grounds, gardening and muttonbirding (here the oii or grey-faced petrels (oi) were harvested).

Today the cultural harvesting of oii is w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

undertaken only sporadically, but fishing remains a major attraction at the ‘Mokes.’

The islands’ lighthouse was established in 1883, its blue stone hauled up the steep hill to the lighthouse site by a tramway, and two lighthouse keepers’ cottages fitted snugly on terraces cut back into the slope below. The concrete pathways, pads and the tramline remain; the cottages were burnt when the last keepers left.

Andras Fremming Stewart Sandager was 32-years old when appointed assistant lighthouse keeper on Burgess in 1883.

He stayed six years and chronicled a remarkable natural history of the islands.

On one occasion he witnessed a fight between a penguin and a grey-faced petrel over a burrow. “Leaving them to settle the question, and visiting the spot again a few days later, I found the penguin dead outside the burrow, and the Procellaria [the petrel] in possession.”

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F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 6

29

Hadoram Shirihai

Black petrel (taiko) live and breed in the Hauraki Gulf, nesting on Mount Hobson/ Hirakimata, Great Barrier Island/Aotea.

The islands remain in many ways as remote as they were in Sandager’s day; even today visits are not taken lightly. The islands are nature reserves where landing is not permitted, with the exception of Burgess Island, a recreational reserve.

Fire is a major hazard, with potential to devastate seabird colonies. Dogs taken ashore by boaties, pose another risk, and re-introduction of rats is a major threat.

The Mokohinau rat eradication programme in 1990 subjected the islands to what can only be described, in hindsight, as an excessive amount of bait. They were the first islands to get the treatment and techniques have been much refined since. But whatever the methods used, the success of rat eradication on the Mokohinau Islands can be measured by the way seabirds responded. . Sixteen years later, white-faced storm petrels are seen in abundance, especially on Burgess Island. These dainty little birds flutter in and land, using rat hole-sized tunnels through the dense mats of rank grass, muehlenbeckia, club rush and flaxes.

Likewise, little shearwaters and diving petrels (kuaka) make this habitat their home. There are some of us who believe that it is also on these islands that we will find the rediscovered New Zealand storm petrel breeding.

A visit to the islands that takes in both day and night reveals yet more contrasts to these constantly changing wild places.

I remember once taking a rest on a very hot December day, lying on the wavescoured rocks under some pohutukawa just coming into bloom. A pair of fantails (piwakawaka) and a little group of redcrowned parakeets (kakariki) played on branches directly overhead. Bellbirds 30 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

(korimako) were singing above them.

Every now and then, the hummmph! of the Mokohinau “sea monster” (a blowhole) would sound among the flaxes nearby, accompanied by a cloud of spray.

Close at hand skinks scuttled through dry leaf litter.

Parakeets feeding on flax in flower, bellbirds, tui and silvereyes abound. An unusual sight in December has been red-billed gulls (tarapunga) feeding on taupata Coprosma repens berries. Looking across the slopes of Burgess we could see groups of these lovely little pale grey gulls hovering over bushes, feeding, then moving on to another bush.

Looking north to the Pacific horizon on a calm day you can sometimes see Australasian gannets soaring high in the distance, white dots tracing cloud shapes above the sea. Even from several kilometres away you can see them plunge, whitewater eruptions on the surface. There are fish “boil-ups” in the bay below the lighthouse when trevally or kahawai come to surface en-masse. Using binoculars it is possible to see their blue backs gleaming amidst the white, churning water, mouths agape as they feed on krill. Their thrashing activity has seabirds milling around: gulls, terns, shearwaters and fairy prions (titi wainui), pursuing their prey. Sometimes the school will disappear with a loud whoosh and an eruption of spray as a larger predator joins the throng.

Talking to Ray Walter (the last lighthouse keeper on Burgess Island), however, it is clear the number and size of the schools have been drastically reduced over the last thirty years. I’ve even heard the sound of whales blowing close to the cliffs of Burgess while walking along the cliff-top.

After dark the Mokohinau Islands take on a totally different feel. Night-time naturally amplifies sounds and it is this that really strikes you: bird calls with the wash of waves on rocks or boulder beaches are ever-present. From October to December the bird calls come from everywhere, with the donkey-braying calls of little blue penguins (korora) signaling their return just after dusk.

Fluttering shearwaters with their maniacal “kaha kaha kaha kaha” calls make an incredible din as they circle (at times it seems endlessly) before landing. Little shearwaters have a slightly more demented version of the flutter call, but blessedly are more restrained.

Up by the lighthouse the wheezy, repetitive, whistling call of black-winged petrels can be heard and they are easily seen in the spotlight, and Cook’s petrels can also be heard flying close to shore.

Other birds seem more silent, but can be

Gannet gliding past the Mokohinau Islands,

by Chris Gaskin.

detected by spotlight or in the beams of the lighthouse.

The dark and often silent flesh-footed shearwaters and grey-faced petrels appear huge when they sweep into the light; the pale undersides of Buller’s shearwaters and fairy prions gleam white. Kaka and morepork (ruru) are also active at night. Kaka chortles and whistles are as much a night feature as during the day, and morepork can be detected by the occasional call or seen passing through the light beams as they catch moths.

And it is not only birds that are active at night. You can also hear geckos dropping from the flax flowers and bushes when they detect your movement. One stormy night during a research trip we visited Lizard Island (a small slab-like island close to Burgess) and came across large egg-laying skinks and big purple and red crabs patrolling the wet rocks and ice plant mats across the top of the cliffs.

But the memories that really sum up these islands for me are of visits to the northern headland of Burgess, especially on bleak, misty nights. We saw white-faced storm petrels appearing up over the edge of a low bluff at one end of the headland, and small storm petrels appearing to ‘staircase’ their way up to the top of the high cliffs. Using a broad, soft beam of a spotlight I watched them coming towards me, threading through tall flax flowers, before dropping into the vegetation and making their way to their burrows.

They have a dainty, fluttering, moth-like appearance over land, and give these scenes an ethereal quality.

The return journey to the mainland can also be memorable; one night we saw w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Hadoram Shirihai

Hadoram Shirihai

Cook’s petrel (titi) on the water: the stronghold for this species is Little Barrier Island/Hauturu, near the Mokohinau Islands.

a pod of common dolphins bow-riding through green phosphorescence in the water like comets. On another occasion during the day orca or killer whales followed in the wake, rolling over and eyeing us. Even more memorable was the time we saw whale spouts close to shore.

“The day was fining up beautifully and the sun low casting a glorious, golden light

Bryde’s and minke (papaka) whales migrate through the Hauraki Gulf while common and bottlenosed dolphins (aihe), and pilot whales (upokohue) are resident..

over everything, the air clear after rain and the wind right down; a closer look was irresistible. As we got closer to the whales we saw thousands of fluttering shearwaters wheeling in flocks, darting this way and that, schools of fish erupting, making the birds switch direction. Many gannets were diving and every now and then we’d see a whale surge through, sometimes close

beside the boat. At one stage we felt we were in the midst of a “blizzard” of birds, like wind-blown snowflakes gleaming in the sunlight.”

Chris Gaskin runs seabird pelagic trips to the outer Hauraki Gulf, and elsewhere around New Zealand and the South Pacific. www.nzseabirds.com

Your Beneficiaries There are more of them than you realise!

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To make a bequest, please use the following language in your will: I give to the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Incorporated a _____% share of my Estate (or the sum of $___________) for its general purposes. A receipt given on behalf of the Society will be a complete discharge to my trustees for the gift.

To find out more, contact us for a free brochure.

Sarah Crawford, Membership Administrator, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Incorporated, PO Box 631, Wellington, Freephone 0800 200 064 Email: s.crawford@forestandbird.org.nz

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

31

Petrel head For years the Chatham Island taiko seemed no more than midden bones, the occasional mention in oral history, and a single, stuffed museum specimen until its rediscovery in 1978.

Brent Stephenson visited the Chatham Islands and helped write the next chapter in the story.

0

100 HOURS. Rain is steadily falling again, and the temperature reads six degrees. I’m peering skywards into a beam of light that holds us transfixed, hoping that one of the moths fluttering through the light will miraculously turn into our feathered quarry. Another likeminded (or should that be mindless?) soul lies not far away in the Dracophyllum scrub, probably having similar dreams of a warm, soft bed. What on earth am I doing here?

That’s a question I’ve already asked myself several times tonight - and each previous night. From any sane person’s point of view, lying for three to four hours at a time out in the scrub on a cold, bleak and windswept Chatham Island ridgeline would not be the ultimate in therapeutic vacations. Yet here I am, happily fulfilling a long-held dream to come and take part in one of the most inspiring conservation projects in the world.

Most New Zealanders have not even heard of the Chatham Island taiko, but for most conservationists and birdwatchers, this species epitomises dogged determination, avian detective work and amazing rediscoveries. This is no ordinary seabird.

Taiko are among the rarest of the rare, ranked by the Department of Conservation (DOC) in the highest priority category for conservation management (nationally critical), and ranked internationally as critically endangered on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List.

The Chatham Island taiko, or magenta petrel, has been shrouded in mystery for most of its scientific life. It was first described from a single specimen, captured in 1867 in the mid-Pacific,

32 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

and named after the Magenta, an Italian warship turned research vessel. The bird was stuffed, sketched, painted and then stored at Turin Museum. The sole representative of its species, the skin sat for almost 100 years, collecting dust, and barely surviving World War II intact.

In 1937, one of New Zealand’s most eminent conservationists, Sir Charles Fleming, spent two months on the Chatham Islands. There he heard accounts of a large petrel known by the locals as taiko (and by Moriori as tchaik).

More than 20 years later, a young ornithologist, David Crockett, was sorting through remains of Moriori midden material from the Chatham Islands, and kept coming across bones from a petrel that did not match any known bird.

Corresponding with Dr William Bourne of Aberdeen University in 1964, he realised the bones matched those of the magenta petrel specimen, which Bourne had unearthed in 1958.

It seemed that midden bones, mention in oral history, and this single specimen were all that remained of the bird, apparently once the most abundant burrowing seabird on Chatham Island, but David Crockett’s interest was piqued.

In 1969 he and others began annual expeditions to the Chatham Islands under the auspices of “Taiko Expeditions.”

Years of reading, and writing and talking to prominent ornithologists, and a latent feeling that there was more to the story kept David Crockett going in those early years. For five years nothing, then in 1973 there were tantalising glimpses of taiko-like birds in the night sky. Another four years were spent searching, and on 1 January 1978, the first two taiko were caught in the south-western part of the main Chatham Island.

The smile on David Crockett’s face in photographs taken the following day, with the birds in hand, tells it all: success, and concrete evidence for those who had not believed it possible.

For a frustrating decade following this initial capture, the birds’ breeding location was still unknown. It was generally felt they bred somewhere deep in the Tukua-Tamatea Valley (“the Tuku”). Rugged terrain, thick vegetation interspersed with sphagnum swamps, and cold, wet conditions thwarted attempts to locate the breeding site.

Taiko Expeditions again turned to the use of a large spotlight directed into the sky. It is a matter of waiting until a bird enters the beam, and is then – sometimes, hopefully – guided to the ground using another handheld spotlight, a technique developed by David Crockett, inspired by early whalers’ accounts of birds flying into

try-pot fires.

In 1987, an expedition by Taiko Expeditions and DOC finally caught and tracked birds with transmitters back to their breeding burrows, deep in the Tuku Valley. With only a handful of breeding burrows remaining, the taiko was found just in the nick of time.

The Chatham Islands are home to a number of introduced mammalian predators such as feral cats, rats and possums, which may have contributed to the population decline. Buff weka, introduced to Chatham Island in 1905, may also have killed fledglings. Pigs, feral sheep and cattle have also had an effect on the vegetation in the area, and may have contributed to taiko decline through the trampling of breeding burrows.

Without intervention, extinction may not have been far away. Trapping of predators near the known taiko burrows began shortly after their discovery, and installation of artificial wooden burrows, providing larger, drier chambers for chick development, and the use of small transmitters to monitor chicks has helped increase their natural survival rate.

The number of known burrows has gone from two in 1987 to the 14 that have shown signs of breeding activity this season. The current population estimate stands at 120-150 birds, but fewer than 25 breeding pairs are likely to remain. Many solitary males occupy burrows, hoping to attract females to their nests, but the highly dispersed nature of the breeding colony, spread over thousands of hectares, limits their chances of meeting and pairing.

Ever so slowly, the growing number of burrows has been producing fledglings, with 63 chicks fledged since 1987, and a record 11 chicks in May this year. DOC scientist Graeme Taylor makes yearly visits to breeding sites to monitor breeding success and band birds at the burrows.

“At the start it was touch and go, with some years producing no chicks, and in those years it looked pretty bleak. But we were in this for the long haul, not the short term,” he says.

The hard work is slowly paying off, with about 35 active burrows, 11 of them containing chicks.

With a steadily growing light at the end of the tunnel, attention is now being directed towards a new phase in the recovery of the species. In March this year the Sweetwater Secure Breeding Site was opened by the Chatham Island Taiko Trust and Conservation Minister Chris Carter.

This three-hectare part of the Sweetwater Covenant owned by Bruce and Liz Tuanui has been surrounded with a predatorproof fence. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Within the fence, wooden burrows have been built, and there are plans to transfer chicks to them before fledging. A sound system playing taiko calls will also be installed to entice unpaired taiko flying overhead. It is hoped that this will form the foundations of a safe, self-sustaining breeding colony near the coast.

“The predation risk at the current colony has always been a concern, and the new predator free site will be a huge benefit to this species – an ‘island’ sanctuary for taiko,” Graeme Taylor says. It is an exciting time for the project.

It was that excitement that captivated me for so long: the lure of the unknown and rare and isolated that brought me to this cold nocturnal vigil. Suddenly the all but unconscious form beside me sits up and shines his spotlight skyward, yelling “taiko!”

And there it is, like a moth circling a candle, a taiko sweeping wildly through the beam. For more than two weeks on the island these birds had remained a myth like the takahe before. Now here it is, the legendary bird itself, in our hands. I almost need to pinch myself.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Raewyn Smith and Gavin Woodward, two dedicated volunteers whose lives were tragically lost during the 1996 expedition.

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

33

Saving the Wairau

B

RAIDED river ecology is one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide, yet one of the best examples we have, the Wairau River, is under threat from proposed hydro development.

The name “Wairau” means “many waters,” but if the hydro-electric power scheme proposed by Trustpower goes ahead, it will destroy many of the braided channels from which the river takes its very name.

The 170-kilometre-long Wairau provides important habitat for some of our most endangered endemic bird species including black-fronted tern (tarapiroe), black-billed gull (tarapunga) and wrybill (ngutuparore). It is also a breeding ground for banded dotterel (tuturiwhatu), Caspian tern (tara-nui), and home to diverse native freshwater fish populations.

At the mouth of the river the Wairau Lagoons cover 2000 hectares of marsh and mudflats, which provide habitat for more than 90 animal species, including New Zealand’s largest colony of royal spoonbills (kotuku-ngutupapa).

Forest & Bird disputes TrustPower’s claim that the impact of its hydro scheme on the river and its wildlife will be “insignificant,” and, with other conservation and recreation groups, residents, farmers, businesses and iwi, is making submissions against the proposal at resource consent hearings that began in June.

Top of the South Island Field Officer Debs Martin says the hydro scheme will cause significant destruction of the

34 FOREST & BIRD • M A UAG Y U2S0T0 6 2 0 0 6

river ecosystem, threatening a range of endangered wildlife.

In particular, the low river flows created by the scheme would have a major impact, she says. Trustpower proposes to reduce river flows to just 10 cumecs for half the year, reducing the 49km middle reach of the river to a virtual trickle.

The river only reached such a low level for 148 days (or 0.8% of the time) of the 14,952 days between 1959 and 2001, and nearly all occurred in the big droughts of 1973 and 2001. The scheme will increase these uncommonly low flows to about 150 days every year.

The natural character of braided rivers’ multiple braids provides excellent habitat and feeding opportunities, Debs Martin says. The reduced flows will cause side channels to dry up, destroying important habitat for fish and water insects, and reducing food supply for birds by an estimated 40%.

Sustained low flows may also increase summer water temperatures to levels that could kill fish and insects, further reducing birds’ food supply, and will increase access by predators to vulnerable nest sites.

TrustPower has conceded that “irreparable damage” to wetlands will also occur, but claims they can be “recreated.”

However Debs Martin says the loss of endemic wildlife populations is not reversible – and these complex and finely balanced ecosystems cannot be artificially replicated.

According to Fish and Game and recreational fishing clubs that use the

ROD MOORIS

The Wairau is one of the world’s last and finest intact braided rivers, but plans by TrustPower to build a hydro-electric power scheme threaten this internationally significant ecosystem.

Helen Bain asks what price our living rivers?.

The Wairau River is a stronghold of the endangered endemic black-fronted tern with some 10% of the global population breeding on the river.

Wairau River, low flows will significantly reduce habitat and food production for trout and other aquatic species in the affected reach, with unknown effects on the fishery in other parts of the river.

The Wairau is currently the most popular regional sports fishery for trout, with 11,000 angler visits each year. Fish and Game Nelson-Marlborough regional manager Neil Deans says the impact of the scheme on fish numbers and migration is “mind-boggling.”

Data from angler diaries gathered over a decade on the Wairau shows anglers were most successful when flows are 2080 cumecs – levels that occur most of the time now, but will rarely occur if the hydro scheme goes ahead, he says.

The Wairau is home to 32 fish species, all but eight of them native – a level of diversity found in few catchments, Neil Deans says. He says species most threatened by the scheme include the small native species dwarf galaxias, longfinned eels, freshwater crayfish (koura), freshwater mussels (kakahi) and trout.

“It’s pretty appalling really. We are finding TrustPower’s attitude that we can just go somewhere else very frustrating – we could say the same thing to them.”

The river is widely enjoyed by kayakers, whitebaiters, game hunters, jetboaters, rowers, swimmers, birdwatchers, picnickers and walkers, all of whom will w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

C. A Eldon

© Department of Conservation/Te Papa Atawhai

Wrybill breed on the Wairau River.

Dwarf galaxias are one of 24 native freshwater fish species that live in the river.

The endangered black-billed gull breeds in colonies along the river.

experience detrimental effects of the scheme – including potential danger from sudden fluctuations in river levels.

A Cultural Impact Assessment report

by Tangata Whenua ki Wairau also says the proposal will detrimentally affect the quality of food traditionally harvested from the river and will degrade the mauri (life force) and the wairua (spirit) of the river.

The cost to plant and animal species, the natural landscape and recreational users is clearly significant – yet TrustPower argues that there is a price to pay if New Zealand and the Marlborough region want to avoid electricity shortages and create economic growth.

According to the Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand needs 3355 megawatts of new electricity generation by 2025, including 890mw of hydro.

Wairau would provide maximum output of just 70mw – just 2% of the total needed – and there is no guarantee of even this level of production. TrustPower admits

the scheme will operate at between 25% and 75% of maximum output for half the time, and at 75-100% of maximum output for nearly a third of the time.

This means it will average 25-48mw or about half its capacity. With electricity demand increasing nationwide by 150mw a year, the scheme would give less than six months relief from projected national demand.

In any case, connection to the national grid means the supply may not be available to the Marlborough region – it will be sold on the spot market to the highest bidder in New Zealand. There is no guarantee the scheme would bring lower local electricity prices and it will not make Marlborough self-sufficient for power supply. The scheme will not provide 100% reliability of supply because there is little storage capacity and unpredictable water flow.

Debs Martin says electricity generators need to focus more on more efficient use

of power, rather than produce increasingly more power to meet ever-increasing consumption.

“The answer to our electricity generation issue is not more hydro power on braided rivers. Not only are braided rivers internationally important, rivers like the Wairau, with highly variable flows, are the worst type to consider generating electricity from.”

New Zealand’s track record on energy efficiency is appalling, and improvement there is a more sustainable solution than sacrificing unique environments to generate more electricity, she says.

“There is so much more that could be done, like properly insulating buildings and using more eco-friendly technologies.

The information, knowledge and products are out there but we need to get serious about wanting to make it happen.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird's Communications Officer.

Terns declining in TrustPower’s ‘backyard’

T

HE number of black-fronted terns (tarapiroe) wintering in the Bay of Plenty has declined over the past 30 years, and building a hydro-electric power scheme on their breeding grounds on the Wairau River threatens to hasten their decline.

Ironically, Tauranga-based power company TrustPower’s own “backyard,” the Bay of Plenty, is a key North Island wintering location for black-fronted terns.

Maximum winter counts in the Bay of Plenty by Ornithological Society member Paddy Latham between 1977 and 2002 show a marked decline in the numbers of black-fronted terns observed there.

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A species unique to New Zealand, black-fronted terns breed on South Island braided rivers like the Wairau, and fly to the coasts of the North and South Islands in the autumn to feed and winter over. The Wairau is one of the most important breeding grounds for black-fronted terns, with 12% of the total global population breeding there.

Paddy Latham counted a maximum of 58 terns in the winter of 1978 in the Bay of Plenty, but maximum winter count numbers declined sharply through the 1990s to a low of seven in 1997 and 1999. His last winter maximum count, in 2002, was of just 10 terns and he does not expect

numbers have recovered subsequently.

Recent counts are far lower than counts taken in the early 1950s, which recorded between 60 and 129 birds.

There are an estimated 5,000 blackfronted terns left in the world and the species is listed as being in serious decline.

The species is also on the IUCN (World Conservation Union) “Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction” as an endangered species.

If the Wairau hydro scheme goes ahead and damages vital breeding habitat of these rare endemic terns, it will further endanger their already precarious situation.

F O RFEO ST R E&S TB I&R D B I •R DA U • GMUAS Y T 2006

35

goingplaces

©Department of Conservation Te papa Atawhai

Palliser Bay, Wairarapa

The New Zealand fur seal (kekeno) is an iconic species found at Cape Palliser during winter.

THE name Wairarapa means “glistening waters” and in a sudden clear break in a stormy winter’s day, with the sunlight dancing on the waters of Palliser Bay, and beyond it Lake Wairarapa, it is easy to see why the first people to arrive here named it thus. Helen Bain takes a visit.

I

N 1770, Captain James Cook, clearly less dazzled by the natural beauty of the landscape, named the southeasternmost promontory of the North Island “Palliser” after his friend Sir Hugh Palliser, and the adjoining bay also took that name.

The cape is also known as Matakitakiakupe, after an earlier explorer, Kupe, who is said to have preceded the arrival of ancestral canoes (circa 1000AD) and circumnavigated both islands of New Zealand. Kupe inspired an even more prosaic choice of place names than Cook’s – Te Mimi o Kupe indicates where the great navigator took a comfort stop.

Palliser Bay, the adjacent wetlands surrounding Lake Wairarapa and Lake Onoke, and the Aorangi and Tararua Forest Parks offer modern-day explorers

36 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

a fascinating array of wild landscape and rare flora and fauna – all within easy reach of Wellington.

In particular, the five-kilometre-long Onoke Spit, separating Lake Onoke from the open sea of Palliser Bay, allows visitors an opportunity to enjoy native and endemic bird species up close, especially in early summer when two tern species – Caspian (tara nui) and white-fronted (tara) – nest at the eastern end of the spit.

Royal spoonbill (kotuku ngutupapa) are also occasionally seen flying over Onoke Spit in March. Look out also for black shag (kawau), white-faced heron (matuku moana), banded dotterel (tuturiwhatu) and New Zealand pipit (pihoihoi); in winter the endangered endemic blackfronted tern (tarapiroe) and black-billed gull (tarapunga) inhabit the spit, while

in summer there are breeding colonies of black-backed gull (karoro) and red-billed gull (tarapunga).

The nearby Wairarapa wetlands are considered internationally significant for both flora and fauna. Boggy Pond and Matthews Lagoon, between Lake Wairarapa and the Lake Ferry Road, provide lucrative ‘hunting grounds’ for birdwatchers; with binoculars you can see little black shag (kawaupaka) and black shag nesting high in the willows at the southern end of Matthews Lagoon.

The threatened endemic New Zealand dabchick (weiweia) can also be seen here, and the calls of the more secretive bittern (matuku hurepo) and spotless crake (puwheto) can be heard.

Along the bay, New Zealand fur seals (kekeno) can be seen in abundance lolling on the rocks or frolicking in the surf – they haul out here from May to September, and local fishermen say numbers in the large colony have been on the increase over the last decade.

Another scenic attraction of the bay is the Putangirua Pinnacles, immense organpipe-shaped rock formations. When the Aorangi Range behind Palliser Bay was an island 7-9 million years ago, screes poured gravels on to the coast. The Putangirua Stream has exposed this ancient layer of gravels, and where cemented silts or rocks within the gravel beds prove more resistant than the underlying sediments, the spectacular pinnacles or ‘hoodoos’ are formed.

If you are lucky you may also spot the New Zealand falcon (karearea) which regularly breeds at the Pinnacles Scenic Reserve. My small nephew also loves to fossick in the stream bed for fossils, which are plentiful. Other impressive rock formations along the coast include Kupe’s Sail (Nga Ra o Kupe), high slabs of rock shaped like – well, a sail.

Further along the bay, the fishing village of Ngawi is an attraction in itself, with its quirky baches huddled under the hills against the southerly, and a fantastic array of vintage bulldozers (look out for the pink one called ‘Babe’) that tow the fishing boats into the sea.

Catching a ride on a local fishing boat is the best way to see seabirds. If you can get offshore about 5km, you have a good chance of seeing royal albatross (toroa), fluttering, flesh-footed and sooty species of shearwater (titi), giant petrel and Australasian gannet (takapu). Even from shore, a variety of bird species can sometimes be seen, including royal albatross if you have a telescope.

Sometimes they can be seen following a passing fishing vessel.

Forest cover once extended over the w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

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Helen Bain Brent Stephenson

Kupe’s sail – Nga ra o Kupe – towers above the coast road to Cape Palliser..

The endangered black fronted tern winters at Onoke Spit near Lake Ferry in Palliser Bay, seen here in faded winter plumage.

©Department of Conservation Te papa Atawhai

steep hillsides right down to the coast but much has been destroyed by fire. However, native plants are making a comeback, including cabbage trees, kowhai, mahoe, kanuka, tauhinu, ngaio and several species of Coprosma.

Herbaceous species growing on the hillsides and coastal rocks include Cape Palliser daisy (Brachyglottis greyii), wharariki (Phormium cookianum) and karamea, with scrambling lianes such as poananga (Clematis forsteri), aka kiore and Muehlenbeckia complexa or M. axillaris.

This coast contains a number of rare and endangered plants. Near Nga Ra o Kupe seven plants of shrubby tororaro (Muehlenbeckia astonii) can be found.

Although now common in cultivation, only 37 individual plants of this species remain in the wild in the North Island.

Another rare species of muehlenbeckia, M. ephedroides, is growing in two colonies on the beach gravel. Other rare plants include the fern Pleurosorus rutifolius, and two grasses, Rytidosperma petrosum and Chionochloa beadiei, which are endemic to this coastal region.

The eastern shore of Lake Wairarapa is also an important habitat for native turf plant communities. Nationally threatened and rare plants found there include Leptinella maniototo, Crassula ruamahanga, Carex cirrhosa and Pilularia novaezelandiae.

Prominent at former Maori habitation sites are karaka groves and recently located colonies of rengarenga lily, which are considered indicative of early Maori occupation.

Signs of Palliser Bay’s pre-European history are evident – middens, kumara pits and remains of 12th Century stone walls that separated ancient garden plots on the coastal terraces are some of the earliest Maori occupation sites in New Zealand.

The 45 shipwrecks that have occurred in Palliser Bay since 1841 – with considerable loss of life – are further evidence of this unforgiving coast’s history. Some of the wrecks are accessible to divers – local divers describe Palliser Bay as a diving ‘mecca’ with easy access for shore diving right along the coast in extensive rocky reef systems, undersea rock formations and kelp forests and an array of fish and plant life.

Public access along the Palliser Road ends not far past Ngawi, near the lighthouse that was built in 1897. No longer manned, the lighthouse’s 258 nearly vertical steps still provide a final challenge for visitors, and the 360-degree view from the top – all the way to the Kaikoura Ranges on a clear day – is well worth the aching calf muscles.

New Zealand dabchick or grebe (weiweia) with chick. This elegant endemic bird can be seen at various Wairarapa wetland sites..

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

37

goingplaces Where and when to go

Kent Blechynden/The Dominion-Post

O

Kent Blechynden/The Dominion-Post

Pink vintage bulldozer at Ngawi, nicknamed ‘Babe’.

One way to get a better view of the seabirds is to catch a ride on a local fishing boat.

NOKE Spit is reached from the western side of Lake Wairarapa. Turn off SH2 at Featherston into Western Lake Road, and turn left where the sign points to Lake Onoke to reach the beginning of the walk along the spit. Allow 2-3 hours return for the walk.

An easier option to view black-fronted terns in winter is across the gap from the Lake Ferry side. To get to Lake Ferry, turn right off SH 2 at Featherston on to the Martinborough Road, then turn south after 6km into the Martinborough-Lake Ferry Road, before taking the right-hand fork to Lake Ferry. Binoculars are advisable when viewing across to the spit where they are most likely to be feeding.

To reach the Pinnacles, return to the Lake Ferry turn-off and take the left-hand fork to Palliser Bay – the Pinnacles are 13km from the turn-off. There are three signposted routes to the Pinnacles (2-3 hours round trip) and for a longer walk (3-4 hours) with fantastic views of Palliser Bay continue uphill to a track that returns to the coast 300m from the Pinnacles entrance.

To get to Ngawi, continue along the Palliser Bay road – Ngawi is 30km past the Palliser turn-off. Storms during the 1990s severely eroded the sea cliffs here, sending parts of the road and seaside baches tumbling into the ocean below.

The road has been rebuilt, but parts are unsealed, there are fords and active slips, and caution is advised.

Off-roaders have caused damage to vegetation and archaeological sites, so motorists are asked not to stray off roads and tracks.

Because of the climate extremes of the exposed coastline, visitors can be blasted by vicious southerlies in winter, and scorched in searing temperatures in summer, so appropriate attire is crucial. Different species can be seen at different times of the year, depending on migratory, breeding and feeding patterns, so a repeat trip in a different season can yield new surprises.

Kent Blechynden/The Dominion-Post

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird's Communications Officer.

The old lighthouse past Ngawi at Cape Palliser dates from 1897.

38 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

Spotted shag w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Fact file: Palliser Bay The Greater Wellington Regional Council website (www.gw.govt.nz) has detailed information about the flora, fauna and natural features of Palliser Bay and Wairarapa.

Go Wairarapa (www.wairarapanz.com) has information about Wairarapa’s natural and wildlife attractions, including details of the Cape Palliser Scenic Tour.

Masterton-based Divers Supplies takes regular guided diving trips to Palliser, 06 378 6492, diver@contact.net.nz.

Sites nearby The 19,373-ha Aorangi Forest Park lies between Martinborough and Cape Palliser. There are eight DOC huts in the park, and five of its valleys can be reached from the Cape Palliser Road, including via the Pinnacles. The Tauanui River also gives access to a large portion of the

northern part of the park (main access is through privately-owned Pirinoa Station and permission must be obtained).

The 120,000-ha Tararua Forest Park reaches from the Manawatu Gorge in the north to the Rimutaka Saddle in the south. Its rugged mountains and extensive network of tracks offer a variety of short walks, day trips and more serious tramps, including the Holdsworth-Jumbo circuit and the Southern Crossing. The Tararua Range was one of the last known refuges of the now extinct huia, and surviving native bird species here include tui, bellbird (korimako), whitehead (popokatea), rifleman (titipounamu), kakariki, kereru, kaka, morepork (ruru), New Zealand falcon (karearea) and shining cuckoo (pipiwharauroa). Native bats are also present here.

For more information about the forest parks contact the Department of Conservation in Masterton (06 377 0700) or go to www.doc.govt.nz.

Travel further north on SH2 to the National Wildlife Centre in the Pukaha Mt Bruce Forest (30km north of Masterton/two hours drive from Wellington) where kiwi, kokako, kaka and tuatara can be seen in an environment of 1000-year-old forest.

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society

CONSERVATION CALENDAR 2007

NEW ZEALAND CONSERVATION DIARY 2007 M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 7

M AY 2007

JUL Y 2007

M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

M T W T F S S 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

MONDAY

28

TUESDAY

29

WEDNESDAY

30

THURSDAY

31

FRIDAY

Full Moon

1

SATURDAY

2

SUNDAY

3

Mother and pups (Tui de Roy)

Stunning photos of New Zealand’s native flora and fauna taken by some of New Zealand’s leading nature photographers. Envelope supplied; weight less than 200 gms for economical posting.

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This beautifully produced diary includes photographs of New Zealand landscapes, plants and wildlife. It includes ‘week to view’ pages and is spiral bound so it will lie flat when open.

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Both calendar and diary are available now. Send orders with cheque and delivery details to: Craig Potton Publishing, PO Box 555, Nelson. Phone 03-548-9009. Fax 03-548-9456.

Email: info@cpp.co.nz. To order by credit card, refer to the Forest and Bird website: www.forestandbird.org.nz

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

39

Itinerant Ecologist – Geoff Park

Huia-eating in the Wairarapa

A

LL it takes is a sunny twilight after a run of grey autumn days for the landscape to reverberate with the local tui finding voice. A brace of them hurtled around me in the old beech grove the other evening as I took for a walk the discovery that my home forest above Day’s Bay had been one of huia’s last. So while my eyes and ears were on tui, my mind was on huia, gliding into the last sunlit branches to try their right to be heard among the hurtlers.

Or more correctly perhaps, on the old bushman who, forty-seven years after a museum label was last attached to a fresh huia skin, whistled into a microphone sounds he’d never been able to forget.

A slender memory thread, the scratchy 1954 recording of Henare Hemana in performance not only hints at what young huia would have had to learn. It is the sound with which Māori bird hunters in the 1880s, eager for collectors’ cash bounties, drew thousands of huia to their guns. Once you’ve heard huia’s drawn-out mating calls, male and female as different as their bills, there’s no sadder silence.

They are sounds that Nick Blake used to great effect in his play Dr Buller’s Birds at Wellington’s Circa Theatre in the 2006 New Zealand Festival of the Arts. Walter Buller, the Victorian ornithologist and collector, could mimic huia too. The play opens with him about to depart

for England and, needing another huia skin for his client collector Lord Walter Rothschild, setting up his travelling dissecting chest beside his lakeside aviary at Lake Papaitonga, Waiwiri. Then, gun-inhand, he stealthily opens the wire-netting door and feigning a female huia, brings a caged male into closer range.

Dr Buller’s Birds is about the relationship between two men – Buller and the legendary Muaupoko warrior Keepa Te Rangihiwinui – who personify the forces that reshaped the land from forest and swamp to what Buller called “smiling farms.” It is set around an 1890s night when, at the cusp of change, Buller finally gets title to the stretch of Muaupoko whenua embracing their precious lake.

But no less in Keepa’s despair is the laid-out huia he finds Buller dissecting and Buller’s insistence that the species needed urgent collecting for the world’s museums. In their raging at one another, they agree that the bird Buller called “one of the doomed species” was vanishing because its forests were. But there is the haunting prospect that the true reason for huia’s demise was precisely what Buller was doing.

I was once taken to the very spot where the aviary stood, by the elderly son of the gardener who looked after Papaitonga for Buller’s sons after their father’s death in England in 1906 – the year before the last

huia was seen alive. Its only trace was a thicket of Wandering Jew, Tradescantia, which he remembered his father trying to get shot of by piling it up on the aviary’s wire-netting. He’d always believed, he said, that it had been built to hold huia.

Possibly in order to hold birds for release on the lake’s islands, as Buller did for kiwi, and less successfully for kakapo; two of the species that in 1892, he’d proposed catching, along with huia, for “systematically stocking” Little Barrier Island/Hauturu.

Within months of Buller prising Papaitonga from Keepa in 1892, the governor had proclaimed huia a protected bird, and Little Barrier was being appraised as a sanctuary for birds like it; actions that Buller himself had a hand in.

Yet only days before the proclamation he told Lord Rothschild he was dispatching “parties of Maories into the woods... to obtain a live pair” ... “before they have finally passed away’. He finally succeeded the following year, managing, despite huia’s new protection, ‘to get a dispensation from the Colonial Secretary for the man who brought them into Town.”

But 1892, for huia, was too late. Had the proclamation and Little Barrier‘s securing come a decade earlier, when collectors who wanted a live pair, paid for and got them, huia might today be the premier attraction

Hamish Foote Pycroft’s Supper 2005 watercolour 540 x 725 mm From the Dunlop/ Atkinson Collection, Auckland.

Exhibited Birds, The Art of New Zealand Birdlife, Pataka Porirua Museum of Arts & Cultures, 2006 Courtesy Artis Gallery, Auckland.

40 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

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behind the new mainland islands’ fences.

An uncommon truth about huia is that in country where it dwelt it was often a common bird. In the 1870s, it was still being found close to the centre of Wellington. At Kaitoke, at the head of the Hutt Valley, a surveyor remembered it as “one of the commonest bush birds.” Many were eaten; “on one occasion, the cook skinning as many as six.” Yet Walter Buller in those years, “on all the information I could collect respecting huia” considered it “somewhat rare.” But then, fueled by his own ornithological fame and collectors’ curiosity at New Zealand’s “most interesting bird” came the huia traffic of the 1880s that caused him to consider it “far more plentiful than formerly.”

Just how plentiful is evident from Buller’s tallying of huia passing through just his hands. It wasn’t until well into the 1880s that he began keeping a tally, and as W J Phillips posed in The Book of the Huia, it raises the question of how many Maori bird hunters brought in during the years when he wasn’t, and, “incidentally, how many hundreds were exported to American and European museums.”

Buller himself recorded huge huia tallies, most of them in the Wairarapa.

In one 1883 instance, eleven Māori bird hunters returned from scouring bush between the Manawatu Gorge and Akitio with 646 skins.

Earlier last summer, reading Ron Crosby’s Gilbert Mair: Te Kooti’s Nemesis, I’d learned of another. In a chapter more about Mair’s love of fishing and hunting than his fearless Te Kooti-chasing exploits with the Arawa Flying Column, I noticed a reference to his diary in the Alexander Turnbull Library that suggested a w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Woken by “the Huia-call of our native guide,” Buller spent the morrow in its thrall: “a Huia … bounding along … presented himself to view at such close range that it was impossible to fire ... an opportunity of watching this beautiful bird … before I shot him … My next shot was at an adult male Huia who came dashing up with reckless impetuosity … anxious to obtain a perfect specimen, I risked a long shot and only wounded my bird … A pair of Huias … caressing each other with their beautiful bills, a charge of No. 6 brought both to the ground … almost glad that the shot was not mine, although by no means loath to appropriate the two fine specimens ... Bagged another bird who … came up quite fearlessly to her doom… A pair of Huias … in a pukatea … I brought them down with a right and left.”

In their three days with Te Rahui, Buller and Mair shot sixteen huia and caught another pair alive. One skin, years later, revealed two Indian tick species, phantom evidence that huia, a fighting bird when it needed to be, had resisted the introduction of the mynah to the Wairarapa a few years before.

Buller would have us believe that at night they listened to “the delicious liquid song” of tui and dined on roasted ribs of mutton. Mair merely referred to their “very jolly camp.” But for dinner the night Buller and Te Rahui brought in their best bag, and he himself had shot eight huia and caught “a beautiful hen,” he prepared “a splendid stew of Huia, Kaka, Pigeons & Bacon.”

Female huia: the last huia was seen alive in 1907.

Rod Morrris

The Wainuiomapu ravine in the 1880s.

Wyllie Album, courtesy Wairarapa Archive, Masterton

fondness for huia flesh.

Gilbert Mair was Walter Buller’s brother-in-law. An excellent shot and with great mana among Māori, he was one of Buller’s main procurers of birds and Māori antiquities alike. And when Buller recast the text of his famous History of the Birds of New Zealand after the first, 1873, edition was censured for drawing too heavily on others’ writings, Mair was one of his main providers of bird observations.

The two regularly went collecting together, often taking advantage of Mair’s work as a Native Land Court assessor to get into new country, so I wondered if Walter Buller was with him this time.

He was indeed. On October 9th 1883, Mair rode out to Te Ore Ore “to see the Natives there.” Whether it was Mair or Hanita Te Rahui who suggested a huia hunt is not clear. But sure enough, as soon as they did, Mair cantered back to Masterton and “telegraphed to Walter who replied that he would come with pleasure.”

Buller arrived off the evening train “all prepared.” The next morning Te Rahui led them up the Whangaehu Valley “over a beastly road, up to the girths in mud,” across the Taueru Valley to where a wooded ravine opened upstream to a kanuka forest renown as “the favourite resort of the Huia when feeding on the weta… .”

Buller wrote of “the charm of the whole scene … in which we first heard the soft, whistling call of the Huia!” Rahui mimicked it, and “in a few moments a fine male bird came across the ravine, flying low … and then disappearing as if by magic, in the undergrowth below.”

Unless you happen to have an intimate knowledge of Wairarapa’s hill country, the ravine is elusive. But a few weeks ago, with the help of a Wairarapa friend and an archivist whose knowledge of 1880s settlers pinpointed the precise valley, I tracked my way there.

Just above Bideford, the Wainuiomapu pretty well loses its terraces and flats in a narrowing so discrete among the paddocks and pine plantations that you could miss it. Then precisely as Walter Buller described, it widens out again. Old kahikatea, matai and maire hint at the forest once there, and down in the bed of the ravine, is another old kahikatea that Buller and Mair would have walked beneath. A kereru flaps out of it the moment we come on the scene. Watching it glide across to the old kowhai that Buller saw ‘leafless and golden’, I imagine the huia they saw – and sought.

When they eventually found it, grubbing for weta, “we shot the bird, which proved to be in beautiful plumage, and Rahui accepted this as an earnest of our success on the morrow.”

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

41

in the field

Isn’t it strange that the sky is blue? After all, it is lit by sunlight, and sunlight is a mixture of colours. Words by Ann Graeme. Illustrations by Tim Galloway.

W

HEN sunlight shines through rain we see its colours separately in a rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When the colours are mixed together, they make white light. Why, then, is the sky blue?

42 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

As sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, the molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and water and particles of dust get in the way. Each colour is traveling as a wave of a particular length. The longer wavelengths of red, orange and yellow get through the atmospheric soup, but the shorter blue, indigo and violet wavelengths bounce off the obstacles and scatter. So it is these wavelengths that colour the sky, but we see it as blue because our eyes are less sensitive to indigo and violet.

If the red, orange and yellow waves are getting through the atmosphere, we might expect them to colour the sun. But we never look directly at the sun. We can’t,

because its rays would blind us. We only look beside it, at its rim, and that is where the yellow waves scatter, so we perceive the sun to be yellow (and six times larger than it actually is).

As evening comes, the sun approaches the horizon and its last rays shine across the western horizon. The light waves have to travel a much greater distance through the atmosphere than they did when the sun was overhead. They have to pass between even more gaseous molecules and through throngs of dust particles. Only the longest wavelengths of red and orange make the distance and they light up the sky with the colours of the sunset.

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Weather is important to us all. For thousands of years, people have watched the sky and tried to predict the weather.

Folklore grew out of their observations – lore that is now complemented and expanded by the science of meteorology.

One of the best-known pieces of weather lore is: Red sky at night, shepherds’ delight, Red sky in the morning, shepherds’ warning.

Here is its explanation.

A red sunset is caused by a high pressure system of cool, dry air, approaching from the west. This cool, dry air is dense and tends to sink. It pushes away any moist, light air and brings clear air to the western horizon, creating the conditions for the sun’s red and orange waves to pass through and paint the sunset. The high pressure system will bring fine, dry weather so the sunset usually presages a fine day ahead.

Another piece of lore tells us: Evening red and morning gray, sends the traveler on his way.

Evening gray and morning red, Sends the traveler home to bed.

The same phenomenon that makes the sunset also creates the sunrise, but it tells a different story. Sooner or later, a low pressure system of warmer, wetter air will follow a fine weather system. In the dawn, the sun rising in the east will shine red through the clear air of the departing high pressure system to light up the approaching moist air of the low pressure system. The red sky tells us that the fine weather is passing and the rosy clouds overhead are the fore-runners of bad weather.

This lore is so old that it even appears in the Bible: It will be fair, for the sky is red.

And in the morning, it will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.

Matthew 16:2 These observations have limitations.

They apply only in latitudes where the predominant weather comes from the west, as happens here in New Zealand and in the equivalent northern latitudes in the Mediterranean and Britain where this folklore evolved. This phenomenon does not apply to storms travelling from the north or the south, and when the horizon is shrouded in clouds, we cannot see a sunset or a sunrise at all.

Clouds are the big players in the drama that is the weather. Made out of water vapour that has evaporated from the surface of land, rivers, lakes and the sea, clouds carry the promise of the rain that brings life to our planet.

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But when will the rain fall?

Clouds float because water vapour floats. When the temperature inside the cloud falls, the floating vapour condenses and falls as raindrops.

The westerly winds called ‘the Roaring Forties’ carry the albatrosses right around the southern oceans, and these same winds carry moisture-laden air across the Tasman Sea to the west coasts of New Zealand. In the South Island, the moist air meets the ramparts of the Southern Alps.

As they are driven over the mountains, the clouds rise and cool. They deluge the West Coast with rain. Little moisture is left for the winds to carry over the mountains to the dry plains of the east.

Clouds give us clues to the weather.

They come in three main types.

Fluffy white cumulus clouds grow from pockets of moist air, buoyed up by warm air rising off the land. As they grow they pile up like whipped cream and their edges are sharply defined. As water vapour evaporates from their margins into the surrounding, cool air, the outline of the cloud begins to erode. Soon it is tattered and fuzzy and the cloud dissipates like a fading Cheshire cat.

Cumulus clouds usually mean fine weather, but sometimes they can turn ugly.

On a very hot day when strong thermal currents are rising off the land, cumulus can grow into towering columns rising thousands of metres into the sky. It’s cold up there, very cold. High up in the cloud column the water vapour rapidly cools and condenses. The “thunderhead” becomes dense and grey, and rain and hail can fall in a summer thunderstorm – as recounted in another piece of weather lore: When clouds look like rocks and towers, the earth will be refreshed by showers.

Stratus is the name given to a boring type of cloud, one which stretches in an unbroken blanket from horizon to horizon. It is nothing more than uppity fog; warm, wet air that has risen until it meets a barrier of cool, dry air. If it is high enough it may just hang, dark and gloomy, or it may descend as drizzle or rain.

Cirrus forms the feathers and wisps of cloud that we call “mares’ tails.” They float so high that they are made of ice crystals instead of water vapour and their wispy nature tells of strong winds high in the atmosphere. Because cirrus forms when warm air is lifted up by an approaching cold front, these clouds signal that a change is on the way, probably bringing bad weather. Hence: Mackerel skies and mares’ tails make tall ships carry low sails.

Not all weather lore has such scientific backing. From the United States we have:

“Expect rain and severe weather when dogs eat grass,” recited by those who believe grass-eating dogs precede a major outbreak of tornadoes.

Our simple observations cannot hope to match the skills of the trained meteorologist, using sophisticated tools and interpreting satellite photographs, but, watching the sky like the shepherds of old, we can learn to recognize the weather patterns. Sometimes, as we listen to the weather forecast, we can smugly say, “We knew that weather was on the way.”

Try www.metvuw.com/ It is a free web sites for long range forecasts.

Some landscapes shape very distinctive weather. Every Cantabrian will know the ‘nor-west arch,’ a lenticular cloud formation created over the high country by strong winds, high in the atmosphere.

“Rain’s coming,” they will say.

From my personal observation I have created this lore: When the sandflies bite at noon Rain is coming soon.

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

43

Tracy Hinton

Kent Blechynden

branchingout

All nominees to the National Executive were elected at the AGM. L-R (top row): Dr Gerry McSweeney, Dr Philip Hart, Mike Britton (General Manager), Mark Fort, Donald Kerr. (Middle row): Dr Liz Slooten, Carole Long, Jocelyn Bieleski, Janet Ledingham. (Front row): Anne Fenn, Dr Peter Maddison, Dr Barry Wards. Craig Potton and Stephen McPhail are not pictured.

Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison.

83 AGM held in Wellington

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OREST & Bird’s 83rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held in Wellington on Saturday 24 June at the Mercure Hotel and Conference Centre.

Attended by more than 100 delegates from almost all of the Society’s 55 branches, there was a strong focus on the conservation work ahead.

After Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison welcomed delegates, General Manager Mike Britton introduced the new staff team.

Don Stewart, Head of BirdLife Pacific, gave a presentation about the conservation work of BirdLife International in the Pacific, while Don Merton gave a memorable presentation about Threatened Species in New Zealand.

On the Saturday evening the new Secretary for the Environment, Hugh Logan, gave the Sanderson Memorial Address on the theme of New Zealand’s Position in World Conservation in which he reviewed the achievements of the Department of Conservation (DOC) since 1987 and set out a list of conservation challenges ahead.

The next day Associate Minister for the Environment and Local Government Nanaia Mahuta delivered a speech on the Government’s Sustainable Water Plan of Action and answered questions.

Other speakers during the weekend were Dr Ann Brower who gave an eyeopening presentation on the

shortcomings of Tenure Review and the High Country, Dr Colin O’Donnell of DOC whose presentation Of Wrybills and Terns – Braided River Birds was both fascinating and timely, Kay Booth of Lincoln University who spoke about How the Community Values Water, and Dr John Quinn of NIWA who outlined Challenges to Restoration of Freshwater.

Some staff also made presentations or ran workshops: Kirstie Knowles presented on the Save Our Sealions campaign, Debs Martin and Eugenie Sage on the Sustainable Water Programme of Action, and Michael Szabo, Laura Richards and Helen Bain ran workshops on communications and the media.

Dr Peter Maddison chaired the AGM and council meeting, introducing the 2006 annual report to members which highlights the many achievements for nature conservation that Forest & Bird was part of during the previous year.

He introduced and congratulated Horowhenua Branch Chairwoman Joan Leckie and Lower Hutt Branch Chairman Stan Butcher who received Queen’s Service Medals in the New Years’ Honours List. Both Joan and Stan were present to appreciate the fulsome applause.

Dr Maddison was re-elected unopposed as Forest & Bird’s National President at the Council Meeting. Dr Barry Wards was elected as Forest &

44 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

Bird’s Deputy President, ahead of the only other candidate for the post, Dr Liz Slooten. Dr Wards is a Senior Advisor at Biosecurity New Zealand, a former National Treasurer of

Forest & Bird, and has chaired the Upper Hutt Branch for 12 years.

Stephen McPhail was reelected unopposed as National Treasurer.

Distinguished Life Member

very close involvement in branch, regional and national activities, tirelessly planning and organising field trips and weekend camps, and always turning up for the branch’s annual plant sales.

He has planned and led the branch’s Pinus contorta eradication programme on the southern slopes of Mt Ruapehu for many years, pulling countless pinus seedling along the way.

He has been a Farm Environment Awards judge and had extensive involvement with the Department of Conservation and regional councils over many years.

He was responsible for the formation of the Waikato Charitable Environmental Protection Trust and was elected as Chair of the Waikato Conservation Board last year.

He recently retired from Waikato University as Head of the History Department and has a very real understanding of history and politics. He has had huge input into the environment and conservation scene locally and nationally, and has many decades of knowledge and experience.

Tracy Hinton

rd

D

R PHILIP Hart (above) was declared a Distinguished Life Member at the annual council meeting in June.

Philip has served on the National Executive for eight years so far and has been the Chair of Waikato Branch ‘for more years than some members have been alive.’

He is well-known for his forthright, sensible and informative approach to conservation. Over the years he has maintained a

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

“Old Blue” Awards

Jim Lewis (above), who has helped the North Shore Branch save many hectares of bush, streams and estuaries. A member of the North Shore Branch Committee since the early 1990s, and Branch Chair from 1994-1998, he made the Resource Management Act his main focus, making numerous applications and submissions to local authorities on issues affecting the environment of the North Shore.

Jim has also worked with Keep Okura Green, East Coast Bays Coastal Protection Society, and groups opposing development of land adjoining Long Bay Regional Park and Marine Reserve.

Peggy and Rob Snoep (above), who have been a mainstay of the Southland Branch since the 1970s. They share a passion for recycling, and were key supporters in establishing kerbside recycling in Invercargill. They are a familiar team at all Southland Branch events, Tautuku Lodge working bees, Waimumu Field Days and the Invercargill A & P Show, and have been greatly involved with the Te Rere Penguin Reserve – where Rob put up the first fence, and Peggy served as Advisory Committee Secretary for eight years. They have also been instrumental in supporting and presenting numerous submissions to the Environment Court and resource consent hearings.

Tracy Hinton

Tracy Hinton

LD Blue” awards, recognising outstanding contributions to conservation, were presented to six members at Forest & Bird’s AGM in June.

Named after Old Blue, the “matriarch” Chatham Island black robin whose breeding success saved the species from extinction at a time when it was the most endangered bird species in the world – with a little help from Wildlife Service staff including Don Merton.

The awards were presented to: John Talbot, whose passion for native plants has driven his valuable contribution to the South Canterbury Branch since 1982. He has led many projects during 12 years as Branch Chair, including black stilt (kaki) and long-tailed bat (pekapeka) recovery, aerial survey of native bush remnants, the management plan for Conway Bush, and the preparation of numerous submissions on resource consents. John is also co-founder of Opuha Nurseries, the first privately owned native plant nursery using eco-sourced stock in Canterbury.

Tracy Hinton

“O

John Sumich (above), whose vision to restore the Waitakere Ranges to their former glory has been a driving force behind Ark in the Park. John’s work with the Waitakere Branch and his vision for the Ark in the Park project and Restore the Dawn Chorus campaign has been instrumental in seeing the area become a haven for rare native birds, plants, insects and reptiles.

Already robins (totouwai) and whiteheads (popokatea) have been reintroduced there, to be joined by stitchbird (hihi) in 2007. Thanks to John’s drive, initiative and enthusiasm, this legacy has been preserved to be enjoyed by future generations.

Helen Bain

Fieldays fun Tracy Hinton

F Helen Campbell (above), who has been a stalwart of the Nelson-Tasman Branch and local Kiwi Conservation Club. With her late husband, Eric MacDonald, Helen was enthusiastically involved with the Wakefield Bush Restoration Society, which established planting and walking tracks in three bush reserves. Helen also worked for the Department of Conservation and Nelson Environment Centre, building an impressive knowledge of the Resource Management Act, and served on Forest & Bird’s Executive Council and Tasman District Council, where she was a tireless champion for the environment. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

OREST & Bird pulled on its gumboots for a very successful attendance at Mystery Creek Fieldays in June.

Communications Officer (Marketing and Promotions) Laura Richards says the Forest & Bird team drew considerable interest from the 120,000-strong crowd, signing up a record number of new members and receiving hundreds of signatures on Forest & Bird’s Save Our Sealions petition.

A special attraction was the presence at the Forest & Bird stand of rare New Zealand geckos, Nora, Nettie and Agnes, who delighted the crowd with their eyeballlicking antics.

The gift of a free ecosourced native plant with every new membership was

also a great draw card for Forest & Bird, Laura Richards – whose contribution at Fieldays included dressing up as a tui – says.

“People in the rural and farming sector play a vital role in helping to preserve our environment and native plants and wildlife, and Fieldays was a great opportunity to let people

know how Forest & Bird can help them do their bit.”

A big thank you goes to the many Forest & Bird members who volunteered to help on the stand and to Forest Flora who generously donated the eco-sourced plants. For further information see their website at www.forestflora. co.nz

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

45

Rod Morris

branchingout

John Staniland and Suzi Phillips.

Kaipara takes on reserve

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UARDIANSHIP of the Colin Kerr-Taylor Reserve in Waimauku northwest of Auckland, was handed over to the new Kaipara Branch recently.

The Waitakere Branch has managed the 18-ha native bush reserve, which boasts some mature kauri and kahikatea as well as good tracks, boardwalk and a lookout, since it was gifted in 1995.

Waitakere Branch organised the handover ceremony which was attended by members of both branches and the KerrTaylor family.

Ross Kerr-Taylor talked about the family’s connection with the area that dated back to the family’s arrival and settlement in the 1880s.

Caretaker and Waitakere Deputy Chairman, John Staniland, presented a Forest & Bird sign, and an aerial map of the reserve to Kaipara Branch Convenor, Suzi Phillips.

Access to the reserve is opposite 147 Taylor Road in Waimauku. Any members who want to help with the reserve can contact Suzi Phillips at suzi@dialogue.co.nz

detritus,” and, sure enough, there she was!

The Department of Conservation (DOC) lists New Zealand’s native katipo spider (Latrodectus katipo) as being in serious decline, so it was very pleasing to find the spiders.

The red backed katipo is one of two species of katipo native to New Zealand; the other, the black katipo (L atritus) is found mainly in the north of Katipo spider the North Island and lacks a red stripe.

The katipo’s bite is poisonous – though bites are extremely HERE she is!” A female rare and there is an effective katipo spider is spotted anti-venom available, anyone at the base of a sand coprosma who is bitten should seek in the dunes of the Manawatu medical help.

Estuary at Foxton Beach. Not Katipo had already been long after, another female is found in dunes at Himitangi found nearby.

Our “spider hunt” by 20 local Beach, so James considered it highly likely they would also be Forest & Bird members, led found on the estuary dunes.

by Lower North Island Field Unfortunately, these dunes Officer – and katipo expert are regarded as a “sacrificial – James Griffiths, was off to a area” by the local district roaring start. council, and four-wheel-drive Before we set out, James vehicles are permitted in some explained where to seek our “prey.” “Look for a strong web areas. Our find questions the logic of sacrificing a special area at the base of dune grasses and sedges, or under prostrate that contains katipo spiders.

Joan Leckie shrubs and driftwood

Spider ‘hunt’

“T

James Griffiths and hybrid car.

Hybrid cars

I

T’S a tricky one for an environmentalist: how to travel to your far-flung conservation projects with the least environmental impact.

In New Zealand, where road is often the only viable transport option to get Forest & Bird field staff to their destinations, the issue poses quite a dilemma.

That’s why Forest & Bird has chosen Honda hybrid cars for its offices in Wellington, Nelson and Auckland.

Hybrid cars run on a combination of a petrol engine and an electric motor, and use less fuel and produce fewer emissions than ordinary petrol-powered vehicles.

46 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

The car charges its electric batteries while it is driven by recapturing energy during deceleration and braking.

It can be powered by the petrol engine alone, or with assistance from the electric motor.

Lower North Island Field Officer James Griffiths says the hybrid performs just like a normal car. ”You would hardly notice the difference between this and a normal vehicle. The only difference is the electric engine makes a strange noise when it starts up. And the handling is fantastic – it is a joy to drive.”

James is averaging about 6.5 litres of petrol per 100 km – a significant fuel saving compared to petrol-powered vehicles of similar size and power – something he feels is an important factor in the vehicle he drives.

“We should all be looking for ways to cut down on energy consumption, thinking about how often we use cars, and choosing more energyefficient cars.” w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

bulletin Staff contacts With new Forest & Bird staff appointments in recent months an updated contact list has been produced for members: General Manager Mike Britton leads the Forest & Bird staff team. He is responsible for all Forest & Bird staff activities and is based at our Wellington central office. He can be contacted at central office on (04) 385 7374 or via email at: m.britton@forestandbird.org.nz Communications Team Michael Szabo is Forest & Bird’s Communications Manager and leads the Communications Team. He can be contacted at central office or via email at: m.szabo@forestandbird.org.nz Helen Bain is Forest & Bird’s new Communications Officer – Media Relations and Journalist, based at our Wellington central office. She can be contacted at central office or via email at: h.bain@forestandbird.org.nz Laura Richards is Forest & Bird’s new Communications Officer – Marketing & Promotions. She can be contacted at central office or via email at: l.richards forestandbird.org.nz Sarah Crawford is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer – Membership and Fundraising. She can be contacted directly at central office on 04 801 2760 or via email: s.crawford@forestandbird.org.nz Sue Yates is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer – Technical Support. She can be contacted at central office or via email: s.yates@forestandbird.org.nz

Ann Graeme is Forest & Bird’s Kiwi Conservation Club National Coordinator, based in Tauranga. She can be contacted on 07 576 5593 or via email: basilann@nettel.net.nz North Island Field Staff Forest & Bird’s North Island Field Coordinator position is currently vacant. It is expected to be filled shortly.

Nick Beveridge is Forest & Bird’s Auckland Field Officer. He can be contacted on 09 632 0201 or via email: n.beveridge@forestandbird.org.nz Jonathan Midwinter is Forest & Bird’s new Central North Island Field Officer based in our Auckland Office. He can be contacted on 09 632 0205 or 021 988 295 or via email: j.midwinter@forestandbird.org.nz Sandra Jack is Forest & Bird’s Ark in the Park Project Manager. She can be contacted at 09 632 0202 or via email: s.jack@forestandbird.org.nz Mark Bellingham is Forest & Bird’s North Island Lawyer/Planner, based at our Auckland office. He can be contacted on 09 632 0203 or via email: m.bellingham@ forestandbird.org.nz James Griffiths is Forest & Bird’s new Lower North Island Field Officer, based at our Wellington central office. He can be contacted directly on 04 801 2219 or 021 627 329, alternatively at central office or via email at: j.griffiths@forestandbird.org.nz South Island Field Staff Eugenie Sage is Forest & Bird’s South Island Field Coordinator, based at our Christchurch office. She can be contacted at her office on 03 366 6317 or via email at: e.sage@forestandbird.org.nz

Debs Martin is Forest & Bird’s Top of the South Field Officer, based at our Nelson office. She can be contacted on 03 545 8222 or via email at: d.martin@forestandbird.org.nz Sue Maturin is Forest & Bird’s Otago and Southland Field Officer, based at our Dunedin office. She can be contacted on 03 477 9677 or via email at: s.maturin@forestandbird.org.nz Forest & Bird’s South Island Lawyer/ Planner position based at our Christchurch office is currently vacant. It is expected to be filled shortly.

Advocacy Team Kevin Hackwell is Forest & Bird’s Advocacy Manager and leads the Advocacy Team. He can be contacted at central office or via email at: k.hackwell@forestandbird.org.nz Kirstie Knowles is Forest & Bird’s Conservation Advocate. Kirstie is responsible for marine advocacy and can be contacted at central office or via email at: k.knowles@forestandbird.org.nz Services Team Julie Watson is Forest & Bird’s Services Manager and leads the Services Team. She can be contacted at central office or via email at: j.watson@forestandbird.org.nz Samantha Peterson is Executive Assistant to the General Manager. She can be contacted at central office or via email at: s.peterson@ forestandbird.org.nz Tracy Hinton is Forest & Bird’s Accountant.

She can be contacted at central office or via email at: t.hinton@forestandbird.org.

Gabrielle Wilson is Forest & Bird’s new Administration Officer. She can be contacted at central office or via email at: g.wilson@forestandbird.org.nz

Forest Flora anincovenienttruth set to flourish Exclusive Screening:

“A brilliantly straightforward and devastating film on global warming . . . . this is not a story of despair, but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share.”

Wednesday 20th September Paramount Theatre 25 Courtney Place, Wellington

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OREST FLORA, the Waikato business set up by Forest & Bird member Wayne Bennett and his son Jeremy, is based on the principle that plants used in revegetation and reforestation projects should be sourced from within the ecological district as close to the planting site as possible.

Eco-sourcing maintains the diversity and distinctive character of local plant Drinks and nibbles from 5.45pm populations, protects them from being Screening at 6.30pm, with guest swamped by varieties introduced from expert speaker Dr Sean Weaver other areas, and ensures plants are those $20 tickets on sale now best adapted to survive in a particular area.

Book early to avoid missing out!

Forest Flora were at the annual Please contact Mira at Forest & Bird on agricultural Fieldays in Waikato – and 04 385 7374 (9 – 4pm Monday – Friday), provided a free eco-sourced plant for every for ticket sales by cash, credit card or by cheque to Forest & Bird/Movie, PO Box 631, person who joined Forest & Bird during or Level One, corner Victoria and Ghuznee Fieldays. For further information: Streets, Wellington. www.forestflora.co.nz

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FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

47

Conservation

No. 143 AUGUST 06

an intrusion into the pristine environment of the Antarctic.“Once you start putting a road through it’s not a wilderness anymore,” she says.

“The large scale logistics used to supply Antarctic bases threaten the very environment that the science programmes seek to protect.

Increased ‘traffic’ in the Antarctic contributes to global warming that eventually may see the collapse of the large Antarctic ice sheets.”

Maintenance of the road will also require ongoing blasting to fill in crevasses that continually open up as the massive ice sheet moves over time, she says.

Sir Edmund Hillary, who drove 2000 kilometres from Scott Base to the South Pole on a tractor in 1957, has also expressed distaste for the road, saying it was “terrible.”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Antarctic Policy Unit head Trevor Hughes has said the ice road complies with the Antarctic Treaty.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Antarctica’s ‘road to nowhere’ metre-long tractor-trailer units on any given day during the 180-day Antarctic summer.

Forest & Bird has raised concerns about pollution and the possibility that the ice road will increase demand for tourism.

Forest & Bird Top of the South Island Field Officer Debs Martin said the road was also

New skink rescue plan

endangered at the national level since 2003.

The skinks live on schist rock outcrops in montane tussock grassland in the east and west of their former range in Otago – just 8% of the range they once inhabited.

The draft recovery plan is open for public comment until September 15. Its proposals include securing numbers of skinks in captivity, predator control, research and monitoring to better establish causes of decline, and raising public awareness and involvement.

You can find the plan at www.doc.govt.nz or by contacting Bruce McKinlay at DOC on 03 474 6939.

Otago skink: extinct by 2010?

DOC/Dick Veitch

The Department of Conservation is seeking comment on its draft recovery plan to save grand and Otago skinks from extinction The grand skink and the Otago skink are two of New Zealand’s largest and rarest lizards. Population modelling suggests a high probability of extinction of both species by 2010, and estimates of their total numbers range from fewer than 5000 to as few as 1400-1800.

Their populations are in decline – possibly due to predation and habitat loss – and both species have been listed as critically

Or, write asking the USA to reconsider its ice road, to: United States Antarctic Program Orchard Road, Christchurch Airport, Christchurch.

▲

Forest & Bird is lobbying Antarctic Treaty nations to ask the United States to reconsider its “ice road” to the South Pole and preserve the pristine wilderness of Antarctica.

The 1600-kilometre road from McMurdo Station to Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole is used by “road trains” of up to six 300-

Write, asking the New Zealand Government to withdraw its support for the ice road, to: Trevor Hughes, Antarctic Policy Unit Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Private Bag 18-901, Wellington

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, PO Box 631, Wellington 48 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006 Phone (04) 385 7374 • Fax (04) 385 7373 • Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz

Join us at www.forestandbird.org.nz w w w . f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z4 8

Peter Langlands

marine dolphin – is threatened by set nets.

Call for action on dolphin deaths Deaths of 19 Hector’s dolphins (aihe) reported over last summer highlights the need for the government to put in place its long-promised species management plan.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says the actual number of dolphin deaths would have been much higher than

Forest & Bird is supporting a proposed marine reserve at Akaroa Harbour which would preserve the harbour’s distinctive marine life.

The proposed Akaroa Harbour (Dan Rogers) Marine Reserve would cover 530 hectares, from Nine Fathom Point to Gateway Point, taking in spectacular scenery above and below the water, including volcanic sea cliffs, sea caves and part of the harbour entrance.

Forest & Bird South Island Field Coordinator Eugenie Sage says the reserve would be a valuable addition to Canterbury’s marine reserves. The region’s only other marine reserve, the nearby Pohatu, covers just 215 ha and protects a sandy-bottomed bay – a very different habitat from the proposed new reserve.

Akaroa Harbour is one of only three harbours on the east coast of the South Island, and is distinctive due to its unique volcanic history. It formed about five million years ago, as rising sea levels flooded the eroded caldera of the Akaroa volcano.

“The proposal is an opportunity to protect a representative part of the harbour ecosystem, found nowhere else in New Zealand,” Eugenie Sage says.

The harbour provides habitat for a rich variety of marine and coastal life, including the endangered Hector’s dolphin and the white-flippered subspecies of little blue penguin (korora).

Public submissions on the reserve proposal closed in June and are now being considered by the Department of Conservation, which will report to the Minister. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

A big thank you to everyone who has signed Forest & Bird’s SOS – Save Our Sealions petition and donated to our appeal. By doing so you have contributed to an excellent result with more than 8000 signatures gathered in the first two months.

With 8000 signatures gathered, we now need 7000 more to reach our target of 15,000 by September 15.

The petition urges the government to reduce the annual New Zealand sealion “kill quota” in the southern squid fishery to close to zero when it is set for the 2007 fishing season later in 2006. Forest & Bird plans to deliver all the petition signatures to Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton.

Every signature counts so we are asking members and supporters that have not yet done so to email friends they know who may want to sign the petition online at www.forestandbird.org.nz The white-flppered subspecies of little blue penguin will benefit from a marine reserve at Akaroa Harbour.

DOC

Akaroa marine reserve proposed

Save Our Sealions petition tops 8000

▲

▲ Hector’s dolphin – the world’s smallest and rarest

the 19 announced by the Department of Conservation (DOC), because many commercial and recreational fishers do not report deaths of dolphins caught in their set nets.

“This is the world’s rarest species of marine dolphin. It is critical that urgent action is taken to improve management practices and implement conservation measures, such as marine mammal sanctuaries, before it is too late,” Kevin Hackwell says.

He says it was a relief that none of the critically endangered Maui’s dolphins were among the reported deaths, but the overall number of deaths demonstrates a serious risk to Maui’s dolphins, of which just 111 remain.

The deaths reinforce the urgent need for the government to put in place population management plans, which would set goals for managing dolphin populations and outline what needed to be done to protect them.

Forest & Bird wants marine mammal sanctuaries to provide statutory protection to dolphin populations in the following areas: • Maui’s dolphins off the North Island northwest coast • Hector’s dolphins off Kaikoura, Curio Bay, Waewae Bay, and the South Island West Coast • An extension of the existing Banks Peninsula sanctuary protecting Hector’s dolphins.

It also wants set net bans in areas of high importance for Hector’s dolphins in addition to those already in place at Banks Peninsula and north-west of the North Island.

Numbers of Hector’s dolphins are estimated at about 7000, but have plummeted by more than two-thirds since monofilament set nets were introduced in the 1970s. In 1970 there were more than 26,000 Hector’s dolphins.

Maui’s dolphin is the North Island subspecies of Hector’s dolphin.

What you can do: Write to Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton at Parliament Buildings (Freepost), Wellington, supporting the reserve proposal, as this minister’s agreement is required for the reserve to proceed. Or by email: janderton@ministers.govt.nz FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

49

DOC

Kaipara aquaculture areas withdrawn

Buller’s albatross is one of the seabird species recorded killed in the hoki fishery.

Bid to cut hoki’s “sustainable” tag Forest & Bird has appealed the certification of hoki as a sustainable fishery, and hopes its efforts will stop the fish being marketed as such to international consumers.

Forest & Bird has appealed against the Marine Stewardship Council certifying hoki as sustainable, and is waiting to see whether its appeal against the London-based fisheries monitoring authority’s decision will be accepted.

Hoki was ranked 11th worst fishery in Forest & Bird’s 2005/06 Best Fish Guide, in which it is placed in the red/worst choice category.

Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says hundreds of New Zealand fur seals, albatrosses and petrels are drowned in the hoki fishery each year, including several globally threatened species such as black-

browed and Buller’s albatross, and whitechinned petrel.

"Bottom trawling methods used by the hoki fishery bulldoze the sea floor, destroying soft corals, sponges and other bottom-dwelling marine life. Increasing use of double linked nets with a heavy roller in between has made the impact on fragile deepwater habitats even worse," Kirstie Knowles says.

Stocks of hoki are also declining. When the hoki fishery was first certified in 2001, the annual allowable catch was 250,000 tonnes, which was reduced to 220,000 tonnes in 2002. In 2003 the industry had a limit of 180,000 tonnes but could only catch 150,000 tonnes; and in 2004 the catch limit was further reduced to 100,000 tonnes.

Hokitika Gorge walkway decision welcomed Forest & Bird has welcomed a decision by the Department of Conservation (DOC) to decline consent for a $6 million treetop walkway in the Hokitika Gorge.

Forest & Bird South Island Field Coordinator Eugenie Sage says the decision in June was a welcome precedent in protecting a special natural area from overly intrusive tourism development.

“The Hokitika Gorge is a highly scenic and accessible rock gorge and a stunning feature in its own right,” Eugenie Sage says.

“It does not need this walkway to attract visitors, and it is the wrong place for an intrusive metal walkway, café and shop.”

She says the development would have compromised the remote and wild character of the site, and DOC’s decision was consistent with the Reserves Act and the purpose of scenic reserves to “protect areas of scenic 50 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

interest and beauty.”

The proposal was opposed by 93% of the 347 Hokitika residents and visitors who made public submissions against the walkway development.

The submissions showed the gorge’s sculpted, water-smoothed rocks, azure waters and tranquillity were highly valued, Eugenie Sage says.

Air Walks NZ Limited had applied in late 2003 to construct a 600-metre canopy and elevated steel walkway, visitor centre, toilet block and car parks at the Hokitika Gorge. It had expected 600 people a day would visit the attraction.

The proposal would have required the removal of 2750 square metres of mixed kamahi forest, the felling of rimu and other trees, and increased potential for introduction of invasive weeds.

Auckland Regional Council has withdrawn a proposal in its coastal plan to allow marine farming in the southern Kaipara Harbour.

Forest & Bird North Island Field Coordinator David Pattemore says the change of heart by the council’s regional strategy and planning committee recognises the importance of protecting internationally significant wildlife from inappropriate development on the Kaipara.

“Kaipara has outstanding habitat for birdlife, marine mammals and spectacular landscapes and recreational opportunities, which would have been threatened by allowing development in some of the most sensitive habitats on the harbour. Forest & Bird is very pleased that the council has now recognised the importance of protecting this valuable natural asset.”

The council had proposed establishing Aquaculture Management Areas (AMAs) for marine farming in the southern Kaipara Harbour, but withdrew the proposal following an Environment Court ruling overturned council consent for a 30-hectare mussel farm in the area.

The court found that benefits from the proposal by Biomarine Ltd would have been outweighed by significant adverse effects on the natural character, amenity and recreational values of the area.

David Pattemore says that since Aquaculture Management Areas were proposed in October 2002, local conservationists including Forest & Bird have opposed a number of inappropriate developments on the Kaipara, including the Biomarine mussel farm, and a 104-ha oyster farm off Orongo Point.

Forest & Bird Kaipara Branch Convenor Suzi Phillips says the decision sets a precedent for establishing the importance of the Kaipara Harbour’s landscape and natural character values.

“It is an important victory for all the Kaipara communities because it not only protects the natural heritage values of the harbour, but also acknowledges the significant recreational values of the area.”

@

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Marine protection proposal found wanting Forest & Bird has expressed concerns about the shortcomings of a fishing industry proposal to protect life on the ocean floor.

The fishing industry group Deepwater Stakeholder Group (DSG Limited) has put forward a Benthic Protected Area (BPA) proposal to protect 31% of benthic (ocean floor) environments from damaging fishing practices.

Forest & Bird has made a submission supporting the industry’s recognition of these impacts and the need to protect these environments. However, it expresses concern that the industry proposal falls short of providing adequate protection.

“Concerns about damage to the marine environment and the urgent need for protection are no longer in doubt,” Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says.

She says the industry proposal has determined the boundaries of proposed BPAs with little scientific input or consultation outside the fishing industry, thereby failing to

Whale shark/Bruce Mahalski

protect key areas of biodiversity unique to New Zealand.

Coastal habitat and areas of shallow trawling (less than 200 metres from shore) are not protected by the BPA proposal, nor are areas that are currently being trawled.

“The BPA proposal, though a significant first step to address the impact of trawling,

falls short of its potential to effectively protect the benthic environment,” Kirstie Knowles says.

“It is evident that a more comprehensive proposal is needed that would offer protection to New Zealand’s unique marine environment as a whole, and would complement a wider network of Marine Protected Areas.”

Marine farm decision disappoints

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decision to decline consent to the four farms.

With support from the Ministry for the Environment’s Environmental Legal Assistance Fund, Forest & Bird was able to participate in an Environment Court hearing on the marine farm proposal in 2004, with five expert witnesses. During the Council and Court

hearings, the applicant companies reduced their original proposal for four marine farms totalling 159-ha to one 46-ha farm in response to concerns raised by Forest & Bird.

Ten per cent of the world population of the Fiordland crested penguin is found at the Jackson Head colony.

DOC

Forest & Bird was disappointed by the Ministry of Fisheries’ decision in June to grant preliminary approval to a marine farm on the West Coast of the South Island.

Forest & Bird South Island Field Coordinator Eugenie Sage says approval for the 45-hectare marine farm off Jackson Bay, north of Fiordland, threatens rare Hector’s dolphins (aihe) and Fiordland crested penguins (tawaki) in the area.

Bright night-time lighting of the farm boundaries may affect penguins moving to and from Jackson Head, while sheltered Jackson Bay is a nursing and calving area for Hector’s dolphins and increased boat traffic increases the risk of boat strike for dolphin calves.

Fiordland crested penguins are in decline and are categorised as vulnerable by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). About 10% of the world population is found at the Jackson Head colony.

Forest & Bird rejects the ministry’s claims that the impact on the feeding and breeding areas of Hector’s dolphins and Fiordland crested penguins will not be significant.

The marine farm would also have a detrimental visual effect on the outstanding natural area adjacent to the South West World Heritage Area/Te Wahi Pounamu, and risks the introduction of the invasive Asian kelp Undaria pinnatifida, Eugenie Sage says.

Forest & Bird opposed the original application for four marine farms totalling 132ha in the area, and also opposed the proposal in the Environment Court when the applicants appealed the West Coast Regional Council’s

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

51

bookreviews

Waitakere Ranges, Ranges of Inspiration: Nature, History, Culture Edited by Bruce and Trixie Harvey, 542pp, large-format hardback, Waitakere Ranges Protection Society Inc., 2006, RRP$95.

HE Waitakere Ranges rise from the western fringes of the Auckland conurbation into a wilderness of some 30,000 hectares of rainforest, deep cut by gorges and volcanic reefs. Then they fall down sheer bluffs and cliffs into the Tasman Sea of New Zealand’s other wild west coast.

This huge, exhaustive and expensive book celebrates not only the wild places of the Waitakere Ranges; it also examines their history and

T

Kahurangi Bush & Beyond National Park

Guided Trekking

Heaphy Track & Many more.

Ask about the Cobb Comfort and West Coast Escape – Multi-day trips with daypack only!

www.naturetreks.co.nz 35 School Rd, RD3 Motueka, New Zealand Tel/Fax +64 3 528 9054 email: Bushandbeyond@xtra.co.nz

We emphasis conservation values Clients only expected to carry their personal gear

cultures, and the arts they have inspired. The expert authors examine the Ranges in detailed essays, relieved by striking photographs of plants, wildlife, people and events.

The natural history contributors explore the physical nature of the rugged hills and the wilderness which forms the western horizon of Auckland for the first 200 pages. Another 200 pages is devoted to settlement, ecological change and the consequent campaigns to save and restore the wilderness. The last 200 pages are devoted to artists and writers, presenting their impressions of the bush and the coast.

Forest & Bird has played a large part in restoring the natural world of the Waitakere Ranges, through pest control and habitat enhancement, spectacularly with its Matuku wetland reserve and its Ark in the Park partnership with the Auckland Regional Council.

Several prominent members are among the 50 contributors.

This book constitutes a persuasive case for the further protection of the ranges, reflecting its genesis with the residents who formed the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society in the early 1970s.

Gordon Ell

OKARITO COTTAGE Well appointed cottage. Sleeps 3 but room for more in the attic. Close to West Coast beach, bush walks and lagoon.

Southern Alps form a backdrop and Franz Josef approx.

30 kilometres on tarsealed road.

Cost $70 PER FAMILY Extra Adults $10 per night Further enquiries contact Elspeth Scott, 19 Ngamotu Rd, Taupo 07-378-9390 email: ElspethScott@xtra.co.nz

Banks Peninsula Track Known and enjoyed by thousands since 1989!

Starts and finishes in charming Akaroa.

Special feature during November and December is the guided viewing of white-flippered penguin colony Booking Office now open. Ph/Fax 03 304 7612 at Flea Bay. Email:bankstrack@xtra.co.nz • www.bankstrack.co.nz

52 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

A Guide to New Zealand’s Marine Reserves

by Jenny & Tony Enderby 170pp, limpbound, New Holland, 2006, RRP$29.99 HIS modestly priced, informative and well illustrated guide to New Zealand’s marine reserves and protected areas is a long overdue addition to the array of guidebooks on the kiwi outdoors and a practical book that will assist visitors who are not so familiar with the sometimes far-flung locations included.

The format for each location

T

includes a site description and map, tips on access and the timing of visits, and a brief outline of the species and habitats to be found there.

There is a brief foreword by Bill Ballantine and a handy introduction which help set the scene, as well as lists of species, references, and further reading, which contribute to the userfriendly feel.

It is good to see the positive role Forest & Bird has played in promoting and proposing marine reserves included here, although the instances mentioned are by no means a comprehensive list. Jacqui Barrington’s spirited advocacy for a no-take reserve at the Poor Knights Marine Reserve when she was Forest & Bird’s Northern Field Officer springs to mind here.

The format of the book might perhaps have been improved if it had been spiral bound. This would sit open at the right page more easily than a conventional paperback does, as you navigate your way around. However, this is a minor point set against the larger achievement this fine book represents.

Michael Szabo

PHILPROOF PEST CONTROL PRODUCTS WIPEOUT: Possums, Rodents, Mustelids, Rabbits Standard & Mini Philproof Bait Stations & Timms Traps Rodent Bait Stations and Block Baits. Rodent Snap Traps Fenn Traps (MK4 & 6), Trap Covers – Double or Single Also available: Monitoring Tunnels & Bird Nesting Chambers Phone/Fax 07 859 2943 Mobile 021 270 5896 PO Box 4385, Hamilton 2032 Website: www.philproof.co.nz Email: philproof.feeders@clear.net.nz

Ditrac

DITRAC All-Weather BLOX is an extruded rat and mouse bait that gets excellent control indoors and out. Its active ingredient, Diphacinone, makes DITRAC an excellent maintenance bait. DITRAC contains the optimal blend of low wax and human food-grade ingredients for high weatherability and bait acceptance.

• Multiple edges appeal to rodents desire to gnaw.

• Highly weatherable, mold & moisture resistant.

• Center hole allows Blox to be easily secured into bait stations or onto nails & wire.

• Available as a 28g blox, packaged in 1.8kg & 8.2kg pails.

• Used extensively by Government agencies.

• Also available as a 450g Super Blox.

Freephone: 0800 111 466•Web: www.nopests.co.nz

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White Heron Sanctuary Tours Come with us, RAINFOREST, NATURE and JETBOATING TOURS, all year round.

Viewing of nesting colony from October to March.

Ph. 0800 52 34 56

Treks and peaks

Albatross Encounter

PAKISTAN PERU PATAGONIA

22 countries worldwide

96 Esplanade KAIKOURA

Chile & Argentina –

remote and stunning 26 days ex Auckland – Small Group Call or email for your FREE 2006 Brochure and full itinerary – departs 26 October 2006

Call the South America specialists Latin Link Adventure – 0800 528 465 email: marg@latinlink.co.nz www.latinlink.co.nz Lord Howe Island

Bush Regeneration/Weeding Eco Tour 19-26 August, 2006

d re an explo World o t ique ance A c h y t h i s u ne P a r k o g j a t e n H e r i ta www.lordhoweisland.info/index.html Contact Wendy John wendyjohn@pl.net or 09-815-3101

Fiordland Ecology Holidays

WILDERNESS WEEKS Based from the comfort of New Zealand’s two Wilderness Lodges.

ARTHUR’S PASS Southern Alps Heartland or LAKE MOERAKI West Coast Wilderness October, November 2006 March, April 2007 Guided by Biologist Dr Gerry McSweeney 6 days of nature & plant discovery, walking, birdwatching, canoeing, gourmet food and fun.

Suits all ages For details contact: Email: gerry@wildernesslodge.co.nz Phone: 03 318 9002 Fax: 03 318 9245 www.wildernesslodge.co.nz

65ft Motor Yacht Breaksea Girl

3 to 7 day trips in Fiordland.

Dolphins, seals and penguins, forest ecology, natural history combined with great food and company.

Small groups so bookings essential.

Forest & Bird members 5% discount.

Suitable for all ages.

Spring and Summer schedule now out.

Dolphin Research Trip 14-20 October

RON GREENWOOD ENVIRONMENTAL TRUST

Environmental Impact Studies Surveys of Marine, Freshwater & Terrestrial Habitats Pollution Investigations Resource Consent procedures Archaeological; Historic Places Appraisal

The trust provides financial support for projects advancing the conservation and protection of New Zealand's natural resources, particularly flora and fauna, marine life, geology, atmosphere & waters.

bioresearches@bioresearches.co.nz www.bioresearches.co.nz P.O Box 2828 Auckland PH: AUCKLAND 379 9417 Fax (09) 307 6409

Sri Lanka Tasmania Small group tours to special places – 2007

Contact Kiwi Wildlife Tours NZ PO Box 686, Warkworth Ph 09 422 6868 info@kiwi-wildlife.co.nz www.kiwi-wildlife.co.nz

South Hokianga

QE11 TRUST covenanted 10 acres 3-4 bedroom home Potential Retreat or B&B 5 minutes Opononi beach/shops 15 minutes Rawene Medical Centre Gary Clarke, First National, Kaitaia Phone: 09 405 7688, Mobile: 0210 333 999 Email: clarkegroup@ihug.co.nz

A special world nestled in Native Bush, secluded, near Tauranga. BushWalks, Glow Worms, Tui, Kereru. 3 Separate Guest Whares. B&B / other meals.

CONSULTING BIOLOGISTS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS ESTABLISHED 1972

Pohatu Penguins & Marine Reserve Banks Peninsula Scenic nature tours with local volunteers conserving Banks Peninsula’s biodiversity.

• Coastal Retreat • Sea Kayaking Bookings through Akaroa Information Centre. ph 03 304 8600 www.pohatu.co.nz

MOUNT TUTU ECO-SANCTUARY

WINNER 1999

BIORESEARCHES

www.whiteherontours.co.nz

www.highplaces.co.nz

www. mount-tutu.co.nz

PH/FAX: 03 249 6600 FREEPHONE 0800 249 660 PO Box 40, MANAPOURI EMAIL info@fiordland.gen.nz www.fiordland.gen.nz

treks highplaces.co.nz 0800 305 306

Ph. 0800 124 377

Patagonia end of the world…

Pelagic tours by boat to view at close range an exciting number of sea birds including albatross, petrels, shearwaters and more.

Tours daily at 6.00am, 9.00am and 1.00pm (duration 2.5 hours, 4 hour tours by arrangement) Phone 0800 733 365 for information and reservations Adults $75.00 Children $35.00 Website with latest sightings at www.oceanwings.co.nz Email info@ oceanwings.co.nz

w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

More information is available from the Trust, at: PO Box 10-359, Wellington

"Specialist Nature tours"

Australia & Beyond

Join us as we explore some of the last remote, diverse and specta lar wilderness areas left in the world. Let our professional naturalist guides share their love of nature with you.

Imagine... a huge Royal Experience the natural history highlights of Albatross with a threemetre wing-span sharing the364Kimberley in northen Western Australia and your space... Open days, the Visitors Centre complete the South Wests magnificent wildflower display and with gift shop and cafe.

R e s e r v a t i o n s : p h 0 3 - 4diverse 7 8 0 4 9 9 birdlife. Explore Queenslands Cape York, Lord email:reservations@albatross.org.nz web www.albatross.org.nz Howe and Christmas Islands plus the Galapagos Islands and Ecuadorian jungle.

For your 2006 brochure and full tour details: E-MAIL: coates@iinet.net.au Imagine. . . a huge Royal Albatross with a three metre Imagine... a huge Royal WEBSITE: www.coateswildlifetours.com.au Albatross with a .threewing-span sharing your space. . Open 364 days, metre wing-span sharing TEL: (61 8) 9330 6066 FAX: (61 8) 9330 6077 Visitor Centre complete withOpen gift 364 shop and cafe. your space... days, the Centre complete Reservations: phVisitors 03 478 0499 Suite B8 550 Canning Highway Attadale, with gift shop and cafe. email: reservations@albatross.org.nz Western Australia 6156 Reservations: ph 03-478 0499 An Otago Peninsula Trust Enterprise

UNIQUE

DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND

An Otago Peninsula Trust Enterprise

email:reservations@albatross.org.nz web: albatross.org.nz web www.albatross.org.nz

GSA Coates Tours Licence no 9ta1135/36

DUNEDIN, NEW ZEALAND

FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

53

Join, renew or make a regular donation by Direct Debit Please fill out this form and the one opposite. Once completed please detach this form, fold it in four and post inside the self- assembled Freepost envelope opposite.

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The Customer may: (a) At any time, terminate this Authority as to future payments by giving written notice of termination to the Bank and to the Initiator.

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The Customer acknowledges that: (a) This Authority will remain in full force and effect in respect of all direct debits made from my/our account in good faith notwithstanding my/our death, bankruptcy or other revocation of this Authority until actual notice of such event is received by the bank.

54 FOREST & BIRD • AUGUST 2006

(b) At any time terminate this authority as to future payments by notice in writing to me/us. (c) Charge its current fees for this service in force from time-to-time.

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FOREST BIRD

FOREST BIRD Forest & Bird Membership

Join Forest & Bird and you will receive Forest & Bird magazine, including Conservation News, and our email newletter, e-News, four times a year. You will have free entry to more than 30 Forest & Bird reserves around the country and discounted entry to the Society’s seven lodges at Ruapehu, Piha and other scenic locations. You can also take part in conservation projects and enjoy talks and field trips through our 55 branches around the country.

Gift Membership To give a gift membership simply fill out the form below and send it in with your payment.

Kiwi Conservation Club Membership Join the Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC), our award-winning club for children, and you will receive five copies of the KCC magazine a year, a membership certificate, KCC stickers and notice of activities closest to you from one of our volunteer coordinators.

Join online at: www.forestandbird.org.nz Freephone: 0800 200 064

Join online: www.forestandbird.org.nz • Freephone 0800 200 064

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FOREST BIRD

Forest & Bird is New Zealand's leading independent conservation organisation Forest & Bird PO Box 631 Wellington

This gift membership is from: First name:______________________________________ Last name_______________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone:_________________________________ Email: ____________________________________________________ Please send the first gift pack to me for personal presentation.

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Join online: www.forestandbird.org.nz • Freephone 0800 200 064

Freepost Authority Number 669

branchdirectory Upper North Island Central Auckland: Chair, Anne Fenn; Secretary, Isabel Still, PO Box 1118, Shortland St, Auckland. Tel: (09) 5283986.

Far North: Chair, Gary Bramley; Secretary. Michael Winch, PO Box 270, Kaeo, Northland. Tel: (09) 405-1746.

Franklin: Chair & Secretary, Keith Gardner, 5 Stembridge Ave, Pukekohe.

Tel: (09) 238-9928.

Great Barrier Island: Secretary, Jenny Lloyd, 165 Shoal Bay Rd, RD1, Gt Barrier Is. Tel: (09) 429-0404.

Hauraki Islands: Chair, Petra White; Secretary; Simon Griffiths, PO Box 314, Ostend, Waiheke Island.

Tel: (09) 372-9583.

Hibiscus Coast: Chair, Pauline Smith; Secretary: vacant, PO Box 310, Orewa.

Tel: (09) 427-5517.

Kaipara: Chair, Suzi Phillips; Secretary, Maire Thompson, Private Bag 1, Helensville 1250. Tel: (09) 411-5494.

Mid North: Chair, Warwick Massey; Secretary, Raewyn Morrison, PO Box 552, Warkworth 1241. Tel: (09) 422 9123.

Northern: Chair, vacant; Secretary, Beverly Woods, PO Box 1375, Whangarei. Tel: (09) 436-0932.

North Shore: Chair, Neil Sutherland; Secretary, Jocelyn Sanders, PO Box 33 873, Takapuna, North Shore City.

Tel: (09) 479-2107.

South Auckland: Chair, to be confirmed; Secretary, Ken Rutherford, PO Box 23 602, Papatoetoe. Tel: (09) 537-2093.

Thames/Hauraki: Chair, Mrs Hazel Genner; Secretary, Marcia Sowman, 507 The Terrace, Thames.

Tel: (07) 868-8696.

Mercury Bay Section: Chair, Bruce Mackereth; Secretary, Mona Candy, PO Box 205, Whitianga 2856.

Tel: (07) 866-4648.

Upper Coromandel: Chair, Don Hughes; Secretary, Jeanette McIntosh, PO Box 108

Coromandel. Tel: (07) 866-7248.

Waitakere: Chair, Peter Maddison; Secretary, Ken Catt, PO Box 45144, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere. Tel: (09) 834-6214.

Central North Island Eastern Bay of Plenty: Chair, Rosemary Tully; Secretary, Sandee Malloch, c/- 260 Ohiwa Harbour Rd, RD2, Opotiki 3092. Tel: (07) 315-4989.

Gisborne: Chair, Dick McMurray; Secretary, Grant Vincent, 1 Dominey Street, Gisborne, Tel: (06) 868-8236.

King Country: Secretary, Steve Poelman, 37 Rangaroa Road, Taumarunui 2006; Secretary, Dori Porteous, Tel: (07) 8967649.

Rotorua: Chair, Chris Ecroyd; Secretary, Herb Madgwick, PO Box 1489, Rotorua. Tel: (07) 345-6255.

South Waikato: Chair, Anne Groos; Secretary, Jack Groos, 37 Waianiwa Place, Tokoroa. Tel: (07) 886-7456.

Taupo: Chair, to be confirmed; Secretary, Betty Windley, PO Box 1105 Taupo, Tel: (07) 377-1186.

Tauranga: Chair, Basil Graeme; Secretary, Cynthia Carter, PO Box 487, Tauranga. Tel: (07) 571-1455.

Te Puke: Chair, Neale Blaymires; Secretary, Colin Horn, PO Box 237, Te Puke.

Waihi: Chair, Ian Bradshaw; Secretary, Krishna Buckman, 17 Reservoir Road, Waihi. Tel: (07) 863-8455.

Waikato: Chair, Dr Philip Hart; Secretary, Jim MacDiarmid, PO Box 11-092, Hillcrest, Hamilton, Tel: (07) 849-3438.

Wairoa: Chair, Stanley Richardson; Secretary, Glenys Single, 72 Kopu Rd, Wairoa 4192. Tel: (06) 838-8232.

Lower North Island Central Hawke's Bay: Chair, Phil Enticott; Secretary, Max Chatfield, PO Box 189, Waipukurau.

Tel: (06) 858-9298.

Hastings/Havelock North: Chair, Ian Noble; Secretary, Doreen Hall, Flat 1, 805 Kennedy Rd, Hastings. Tel: (06) 876-5978.

Horowhenua: Chair, Robert Hirschberg; Secretary, Joan Leckie, Makahika Rd, RD 1, Levin 5500. Tel: (06) 368-1277.

Kapiti Mana: Chair, David Gregorie; Secretary, John McLachlan, 78 Langdale Ave, Paraparaumu. Tel: (04) 904-0027.

Lower Hutt: Chair, Stan Butcher; Secretary; Bill Watters, PO Box 31194, Lower Hutt. Tel: (04) 565-0638.

Manawatu: Chair, Donald Kerr; Secretary, Brent Barrett, PO Box 961, Palmerston Nth 5301. Tel: (06) 357-6962.

Napier: Chair, Isabel Morgan; Secretary, Margaret Gwynn, 23 Clyde Rd, Napier. Tel: (06) 8 35 2122.

North Taranaki: Chair, Margaret Molloy; Secretary, Murray Duke, 28 Hurford Rd, RD4, New Plymouth 4621.

Tel: (06) 751 2759.

Rangitikei: Chair, Tony Simpson; Secretary, Betty Graham, 41-Tutaenui Rd, Marton. Tel: (06) 327-7008.

South Taranaki: Chair, Rex Hartley; Secretary, Lynda Sutherland, 39 High St, Eltham 4657. Tel: (06) 764-7479.

Upper Hutt: Chair, Dr Barry Wards; Secretary, Pauline Baty; PO Box 40-875, Upper Hutt.

Tel: (04) 971-9739.

Wairarapa: Chair, Geoff Doring; Secretary, c/- Mike Lynch, 179 West St, Greytown. Tel: (06) 304-7222.

Wanganui: Chair, Stephen Sammons; Secretary, Ray Hutchison, PO Box 4229, Wanganui. Tel: (06) 345-2651.

Wellington: Chair, Merrin Pearse; Secretary, Louise Taylor, PO Box 4183, Wellington. Tel: (04) 971-1770.

South Island Ashburton: Chair, Bill Hood; Secretary, Val Clemens, PO Box 460, Ashburton, Tel: (03) 308-5620.

Dunedin: Chair, Jane Marshall; Secretary, Mark Hanger, PO Box 5793, Dunedin. Tel: (03) 489-8444.

Golden Bay: Chair, Jenny Treloar; Secretary, Jo-Anne Vaughan, Puponga Rd, Ferntown, RD1, Collingwood 7171.

Tel: (03) 524-8072.

Kaikoura: Chair, Linda Kitchingham; Secretary, Barry Dunnett, Pooles Rd RD1, Kaikoura. Tel: (03) 319-5086.

Marlborough: Chair, Andrew John; Secretary, Michael Harvey, PO Box 896, Blenheim. Tel: (03) 577-6086.

Nelson/Tasman: Chair, Dr Peter Ballance; Secretary, Bill Sinclair, 280 Hampden St East, Nelson 7001.

Tel: (03) 545-7270.

North Canterbury: Chair, David Ellison Smith, 405 Armagh Street Christchurch. Tel: (03) 981-7037 Email: paudin.dev@xtra.co.nz; Secretary, Maria Stoker-Farrell, PO Box 2389, Christchurch. Tel: (03) 309-4333.

South Canterbury: Chair, John Talbot; Secretary, Thelma Boyce, 30 Birkett St, Temuka, South Canterbury 8752.

Tel: (03) 615-8234.

Southland: Chair, Craig Carson; Secretary: vacant, PO Box 1155, Invercargill. Tel: (03) 213-0732.

South Otago: Chair, Carol Botting; Secretary, Verna Gardner, Romahapa Rd, Balclutha. Tel: (03) 418-1819.

Upper Clutha: Chair, Barbara Chinn; Secretary, Angela Brown, PO Box 38, Lake Hawea, Central Otago 9192.

Tel: (03) 443-8669.

Waitaki: Chair, Ross Babington; Secretary, Annette Officer, 21 Arrow Crescent, Oamaru. Tel: (03) 434-6107.

West Coast: Secretary/Treasurer, Carolyn Cox, 168 Romilly St, Westport 7601. Tel: (03) 789-5334.

fax: (04) 385-7373. Email: office@ forestandbird.org.nz

or 10 mins from Days Bay. Ideal place to relax in beautiful surroundings, with accommodation for 8. Bring your own food and bedding and a torch. Smoking is banned everywhere on the island, including the house.

For information sheet, send stamped addressed envelope to: Bill Draper, PO Box 31-194, Lower Hutt.

(04) 569-2542.

lodgeaccommodation Arethusa Cottage An ideal place from which to explore the Far North. Near Pukenui in wetland reserve. 6 bunks, fully equipped kitchen, separate bathroom outside.

For information and bookings, contact: John Dawn, Doves Bay Road, RD1, Kerikeri. Tel: (09) 407-8658, fax: (09) 407-1401.

Tai Haruru Lodge, Piha, West Auckland A seaside haven set in a large sheltered garden on the rugged West Coast, 38km on sealed roads from central Auckland. Close to store, bush reserves and tracks in the beautiful Waitakere Ranges. Double bedroom and 3 singles, plus large lounge with wood burner, dining area and kitchen. The self-contained unit has 4 single beds.

Bring food, linen and fuel for fire and BBQ. Booking officer: Patricia Thompson, 78 Neil Avenue, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere City. Tel: (09) 834-7745.

Waiheke Island Cottage Located next to our 49ha Wildlife Reserve, 10 mins walk to Onetangi Beach, general stores etc. Sleeps up to 8 in two bedrooms. Lounge, wellequipped kitchen, separate toilet, bathroom, shower, laundry. Pillows, blankets provided. No pets. Ferries 35 minutes from Auckland. Enquiries with stamped addressed envelope to: Robin Griffiths, 125 The Strand, Onetangi, Waiheke Island. Tel: (09) 372-7662.

Ruapehu Lodge, Tongariro National Park Situated 600 m from Whakapapa Village, at the foot of Mount Ruapehu, this lodge is available for members and their friends. It may also be hired out to other compatible groups by special arrangement. It is an ideal base for tramping, skiing, botanising or visiting the hotpools at Tokaanu. The lodge holds 32 people in four bunkrooms and provides all facilities except food and bedding. Bookings and inquiries to Forest and Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington. Tel: (04) 385-7374,

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William Hartree Memorial Lodge, Hawkes Bay Situated 48km from Napier, 8km past Patoka on the Puketitiri Rd (sealed).

The lodge is set amid a 14ha scenic reserve and close to many walks, eg: Kaweka Range, Balls Clearing, hot springs and museum. The lodge accommodates up to 15 people. It has a fully equipped kitchen including stove, refrigerator and microwave plus tile fire, hot showers. Supply your own linen, sleeping bags etc.

For information and bookings please send a stamped addressed envelope to Pam and John Wuts, 15 Durham Ave, Tamatea, Napier. Tel: (06) 844-4751 Email: wutsie@xtra.co.nz Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington Harbour Joint venture accommodation by Lower Hutt Forest and Bird with DOC. A modern family home with kitchen, 3 bedrooms, large lounge and dining room, just 20 mins sailing by ferry from the centre of Wellington

Tautuku Lodge State Highway 92, Southeast Otago.

Situated on Forest and Bird's 550ha Lenz Reserve 32km south of Owaka.

A bush setting, and many lovely beaches nearby provide a wonderful base for exploring the Catlins. The lodge, the Coutts cabin and an Aframe sleep 10, 4 and 2 respectively.

No Animals. For information and rates please send a stamped addressed envelope to the caretaker: Diana Noonan, Mirren St, Papatowai, Owaka, RD2. Tel: (03) 415-8024, fax (03) 415-8244. Email: diana.n@clear. net.nz

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