Forest & Bird Magazine 323 Feb 2007

FOREST BIRD N u m b e r 3 2 3 • F E B R U A RY 2 0 0 7

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Hector’s Dolphins • Mohua’s Ark • Rod Morris Native Orchids • Balleny Islands • Great Barrier • Miranda

Rod Morris

RESTORE THE DAWN CHORUS

Dear Member

some areas wiping them out. A warming climate means more of these heavy fruiting and seeding years, increasing the threat from alien pests.

Across New Zealand native birds such as fantails and tui face a massive threat from rats, stoats and other introduced predators this summer.

Those birds lucky enough to live at pest-free ‘mainland islands’ such as Bushy Park near Wanganui or pest-controlled Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges will prosper this summer.

The heavy production of fruit and seed last autumn means that rat and stoat numbers have been sustained through winter and were even higher in spring. So our native birds are under even more pressure than usual.

As last autumn’s fruit runs low, the rats and stoats will turn on the birds over the summer, decimating their numbers and in

But those living outside these and similar havens – most of our native birds – will not be so lucky. Too many of these birds will die and the most endangered species, such as the orange-crowned parakeet (kakariki) and yellowhead (mohua), could be lost forever.

Forest & Bird is working to create more safe havens for native species and to

control more pests over a wider area of conservation land, beyond the ‘arks’ and islands.

Your financial support is vital to help us save our most vulnerable dawn chorus birds.

I urge you to support Forest & Bird’s Annual Appeal to restore New Zealand’s dawn chorus and help keep hope alive for native birds.

Thank you for your generous donation.

Dr Peter Maddison Forest & Bird National President PS – Donations of $5 or more are tax deductible

Your donation will help Forest & Bird take action by:

1.

Giving long-term support to restoration projects such as the Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges where stitchbirds are to be released in 2007.

2.

Being an effective voice for restoring the dawn chorus throughout the country

3.

Working with DOC, regional councils and other community groups to actively protect native species from introduced predators across more of the country.

Conservation Successes in 2006 that Forest & Bird helped achieve • New Zealand robins are breeding once again at the Ark in the Park site in the Waitakere Ranges near Auckland and at Somes/Matiu Island near Wellington this spring.

• A new South Island High Country conservation park was established at Ruataniwha near Twizel in July.

• A new marine reserve was established at Whangarei Harbour in October.

• The Manawatu Estuary was officially recognised as a wetland of international importance in October.

• Forest & Bird gathered and presented 18,000 signatures on the Save Our Sealions petition at Parliament urging the government to reduce the number of sealions killed in squid fishing operations every year.

You can make your donation: Online at www.forestandbird.org.nz Freepost using the envelope included in our recent appeal

Rod Morris

Freephone 0800 200 064 weekdays during office hours Using the tear-out freepost envelope device on page 59.

FOREST BIRD Number 323 • FEBRUARY 2007 • www.forestandbird.org.nz

In this issue

Puketi Forest, Northland Great Barrier/Aotea Island Tiri Tiri Matangi

Waitakere Ranges

Miranda, Firth of Thames

Mahoenui, Waikato

Otanewainuku, Te Puke

Manawatu Estuary

Features

16 Dolphins in Danger Helen Bain visits Southland in search of Hector’s dolphins.

20 Darwin’s Dream Flowers Margaret Willard discovers New Zealand’s ancient orchids.

22 Creatures Great and Small Michael Szabo meets Rod Morris.

Mana Island Hawkes Bay

26 Beyond the Furious Fifties Dr Franz Smith on his expedition to the Balleny Islands.

Waimea Estuary Matiu/Somes, Wellington

Okarito

30 Mohua’s Ark Helen Bain reports from the Catlins on Operation Ark.

32 Catching the New Wave Tim Higham on conservation, Great Barrier style.

Regulars

Map artwork: Bruce Mahalski

Chalky Island, Fiordland Banks Peninsular

3 Conservation Briefs

Te Waewae Bay

The Catlins

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

2 Comment

Think globally, act locally by Dr Peter Maddison

Takitimu Forest

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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New Director for DOC; Hihi; Biodiversity Strategy; Giant Weta; Plant of the Year 2006; Ata Rangi; Protecting Fiordland; Wellington Marine Reserve; Exotic palms; Weka; Waimea River; Albatrosses mapped; Black Petrels tracked; Black Robin; New albatross plan; Alpine gecko; Otanewainuku Kiwi Trust; Okarito Brown Kiwi; Hawkes Bay Kiwi; Waimea Estuary; Kermadec Storm Petrel; Fuel efficiency labelling; New conservation park; Orange-crowned parakeet.

36 Going Places Miranda Wildlife Reserve by Brent Stephenson

39 JS Watson Trust Grants Ten grants have been allocated for the 2006-2007 year

40 Itinerant Ecologist Slips in the Temple by Geoff Park

42 In the Field Marine mammals of Blue Zealand by Ann Graeme and Tim Galloway

44 Conservation News Hector’s dolphins, 1080 Reassessment; Ngunguru Sandspit; New sea lion kill quota set; Proposed fisheries reform welcome; Action sought on albatross deaths; Federated Farmers target nutrient loss; Buller River Tribunal set up.

44 Branching Out Governor-General addresses Council Meeting; Notice of 84th Annual General Meeting; Branch fundraising success; Tautuku Lodge; Matiu/Somes project 25th anniversary; Blowhard Bush; Ellerslie Flower Show; Manawatu Estuary Ramsar celebration; New Rotorua reserve.

COVER: WHITE KIWI, LITTLE BARRIER (HAUTURU) ISLAND. PHOTOGRAPH: ROD MORRIS

One night while filming on Little Barrier (Hauturu) Island, Rod Morris climbed a steep ridge at dusk. The giant trunks of kauri trees loomed in the gathering dark. A male kakapo boomed from a distant ridge, and male short-tailed bats (pekapeka) sang in the branches overhead. It was then that a pure white kiwi burst from the undergrowth at his feet.

See page 22.

FFOORREESSTT && BBI IRRDD •• NFO EV BR EM UA BR EY R 2006 7

1

Comment Think globally, act locally

T

HANK YOU to those members who responded to my last Comment on climate change. No doubt there will be on going debate about climate change and whether it is induced by humans. Evidence is building daily that human activities are contributing to global warming.

Temperature levels are only one indicator of the global warming phenomenon. In the grand scheme of things (if there is one) I wonder how important these are and believe that we should use our energies not to debate whether global warming is or is not upon us, but what we as individuals, and as members of our local communities, can do to make our world a better place to live for ourselves and for future generations.

Over the holiday period I became involved in several debates about climate change, sustainability and consumerism.

The links between the expenditure habits of developed societies and the environment and conservation are not always immediately obvious, but certainly bear thinking about.

On a global level, it is necessary to consider the dominance that our species, Homo sapiens, has on the Earth. “Go forth and multiply” may well have been a useful strategy in the days when nature was red in tooth and claw, but when the evidence of our species’ dependence on the environment and on a range of materials and on other living species is brought together, it is apparent that our species cannot continue to increase its population and survive with the known and predicted resources available on the planet.

It is my understanding that the causes of many of the wars in human history are actually conflicts over resources, in some cases brought on by population pressures.

It is time for governments to develop population strategies for a sustainable future.

And what about our use of raw materials and other natural resources?

Forest & Bird is – and has been – involved in many campaigns regarding resource extraction and the environment, including: • Mining of pristine areas for gold such as the Coromandel (eg the Tui Mine) • The coal plateau and Powelliphanta • Sand-mining in coastal waters • Continued logging of native forests for timber • Use of water for energy generation and irrigation, and maintaining our wild rivers • Development of sustainable fisheries Then there is the human need to dispose of “waste” – waste from the extraction process such as the toxic dump at the Tui mine and waste from industrial processing or trade wastes. There is also the waste produced after the product has been consumed – from sewage wastewater to household rubbish.

Some of the arguments around consumerism relate to waste and often relate to the current trend for products to have built-in redundancy. Gone are the days of a watch or even a computer lasting for life – and able to be repaired. There are environmental consequences to the throwaway society – not least the sheer volume of waste and the build-up of toxic materials in landfills.

Arguing for the wise-use of non-

renewable natural resources has been the basis for the conservation of areas to protect natural landscapes and the habitats within them.

However, perhaps my biggest worry is that of apathy or the lack of connection with the natural environment.

In a recent survey, New Zealanders identified their favourite recreational activity as “walking”. All very fine you may think, except, reading on, it was “walking in shopping malls”.

This, coupled with a study showing that over 30% of children in some Auckland suburbs had never (knowingly) been to a beach – despite being less than five kilometres from the coast – indicates a huge disconnection with the natural world.

This is one of the biggest challenges we face – to help re-connect people with the world of forests and birds, and the rest of the natural world around them.

Happy New Year Dr Peter Maddison Forest & Bird National President

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

PATRON: His Excellency the Hon. Anand Satyanand, 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, Associate Professor 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 • FEBRUARY 2007

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DOC

New Director General of Conservation

A

L Morrison was appointed as Director General of Conservation in November, succeeding Hugh Logan in the post.

Forest & Bird General Manager Mike Britton welcomed the news, saying that Forest & Bird has enjoyed a constructive working relationship with Al Morrison during his time as acting Director General.

“The Director General of

Conservation has the delegated trusteeship of Parliament to act at all times in the best interests of conservation and the protection of our natural heritage. We trust that Al Morrison will be a worthy and leading advocate for the proper care and management of the public conservation estate,” Mike Britton said.

“He is taking on the mantle of responsibility for the stewardship of New Zealand’s conservation taonga, and in particular the public conservation estate entrusted to the department’s care. We look forward to working with him in this vitally important role.”

Mike Britton also urged the Director General to tackle the serious threat posed to New Zealand’s native flora and fauna by introduced pests.

“If pest control is not dramatically increased in many areas of New Zealand, within 20 years the forests will be silent. We believe this is the most serious environmental threat we face, and urge the department to commit greater resources to meeting this challenge.”

Rose Thorogood

conservationbriefs

Hihi chicks on Tiri Tiri Matangi

Hihi transfer imminent

H

IHI (stitchbirds) are due to be transferred from Tiri Tiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf to the Ark in the Park project area in the Waitakere Ranges in February.

The project is a joint initiative of the Auckland Regional Council and Forest & Bird, with transfer work being funded by a generous donation from ASB Trusts.

This will be the first time that hihi – one of New Zealand’s most threatened endemic bird species – are to be released back to the Auckland mainland for over 100 years.

In the 1870s the species was relatively common in southern parts of the North Island.

Their rapid demise is likely to have been caused by habitat destruction, predation and possibly disease. Hihi were reduced to one population on Little Barrier Island (Hauturu) but thanks to recovery efforts they now also exist on Tiri Tiri Matangi and Kapiti islands.

A successful translocation to the unfenced 1100-hectare predator controlled area in the Waitakere Ranges will indicate the species’ ability to tolerate low levels of introduced predators and it is hoped it will be the next step in the recovery of the species.

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FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

3

conservationbriefs Kakapo are benefitting

Tui de Roy

Rod Morris

Mahoenui weta

A

N independent review of the Government’s Biodiversity Strategy delivered both brickbats and bouquets in November.

Launched in 2000 to guide the work of six Government agencies and thousands of community groups around the country in halting the decline in New Zealand’s biodiversity, the $187 million Biodiversity Strategy was reviewed by Dr Bruce Clarkson and Dr Wren Green.

The review identified some significant gains, including restoration of offshore and mainland island sites, pest and weed control, intensive management of some species, establishment of some marine reserves and strengthened partnerships with Maori, community groups and private landowners.

However, many challenges still remained in halting the decline

in biodiversity and making progress, the report says.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter said while the review identified some major successes – such as protecting kakapo and kokako populations, and pest eradication on Campbell Island and subsequent revival in numbers of Campbell Island teal – it was clear major challenges still lay ahead.

While the Department of Conservation (DOC) managed eight million hectares of land, it conducted pest management on just one million hectares, the minister said. DOC also needed to expand its efforts on private land, particularly in preserving lowland and wetland biodiversity.

DOC will now report back to the Government on how it will address the review’s recommendations. The full review report is available at www.doc.govt.nz.

Plant of the Year 2006

T

HE Chatham Islands Christmas tree or rautini has been voted Plant of the Year in the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network’s annual poll.

The nationally endangered rautini (Brachyglottis huntii) is a small tree that grows up to six metres tall and produces bright yellow blooms from November to February.

Endemic to the Chatham Islands, it was once widespread and common on Chatham Island but has declined seriously over the last century.

It is still quite widespread on Pitt Island, expanding where stock and feral animals are few, but diminishing elsewhere.

It is occasionally available from specialist nurseries, and is easily grown from seed and semi-hardwood cuttings, but plants can be difficult to maintain and in cultivation are prone to collapse from soil and water-borne diseases. Threats in the wild include habitat destruction and browsing and trampling by cattle, sheep, pigs and possums.

Runner up in Plant of the Year was Poor Knights lily (raupo-taranga), followed by 3. parapara, 4. bamboo rush, 5. Bartlett’s rata, 6. burr grass, 7. Surville Cliffs kohuhu, 8.

Northland horopito, 9. Adams mistletoe, 10. scarlet mistletoe.

4 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

Giant weta fenced in

T

HE success of pest-proof fences in protecting native birds from predation is wellknown, but few people are aware that they can also protect native insects such as weta.

The rare Mahoenui giant weta (Deinacrida “Mahoenui”) appears to be making a comeback now it is safe from predators inside a pestproof fence around the 16hectare Warrenheip reserve at Cambridge.

Once common throughout New Zealand, giant weta are now mostly found only on rat-free off-shore islands and mountains, as their large size, strong smell and slow movement make them highly vulnerable to predation by rats.

A small population of the Mahoenui giant weta has survived in a small area of gorse in the King Country, at least partly protected from predators by the sharp spines of the gorse.

However, because of its vulnerability, efforts have been made to establish further populations of the weta

elsewhere. In 2001, two years after an Xcluder pest-proof fence was built around the Warrenheip reserve and pest eradication completed, 287 weta were released.

The most challenging part of weta translocations is finding evidence that they have survived, because the nocturnal creatures are difficult to find after they are released.

Two weta at Warrenheip were fitted with tiny 0.9 gram radio transmitters and tracked for three weeks – after that they had either moved out of range or the transmitters had failed. In that time one weta moved 20 metres (m) from the release site and the other only moved as far as 4 m.

There have since been several sightings of young giant weta at Warrenheip – evidence that they are breeding.

It appears they have spread over much of the reserve – the first substantial breeding population of Mahoenui giant weta outside their King Country gorse refuge.

Helen Bain

Chatham Islands Christmas tree is Plant of the Year 2006.

DOC

Biodiversity Strategy reviewed

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PHOTOGRAPH: GEOFF MOON

Saving the Pateke?

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These projects include supporting “Operation Pateke” a national recovery program to help save the Pateke (Brown Teal), New Zealand’s most endangered mainland waterfowl. Wetland Care New Zealand is helping to save this species through research, release of captive bred birds and habitat conservation.

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Always enjoy wine in moderation.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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conservationbriefs

Helen Bain

DOC

Visitors to Fiordland bring $228 million into the economy.

Ata rangi owner Clive Paton

Ata Rangi saving rata

A

TA Rangi Vineyard owner Clive Paton was looking for land to grow grapes about six years ago. What he found instead fuelled a passion just as crimson red as his famous pinot noir.

When the real estate agent showed Clive some land at Waihora, just south of Martinborough, he fell in love with the native trees on the property.

And since then the romance has yielded new discoveries: not long after Clive bought the land a friend found a stand of northern rata – “few and far between in Wairarapa” – growing there.

Somehow more than 70 mature rata on what Clive now calls Rata Ridge had survived widespread burn-offs in the 1880s and continued to thrive.

Three years ago, with the help of Project Crimson, Clive began propagating seedlings from the rata on his property, and hopes that eventually South Wairarapa will again be ablaze with its crimson flowers.

It’s a slow process, as rata is not easy to propagate from cuttings, and flowering (and therefore seed production) varies greatly from year to year. Clive wants to grow new plants that are eco-sourced from cuttings and seed from the originals, rather than source them from outside the area. So far he has just 60 seedlings to plant out, and he hopes to grow about 1000.

Being a winemaker can come in handy when planting trees – each rata Clive plants out is topped up with compost made from grape skins, and protected by a half wine barrel.

“If any of us live long enough to see it, it will be a magnificent sight,” Clive tells fellow Forest & Bird members helping plant out 20 rata.

“The things that go on here are for the next generation – hopefully my children and their children will appreciate it.”

As well as planting rata, Clive has covenanted 45-hectares and has fenced off areas with native trees on the property, and has got together with neighbouring landowners to form Waihora Watch, which combines their conservation efforts.

Predator control by Greater Wellington Regional Council has helped recovery of both native plants and wildlife – in the last two and a half years trapping and poisoning has made serious in-roads on local possum numbers and has taken out more than 1000 rats, and smaller numbers of stoats, ferrets and feral cats.

Ata Rangi is also helping northern rata off the property.

The vineyard’s second label pinot noir is named Crimson and a percentage of the profits go towards Project Crimson projects in the Wellington region, including the planting of Tinakori Hill with northern rata.

More widely known for

6 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

Protecting Fiordland “worth a fortune”

F

IORDLAND National Park added $228 million to the economy in 2005, a study commissioned by the Department of Conservation (DOC) has found.

As well as providing a range of conservation benefits, DOC’s $8.8m management of the park supported extensive commercial activity in the park and surrounding Southland and Queenstown Lakes region, the study concludes.

The 1.26 million-hectare park is visited by 560,000 day visitors and 33,000 overnight visitors a year – 80% of them from overseas. The study found that spending by visitors in the park, surrounding region and New Zealand as a whole, and jobs supported by tourism-related activities and park management were worth an estimated $228 million in 2005.

Ten per cent of overseas visitors said that if the park did not exist, they would spend a shorter time in New Zealand, and another 12% said they wouldn’t have come to New Zealand at all, Conservation Minister Chris Carter says.

Established in 1952, Fiordland National Park encompasses mountain, lake, fiord and rainforest environments, and supports a diverse range of flora and fauna, including the takahe – which was thought to be extinct before being rediscovered in the mountains of Fiordland in 1948.

“For many New Zealanders, Fiordland is already a national treasure, but this new study demonstrates the well-known social and environmental value of the park is easily matched by its considerable economic value as well,” Chris Carter says.

helping save pohutukawa, Project Crimson is now focused on a similar rescue mission for its crimson cousin the northern rata in the lower North Island, where pohutukawa is not naturally found.

Northern rata was once widespread, but is now scarce over much of its former range and has completely disappeared from some areas. The main threat is from browsing by possums, but hybridisation with pohutukawa planted outside its natural range is also a problem.

Northern rata grows to more than 20 metres tall, and often

begins life as an epiphyte, so its trunk is hollow, comprised of interlocking roots. It flowers profusely from November to January which means nectarfeeding native birds such as tui and bellbird (korimako) love it.

Ata Rangi’s efforts in protecting northern rata and the environment were recognised as 2006 Supreme Award winner in the Wellington Balance Farm Environment Awards, and Forest & Bird’s Wairarapa Branch also thanked Clive Paton with a certificate of appreciation presented to him in September.

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Michael Szabo

conservationbriefs

Present at the Kupe/Kevin Smith Marine Reserve announcement were (L-R) Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles, Conservation Minister Chris Carter, Jonathan Gardner of Victoria University, Andrew Cutler of Forest & Bird Wellington Branch, and Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton.

New marine reserve for Wellington

F

OREST & Bird warmly welcomed the Government’s approval of the new Kupe/ Kevin Smith Marine Reserve on the South Wellington coast, shortly before Christmas.

The announcement was

made jointly by Conservation Minister Chris Carter and Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton at an event in Island Bay. Forest & Bird Wellington Branch representative

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Andrew Cutler applauded the announcement and recalled that the 840-hectare marine reserve was originally proposed

by Forest & Bird and the South Coast Marine Reserve Coalition in 1992.

Forest & Bird is pleased to hear that the name of the reserve will commemorate the marine conservation work of Kevin Smith. Kevin was one of New Zealand’s leading conservationists and a champion of the reserve until he died in 2005. He was Forest & Bird’s Conservation Director prior to working as a senior advisor to Conservation Minister Chris Carter and his predecessor in the same ministerial post, Sandra Lee. Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says that a marine reserve so close to the heart of the capital will be an added attraction for the many people keen to see the marine environment in its natural state.

“Marine reserves are some of the most popular natural areas for New Zealanders to visit. For example, over 250,000 people visit the Goat Island marine reserve each year at Leigh,

north of Auckland.”

The new reserve will protect a variety of marine habitats, including rocky reefs and kelp forests, and be a haven for species including seahorses and colourful sea slugs (nudibranchs), as well as spectacular marine wildlife known to occur in the area including royal albatrosses, common dolphins, New Zealand fur seals and orca (killer whales).

“Everyone wins with marine reserves. They safeguard the structure and function of a healthy marine environment.

Given the opportunity they can also help restore fish populations, attract recreational visitors and provide for scientific research and education.”

Forest & Bird is now looking forward to the Government progressing other marine reserve applications including Great Barrier (Aotea) Island in the Hauraki Gulf, Dan Rogers in Akaroa Harbour and The Nuggets on the Catlins coast. It is also hoped the new Marine Reserves Bill will be passed in 2007.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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conservationbriefs conservationbriefs

Nikau in, problem exotic palm out

The native nikau palm is the obvious alternative to the exotic Phoenix canariensis palm.

N

ew research into three popular garden plants has raised serious concerns about their potential to invade and take over natural ecosystems.

The three species researched by Auckland Regional Council were agapanthus, phoenix palm and English ivy. The study looked at the distances plants could spread unassisted, the range of habitats they were capable of invading, and what impacts they were having on parkland and other natural areas.

All three species were found to be invasive in a range of ecosystems, spreading into remote and inaccessible areas.

They have significant environmental impacts on the natural areas they invade.

Jack Craw, biosecurity manager for the Auckland Regional Council, says the

research confirms what was already suspected in terms of agapanthus and ivy, but that the invasive capabilities of phoenix palm comes as an unwelcome wake-up call.

‘When we started looking, we found phoenix palms everywhere: half-grown palms that had self-sown into mangrove wetlands, young plants growing in thick kikuyu grass on the edges of farm paddocks, even seedlings growing alongside native nikau palm seedlings in dense bush,’ Jack Craw says.

‘These plants are being spread into some of our most remote and vulnerable habitats by birds, wind and water. All three species are becoming significant weeds in natural areas.’

Jack Craw is urging developers and gardeners to consider replacing agapanthus, phoenix

Terry Greene / DOC

A Popular Plants in Biosecurity Scare UCKLAND is officially the world’s weediest city.

The 220 weed and 10,000 exotic plant species that now grow in palm English ivy withits nonthe cityand easily outnumber 440 nativealternatives. plant species. invasive That’s something gardeners Undesirable agapanthus might likealltolarge think about includes agapanthus when types.selecting They wereplants foundfor to their gardens – many pest invade a range of habitat types, plants start out as treasured including roadside drains, low garden favourites that have scrub, regenerating bush, forest “jumped the fence.” Each year margins, an averagepasture, of fourcoastal exoticand plant beachfront vegetation, sand species naturalise by escaping dunes, coastal rocky inland cultivation andcliffs, reproducing coastal areas, incliffs, the exposed wild. Once established there, they can displace pastoral streams and gardens, native where plants they areand veryreduce common, food native animals – and bothfor planted and naturalised. prove extremely difficult to They are capable of forming eradicate. dense monocultures that exclude Some moves to restrict all other species: one cliff popular garden plants have infestation at Piha was found to been controversial, notably cover an area of over a thousand Auckland Regional Council’s square metres.

(ARC) suggestion in a The ARCdocument suggested in people discussion January looking non-invasive 2006 thatfor phoenix palms and agapanthus included oncould the alternatives be to agapanthus banned in its has Regional Pest try clivialist(which a similar Management Strategy.and a foliage to agapanthus However, Phoenix canariensis range of attractive, large, and the larger varieties of colourful flowers), native agapanthus were on the rengarenga (widely available blacklist when the draft strategy with foliage similar to was released in November. If sprays of small itagapanthus is adopted,and it will be illegal white flowers in summer), native to sell, propagate or distribute coastal grasses such asexisting pingao or the plants – although spinifex (great foraffected. stabilising plants will not be The proposed ban on coastal dunes and helping Phoenix conservecanariensis endangeredpalms native won’t come intotoetoe effectgrasses till 2010, pingao), native giving a three-year period and gahnia (good erosion of grace forfor garden to clear control sunnycentres and shady, their stocks. sandy inland sites), or one of the Phoenix canariensis palms are many varieties of native flax a problem in Auckland because they are extremely long-lived and produce large amounts of seed which is readily dispersed by birds, allowing them to become naturalised in some

areas, particularly on Pakatoa Island, Duder Regional Park and the Waitakere Ranges.

Because they are shade tolerant they can grow in mature forest, where they can form dense monocultures, replacing nikau and other native plants.

Agapanthus is a problem in many parts of Auckland, especially at Piha and other west coast beaches. Its wind and water-borne seed rapidly infests coastal habitats, roadsides and forest edges.

Better alternatives to these pest plants are not difficult to The distinctive Phoenix palm find and grow.

Phoenix canariensis is widely Our native nikauand palm – the in planted in parks gardens world’s most warmer Newsouthern Zealand.palm Its seeds – are is the obvious alternative being spread into forest toareas Phoenix canariensis palms. around Auckland.

While it is slower growing, it is (hardy foreasy dry to sites in full sun, hardy and care for and also and help distinctly stabilise sandy a they graceful New or unstableicon. sites).

Zealand The cabbage tree English described Ivy was found – wrongly as a palm ininvading some parts of the UK of – while all ‘age classes’ native not technically a palm, is also a forest, pine forests, roadsides, good alternative, as are forestnative margins and gardens. non-invasive exotic species Bird-spread seedlings are such as cycads. becoming common in many Gardeners looking for an Auckland reserves. alternative to agapanthus could regional alsoIvy tryinfestations the native in rengarenga parks tended originategreyfrom lily, which has to attractive past house someflowers cases, green foliagesites. and In white had collapsed inmature spring,trees or astelias, the New under the of or ivyany vines.

Zealand irisweight libertia, number of our tussock Phoenix palmnative was found grasses. invading a range of habitats, Some useful sources of including coastal and dense information on making forest (phoenix is salt tolerant). environmentally safe choices Small phoenix palm seedlings in your garden are the are virtually indistinguishable Department of Conservation’s fromMe native nikau seedlings, Plant Instead guide, the meaning thatwebsite the fullatextent to Weedbusters which phoenix palms are and www.weedbusters.org.nz, spreading into web forestpage areasonmay Forest & Bird’s not be realised for some time. backyard biodiversity: www.forestandbird.org.nz/ The robust, sharp spines can enjoy_nature/backyardhabitat/ cause severe injuries. index.asp — SIMON ROCHE, Auckland Regional Council.

Didymo warning

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HE suspected presence of didymo in the Rangitikei River late last year turned out to be a false alarm, but Biosecurity New Zealand is still urging recreational river users to take care not to spread the invasive alga.

They ask river users to restrict equipment, boats and

81 0F OFROE RS TE S&T B&I RBDI R•D F •E BFREUB AR RUYA R2 Y0 0270 0 5

A popular roadside planting in warm districts, agapanthus clothing to exclusive use in is very hardy and readily suffers a single waterway, wherever harsh conditions. establishes possible.

If movingItitems a dense matt of roots and can between waterways, river users gradually take over waste should inspect, clean and dry areas. There are several forms all—equipment. the most dangerous for the To report a suspected find environment are Agapanthus ofpraecox didymoand please call 0800 80 its subspecies 9966. orientalis and praecox, their hybrids and cultivars.

Helen Bain

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conservationbriefs Wanted – a one-legged weka

Waimea River park approved

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ASMAN District Council has approved a proposal to establish a 240-hectare conservation and recreation park surrounding the Waimea River.

The proposal was instigated

by Forest & Bird and Tasman Environmental Trust member Martin Conway, who has a 20year vision that would see the area protected as a regional park.

The park would encompass

Mike Ogle of the Department of Conservation with Hopalong, the one-legged weka.

Hopalong seemed to settle quickly into a small range and after a few weeks he was recaptured, photographed and weighed by DOC before being set free again. He appeared to be in good health, although he was 200 grams lighter than he was when released.

Hopalong has since been sighted a few times, the last time in March, and Mike Ogle says he would love to hear of any sightings of the bird so his rescuers can learn whether he is still hopping about out there.

He thinks Hopalong’s chances are pretty good, as one-legged weka in the past have been known to feed – and

even breed – without much difficulty.

“His chances must be at least half as good as a weka with two legs,” Mike Ogle says.

The fate of even two-legged weka in the region remains uncertain. Once widespread in the area, their numbers have fallen since the mid 1990s.

Possible causes for their decline are disease, predation or drought – or perhaps a combination of all three.

However, Mike Ogle says there is some cause for optimism, as he has had reports of weka again breeding in areas where they have been absent in recent years.

the Waimea River from its confluence with the Wairoa and Waiiti Rivers and the Waimea Estuary, and would establish about 27 kilometres of walking tracks.

The project will involve establishing more “sensitive” methods of river control than the existing willows, restoration of riparian forest and wetlands, planting native species, cleaning up waterway pollution and eradication of pest plants such as old man’s beard.

Planting would include species that were once

abundant in the area, such as narrow-leafed lacebark, lowland ribbonwood, flax, toetoe and kowhai, with larger trees such as matai, kahikatea and totara eventually towering above the lower-growing species.

The council has approved the proposal and has budgeted $10,000 a year for the next three years. Martin Conway says he is now developing a comprehensive plan with input from the trust and council, Forest & Bird, Fish and Game, the local community and other recreational groups.

Helen Bain

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“Whether that translates to a long-term recovery, who knows, but we would like to think it is a good sign.”

Meanwhile the first 19 weka relocated to Totaranui are doing pretty well. Just two are known to have been killed (one by a dog and the other by a stoat) but most of the rest have stayed put and are thriving, and further relocations are planned to the area.

And Hopalong’s presence has inspired local residents to start a community predator trapping programme that will help the remaining weka population to expand and hopefully repopulate the wider bay area.

Martin Conway on the Waimea

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

Patrick Hamilton

AS anyone spotted a onelegged weka in Golden Bay lately?

Hopalong the weka was released back into the wild minus a leg in 2005 after being caught in a trap, and his rescuers would love to know whether he is still hopping along.

Mike Ogle of the Department of Conservation (DOC) in Golden Bay says the weka was accidentally caught in a possum trap on the Takaka Hill and was taken to Golden Bay vet (and Forest & Bird’s Kiwi Conservation Club Coordinator) Marian Milne for treatment.

Unfortunately Hopalong’s leg had to be amputated, but he recovered well and was able to hop about quite happily on just one leg.

“A weka can get around surprisingly well with one leg,” Mike Ogle says. “Even wekas with two legs do a lot of standing on one leg so they have good balance.”

With the help of the Rockville community, Hopalong was kept for two weeks before release in an aviary built bext to the Kaituna River so he would acclimatise to his surroundings, and a spare blue duck tracking device was used to follow his movements once he was released.

“After the first 24 hours he moved off quickly – especially for a hopping bird, covering two or three kilometres in a day through the scrub,” Marian Milne says.

DOC

H

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Notornis

Bell, Sim and Scofield

conservationbriefs

New Zealand’s wandering albatrosses mapped

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NEW satellite tracking study mapping the at-sea distribution of two endemic wandering albatross species which breed in the New Zealand subantarctic has been published, along with a description of their overlap with longline fisheries.

The study of Gibson’s and antipodean albatrosses was carried out by Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott of the Department of Conservation between 1994 and 2004, and published in Notornis (September 2006), the Journal of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand.

The study found that Gibson’s albatrosses mostly forage in the Tasman Sea and antipodean albatrosses mostly forage in the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand. Some overlap in their foraging ranges and variations in seasonal distribution were found. Both species preferred to forage at the outer edge of continental shelves and over seamounts, as well as over deep water.

Over the past 40 years longline fisheries operated in a minimum 89% and 53%

of the range over which the study tracked the two species, respectively. Of banded albatrosses recovered dead since 1971, 22% and 83% were related to fisheries, for each species respectively.

The authors suggest that the greatest reduction in potential fisheries interactions with Gibson’s albatrosses would come with the closure of fisheries in areas off eastern Tasmania, in the western Tasman Sea and off south-west New Zealand. For antipodean albatross, closing areas northeast of New Zealand and in the Bounty Trough would potentially be most beneficial.

Four of the areas identified are within the New Zealand and Australian exclusive economic zones making regulatory action potentially possible.

Work on producing albatross distribution maps for Forest & Bird’s inventory of marine Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in New Zealand will begin once data from the new study is included in BirdLife International’s global database of satellite tracking data at the University of Cape Town.

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Detail of a map showing complete or partial tracks from 11 light loggers placed on breeding black petrels from Mount Hobson (Hirakimata), Great Barrier (Aotea) Island, including multiple trips made by individual birds.

Reproduced from a study by Elizabeth Bell, Joanna Sim and Paul Scofield (December 2006).

New study tracks black petrels at sea

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NEW tracking study of black petrels (taiko) has found where and how far the birds forage at sea while away from their breeding site at Mt Hobson (Hirakimata) on Great Barrier (Aotea) Island in the Hauraki Gulf.

Researchers Elizabeth Bell of Wildlife Management Ltd, Joanna Sim of the Department of Conservation and Paul Scofield of Canterbury Museum fitted light and GPS loggers to breeding black petrels from the area. The resulting tracking data shows that most birds foraged around the North Island, particularly along the continental shelf edges or seamounts.

Several birds flew near the Chatham Rise, two birds flew further north towards Fiji, four birds flew towards the eastern Australian coast and one bird flew around the bottom of the South Island.

Most of the tracked birds appeared to make direct flights to specific bathymetric contours and features such as seamounts, ridges or trenches to forage.

The black petrel population on Mount Hobson has been studied as part of a long-term monitoring project which started in the 1995 – 1996

breeding season. The most recent survey, which was conducted over the summer of 2005 – 2006, covering the 35-hectare area around Mount Hobson, estimated the population to be in the range of 3164 – 4066 individual birds.

The study was funded through the Conservation Services Programme, Department of Conservation, with contributions from the Crown and commercial fisheries.

The black petrel breeds only at Great Barrier (Aotea) and Little Barrier (Hauturu) islands in the Hauraki Gulf. The species ranks as Vulnerable on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction.

Michael Szabo

Detail of a map showing the relationship of distribution of Gibson’s and antipodean wandering albatrosses to bathymetric features around New Zealand. A new satellite tracking study conducted by Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott from 1994 to 2004 shows that tracked birds were clustered around the breeding islands in the subantarctic Auckland Islands Group, along the edge of the continental shelf around New Zealand, along the edge of the steeply sloping Macquarie Ridge Complex and along the edge of the Chatham Rise. Reproduced from Notornis (September 2006).

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conservationbriefs

Don Merton / DOC

Chatham Island black robin

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EW genetic research conducted by two scientists at Massey University shows that the Chatham Islands black robin is more closely related to tomtits than to robins.

The DNA research, published by Hilary Miller and David Lambert in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution in September, found that the Chatham Islands black robin does not appear to be a derivative of New Zealand robin, but instead is grouped strongly with the New Zealand tomtit.

“It suggests that the black robin is closer to the New Zealand tomtits than the New Zealand robins,” Hilary Miller says. “It is hard to say that they’re separate species, but the

level of difference is similar to the level often found between species. Researchers Trevor Worthy and Richard Holdaway thought they were separate species based on their different morphology and this research seems to back that up.”

The research also confirms there is a deep difference between the lineage of North and South Island robins, suggesting they are separate species.

New Zealand robin (Petroica australis), tomtit (P. macrocephala) and Chatham Islands black robin (P. traversi) are members of the Petroicidae family of Australo-Papuan robins, found throughout Australasia and the western Pacific.

New albatross protection plan

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EW Zealand and 11 countries participating in an international treaty to protect albatrosses and petrels agreed a three-year plan to secure the seabirds’ future at a meeting in Christchurch in November.

“Of the 28 species of albatross and petrel that are covered by the treaty, 18 are native to New Zealand but they spend much of their lives beyond our jurisdiction,” meeting Chairman Bill Mansfield told the meeting.

“That’s why it is not enough for New Zealand to take conservation measures on its own – New Zealand needs the help of all other countries in southern temperate latitudes.

The same is true for these other countries.”

Argentina, Chile, Peru,

Ecuador, Uruguay, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, France, the United States and the United Kingdom attended the second meeting of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP).

Signatories agreed to tackle the key threats to albatrosses and petrels; accidental capture in commercial fishing operations, introduced animal pests at breeding sites, and pollution of the oceans with plastic rubbish.

Initiatives agreed include completing a database of information covering the hundreds of seabird breeding sites and feeding areas, and sharing information on the best pest control methods and ways of reducing risks from fishing.

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Percy Burn

Black robin is tomtit “cousie” The Takitimu gecko discovered in Waitutu Forest, Fiordland.

Alpine gecko discovered in Waitutu Forest

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HE discovery of a rare New Zealand lizard by a group of volunteers in the Waitutu Forest, south-east Fiordland, has given scientists a greater insight into the range and habitat of the alpine gecko.

A group of volunteers on a combined Department of Conservation (DOC) and Tuatapere Hump Ridge Charitable Trust work programme made the discovery in November while moving timber beside the Percy Burn Viaduct helicopter pad.

“It shows that we know so little about this particular alpine gecko. Each find helps us piece together and learn more about its distribution and the behaviour of this unique species,” DOC Biodiversity Ranger Ros Cole says.

Until last year, following its 1999 discovery, the alpine gecko was only known from a single area in the Takitimu Mountains. A further discovery in the Aparima Valley in the Takitimu Mountains in 2005

was the first indication this species was capable of living in both alpine and forest habitats.

After a couple of days in the care of the Department of Conservation in Invercargill, the gecko was returned to its forest home by its captor, Lincoln University student and Hump Ridge Track volunteer Nerea Aizpurua.

Hump Ridge Charitable Trust member Wayne Baxter said the team of volunteers had uncovered a variety of wildlife while moving a stack of timber by the site’s helicopter pad.

“Everyone was quite surprised.

We had only just found some frogs and were talking about them and the next moment Nerea Aizpurua uncovered a gecko.”

DOC says people are now more aware of the importance of reporting gecko sightings than they were five years ago thanks, in part, to the two year alpine gecko survey programme sponsored by outdoor retailer Kathmandu.

Fairy prions return

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WO of 240 fairy prions (titi wainui) which were banded and transferred to Mana Island near Wellington between 2002 and 2004 have returned to the island and attempted to breed, reports Dr Colin Miskelly of the Department of Conservation.

This is the first confirmed breeding attempt by the small seabirds that were transferred there from Te Kakaho Island in the Chetwode Islands group, Marlborough Sounds. Last year a pair of unbanded fairy prions bred at the site.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

11

Rod Morris

conservationbriefs

A North Island brown kiwi at the nest.

Trust making a better future for Otanewainuku kiwi

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HE outlook for kiwi in Otanewainuku Forest in the Bay of Plenty has got a whole lot better thanks to a successful possum and rat control operation.

The Otanewainuku Kiwi Trust, initiated by the Forest & Bird Te Puke Branch in 2001 to monitor kiwi in the forest and carry out pest

control, had considerable success in reducing possum and rat numbers in a poison bait operation during 2006.

Trust Secretary Carole Long says a team of 51 Kiwi Trust volunteers spent more than 1500 hours establishing more than 67 kilometres of bait station lines, with 456 bait stations covering 925-hectares of forest.

Environment Bay of Plenty funded the operation and the Department of Conservation (DOC) helped with resources and advice.

Carole Long says the 1080 bait proved effective in reducing both possums and rats: postpoisoning surveys have shown possum numbers are down from a previous high of nine possums per hectare to less than one possum per hectare, while monitoring tunnels have shown the presence of rats has gone down from a high of 45% to less than 11%.

Secondary poisoning has also knocked off many of the stoats and ferrets in the forest.

The reduction in possums, rats and stoats will greatly benefit kiwi and other native birds and plants in the forest by reducing browsing damage and predation of eggs and chicks, she says.

Carole Long says the trust’s success could not be achieved without the help of volunteers like its patron Jim Pendergrast, who has lived near the forest since 1938, and describes the forest as his backyard.

Over 58 years Jim has become familiar with the forest’s flora and fauna, and was concerned when he noted a marked decline in kiwi calls during the 1970s.

He describes his interests as “walking in the bush, catching ferrets, walking in the bush, catching stoats, and waking in the bush,” and is still well up to the job of checking bait lines, or leading a group up to the

top of Otanewainuku, where the view stretches all the way to Rotorua on a fine day.

Carole Long says the development of a kiwi crèche would be a fitting legacy to the early settlers who set aside the area as a reserve, ensuring it was never logged.

Thanks to their foresight Otanewainuku’s virgin native forest today still contains mighty tawa, puketea and other native trees that are hundreds of years old, and is home to kereru, bellbird (korimako), grey warbler (riroriro), whitehead (popokatea), tomtit (ngirungiru), tui, kokako, fantail (piwakawaka) and North Island robin (toutouwai), as well as the North Island brown kiwi.

A three-year listening survey in the forest identified a kiwi population in Otanewainuku Forest of approximately 17 birds – seven female and 10 male, and it is hoped that reduction of pest numbers will lead the way to the forest becoming a “kiwi crèche” as part of nationwide efforts to increase kiwi populations in the wild.

DOC has indicated that captive-bred kiwi could be released into Otanewainuku Forest once the possum control operation is complete, and the trust has hopes of building a predator-proof fence like that at Maungatautari and other “mainland islands” to keep young kiwi safe from predation while they mature.

Fish stocks warning

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ORLD fish stocks could collapse by the year 2048, a major international study has found.

The study, by an international team of scientists led by Dalhousie University in Canada, and published in Science, shows world fisheries will be exhausted by 2048 if current methods and exploitation continue.

The study’s findings were dismissed by commercial fisheries, including the New Zealand fishing industry.

Seafood Industry Council Chief Executive Owen Symmans said that, from a local perspective,

12 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

the study is “well off the mark.”

The New Zealand fishing industry’s confidence is not supported by the evidence.

Orange roughy and hoki are among the worst examples in New Zealand. Many other New Zealand fisheries are over-fished, lack management plans, and are experiencing declining stocks.

Bottom trawling is known to damage to deep water corals and seamount habitats, while longline, mid-water trawl and set net fisheries kill significant numbers of seabirds and/or marine mammals, including threatened species.

Helen Bain

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conservationbriefs Eastern bar-tailed godwit

Ian Gill / DOC

Rod Morris / DOC

Okarito brown kiwi (rowi) chick

Operation Nest Egg helping Okarito brown kiwi

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HE future of Okarito brown kiwi (rowi), New Zealand’s rarest kiwi species, is looking more positive with news that Operation Nest Egg (ONE) will focus on the species over the next two years, with the support of the Bank of New Zealand Save the Kiwi Trust.

Identified as a separate species in 1994 and given the name rowi, around 250 birds remain, restricted to South Okarito Forest, South Westland.

Operation Nest Egg aims to boost the population of this critically endangered species with the support of Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch. All accessible eggs will be removed from the forest and incubated at Willowbank.

Inaccessible eggs will be left to hatch in the wild and the young chicks then removed. Forty potential pairs were monitored over spring, with the first chicks hatching in September.

Hawkes Bay kiwi success

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PROJECT aimed at restoring a wild kiwi population in Hawkes Bay celebrated a major milestone in November, with the recovery of the project’s first ever second generation kiwi chick from the wild.

The chick, named “Willems”, is the offspring of the first kiwi

chick, named “Puk”, which was taken from the Kaweka Forest Park, raised in captivity and released back into the Kaweka Ranges in 2004.

The project is run by the Environment, Conservation and Outdoor Education Trust (ECOED).

Greater protection urged for Waimea Estuary

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ORE comprehensive management is needed to protect internationally important bird habitat, public access, and water quality around the Waimea Inlet, a coalition of community organisations says.

Forest & Bird, Ornithological Society of New Zealand, National Council of Women, Friends of Nelson Haven and Tasman Bay and the Kiwi Conservation Club have made a submission to Tasman District Council’s Environment and Planning Committee seeking a commitment from councillors to prepare a comprehensive management plan for the Waimea Estuary, spokeswoman Queenie Ballance says.

At 3445-hectares, the Waimea Estuary is the largest shallow bar-built estuary in the South Island, with an expansive tidal range. It is habitat for the bartailed godwit (kuaka) which makes an annual 10-day non-

stop migration from Alaska to New Zealand.

Waimea Estuary is an important indicator of the health of the region.

Unfortunately the impacts of intensive land use, subdivision, pollution of streams, and disturbance of important breeding areas all have an adverse impact on the estuary.

“A wider vision is needed, as opposed to the current focus on individual aspects, like subdivision, walkways, landscape protection, or jet-ski lanes,” Queenie Ballance says.

“A management plan would take an integrated approach to protect the thousands of migratory birds, allow for better public access, manage the impact of land use, improve water quality, determine appropriate subdivision and protect the picturesque landscape of the inlet for the benefit of the region.”

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FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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conservationbriefs

Kermadec storm petrel discovery

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N a crystal clear August day, above the clamour of seabirds and the pounding of Pacific surf, a quiet “Hallelujah” carries on the warm breeze wafting over Haszard Islet, a remote volcanic stub in the Kermadec chain, 1000-kilometres north east of Auckland.

Ornithologist Mike Imber has just drawn from a dusty burrow the answer to a century-old riddle. Squirming in his hand, a vital clue; a Kermadec storm petrel. Deep inside the burrow is the smoking gun – a small creamy egg with red speckling. Imber, and co-researcher Karen Baird, had finally found the breeding ground of this rare and tiny subspecies of the white-faced storm petrel.

After being winched onto

the steep outcrop from a Navy helicopter, they’d spent the first hour simply looking for a place to start. Eventually they returned to the spot they’d landed – and found the first burrow almost immediately.

Before the helicopter returned the pair found, among a minefield of black-winged petrel burrows, another nine nests and five more Kermadec storm petrels incubating eggs. The discovery rewarded ten years of work for Imber, who celebrates with trademark restraint; “It was quite satisfying.”

He and others have long suspected – after a process he calls “negative deduction” – that the little seafarers bred on Haszard, but unauthorised landings are forbidden and even sanctioned ones are hellishly difficult, hampering

Honda Civic Hybrid

previous detective efforts.

Department of Conservation (DOC) Warkworth Area Manager Rolene Elliot says the discovery more than justifies the decision to include Haszard in an aerial kiore, or Polynesian rat, eradication programme last June, centred on adjacent Macauley Island.

Five tonnes of brodifacoum bait were dropped by helicopter, with the islands’ steep cliffs being treated twice to ensure coverage. Macauley, a 300-hectare volcanic outcrop, was cleared of feral goats in 1970, and is home to thousands of black-winged petrels, little shearwaters, masked boobies, noddies and Kermadec redcrowned parakeets (kakariki).

It’s also the only breeding site of the white-naped petrel.

While Imber and Baird tiptoe through the maze of burrows on Haszard, DOC Programme Manager Rosalie Stamp scans her binoculars across Macauley, checking to see if the island’s kakariki have suffered any illeffects from the brodifacoum drop. Judging by the numbers that have come to check out

Dave Hansford of Origin Natural History Media is a Wellington-based writer and photographer.

Rosalie Stamp of the Department of Conservation surveying for rats on Macauley Island in the Kermadec Islands.

Fuel efficiency labelling

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HE Government has proposed mandatory fuel efficiency labelling of cars to help reduce vehicle emissions.

A discussion document issued in November proposes that information about fuel consumption be required on all new cars sold in New Zealand by the middle of 2007. The scheme would eventually also cover all used cars.

Energy Minister David Parker said labelling would help car buyers choose more fuel-efficient cars, which would reduce exhaust emissions that

14 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

the helicopter landing – they haven’t, and she’s not surprised.

“Before the bait drop, we did a risk assessment using a nontoxic bait with a tracer in it,” she explains. Subsequent checks found no sign of the tracer in Macauley’s kakariki, giving DOC the confidence and the resource consent condition it needed to press ahead. Macauley is home to an estimated 8000 kakariki, where they’re thriving by comparison with their kin on Raoul, the largest island of the Kermadec chain.

Stamp say that’s probably because red-crowned kakariki spend a lot of time on the ground, and until 2004, Raoul was infested with feral cats.

Stamp is scanning the ground too, looking for rats living or dead, and any remaining baits.

She finds none, but DOC won’t be declaring the islands rat-free until tracking tunnels and traps stay empty for another couple of years.

Dave Hansford

Karen Baird / DOC

Mike Imber holds a Kermadec storm petrel on Haszard Islet.

contribute to climate change and cause health problems.

The proposal follows other recent Government moves to clean up vehicle emissions, including introduction of stricter limits on sulphur levels in petrol and diesel from 2008, visible exhaust smoke tests being added to warrant of fitness checks, and a new fuelsaver website (www. fuelsaver.govt.nz) to provide up to date information on vehicles’ fuel consumption and driving tips to help people save fuel.

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conservationbriefs

be retained by the Crown as a conservation area, and hopes it will eventually become part of the proposed Oteake Conservation Park over the Hawkdun Range.

Forest & Bird Otago and Southland Field Officer Sue Maturin says the tussock grassland plateau is the most extensive, relatively intact grassland at this elevation (1300 -1575 metres above sea level) left in Otago, and probably in New Zealand.

It is home to a range of endemic invertebrates, and has

one of the largest remaining areas of the slim snow tussock, which is now rare in New Zealand.

“The conservation and landscape values are enormous, and once opened up for public recreation people will be able to freely explore a vast plateau of tussocks, bogs, and craggy gorges with views out to Aoraki/ Mt Cook,” Sue Maturin says.

“The farming families have generally granted access to those ‘in the know’ who ask for access, but for many people a sign at the bottom of a legal

road suggests it is private land, and turn back for fear of trespassing.”

The Mt Ida Pastoral Occupation Licence is owned by the Crown and has been leased out for grazing to a syndicate of farmers on a series of short-term licences since about 1860. Since 1978, rentals have not been reviewed and the syndicate has paid an annual rental of $1080 – less than 13 cents per hectare each year.

Grazing had become a long-standing tradition there, even though the licence was supposed to be short-term – unlike pastoral leases it was not meant to be granted on a perpetually renewable basis.

“Grazing sheep up in this harsh high area cannot be described as benign; it prevents indigenous vegetation from flourishing. Sheep have congregated around the edges of wetlands, pugging them, altering drainage patterns and mowing vegetation around them,” Sue Maturin says.

Protection of the snow tussock plateau from grazing is also important for retaining water sources. With its bogs, tarns and streams, the tussock plateau “harvests” water to feed into the Maniototo Plains, where water for irrigation is scarce, and into the Waitaki Valley where it contributes to Lake Aviemore.

Helen Bain

critically endangered species could be on the verge of extinction.

Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers Jack van Hal and Hannah Edmonds spent two days monitoring the island for signs that birds released the previous year had bred and raised chicks.

“Day one the weather was not great but still, we heard two; then saw two un-banded birds and that was enough for us,” Jack Van Hal says. “We cracked open the champagne that first night!”

They had a very successful second day, with 12 birds seen and heard, bringing the total of un-banded birds found to 16.

“We checked all four nests known from previous monitoring trips and found

one active, being used by a pair of un-banded birds,” Jack van Hal says.

“It’s not common for parakeets to reuse old nests in the wild but not unheard of.

But it’s a sure sign that these birds are busy working on the next generation already,” she says.

“We’re not sure if they were laying or incubating but the male was doing some great head-bobbing and dancing for his lady – so they were certainly up to something.”

“What was also different about this monitoring trip is that we were hearing birds in new areas on the island – in fact we found birds in every corner – the western, eastern, southern and most northern tips. They are spreading out to use the

whole island which is more good news.”

It was good news too for the 16 chicks back at Peacock Springs in Christchurch, waiting to join the safe population on Chalky Island in the New Year.

DOC will now look at establishing a second offshore population on Maud Island.

“We have more eggs currently being incubated by captive pairs, at Isaacs Wildlife Centre here in Christchurch,” DOC Advisory Scientist Andy Grant says.

Orange-fronted kakariki are only found in three valleys in Canterbury; the Hurunui Valley in Lake Sumner, and the Hawdon and Poulter valleys in Arthur’s Pass National Park. Fewer than 200 birds are now left.

New conservation park proposed in Otago high country

F

Rod Morris

OREST & Bird has welcomed proposals by the Government to protect the tussock heart of Central Otago’s Hawkdun-Mt Ida Ranges as a Conservation Park, announced in November.

The future of the 8400hectare (ha) plateau is being debated during a review by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) of the Crown owned land, where grazing has been allowed under a Pastoral Occupation Licence.

Forest & Bird agrees with the proposal that the land should

Orange-crowned parakeet

Corks fly for kakariki

C

HAMPAGNE corks flew through the air after orange-fronted parakeets (kakariki) were found to have successfully established on Chalky Island in Fiordland in December, quelling fears the

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Hawkdun Spring

by Graeme Sydney

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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Dolphins in danger

Steve Dawson/NZ Whale and Dolphin Trust

The Hector’s dolphin is the world’s smallest and rarest.

Helen Bain visits Southland and finds a species in decline.

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Hector’s dolphins in their native habitat, inshore during the summer months. Hector’s dolphins live in fission-fusion groups that regularly merge and split. Mothers and calves stay close together for at least a year to 18 months. Other associations within a dolphin “tribe” are shorter-lived. For example, in the Banks Peninsula area there is a clear population structure in which some dolphins belong to the “tribe” that lives on the north side of the peninsula, while some have only been seen on the south side, with little interchange even within such a relatively small geographic area.

Steve Dawson/NZ Whale and Dolphin Trust

A Hector’s dolphin surfaces at speed on a calm day. A print of this photograph was presented to Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton after he addressed the Forest & Bird council meeting in November 2006.

N

ANCY Gee shades her eyes from the bright sunshine reflecting off the waves and scans the water for dolphins.

She and husband Brian have lived in Curio Bay for 17 years and have long enjoyed the sight of the rare Hector’s dolphins frolicking in the bay, but this year she has seen very few.

“There are fewer dolphins in the bay every year. You used to see them coming in here from about Labour Weekend and now you don’t see them till late November or early December.”

The number of dolphins in each pod in Curio Bay and adjoining Porpoise Bay is also lower, she says.

“You used to be able to count more than 20 at a time a few years ago – now the dolphins can be outnumbered by the tourists.”

The endemic Hector’s dolphin is one of the most threatened dolphins in the world – and they are getting even rarer.

The South Island population has been estimated at little more than 7000 – down from more than 26,000 in 1970 – and they are listed as Endangered by the IUCN (World Conservation Union) on the Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction.

The North Island population, found only off the north-west coast, is a distinct subspecies named Maui’s dolphin, and w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

with numbers estimated at just 111, they are critically endangered.

While dolphin numbers may be falling at Curio Bay, the number of tourists is ever increasing. Three busloads and a constant flow of rental cars and campervans arrive every day, and there are hundreds of people camping here in summer.

There are people swimming in the bay for at least 12 hours a day in summer, and the constant human intrusion could mean the dolphins spend less time feeding or carrying on with other natural behaviour, Nancy Gee worries.

She doesn’t think banning swimming near dolphins is the answer – instead she supports educating tourists about how to behave around dolphins.

“People should stay 50 metres away from dolphins. If they come to you that’s their choice, but you shouldn’t approach them.”

Signs around the bay let tourist know the rules: “Love us from a distance or lose us forever,” they read and warn people not to spend more than 40 minutes in the dolphins’ presence, and not to feed or touch them or make noise.

Fishing nets pose another risk to the dolphins. Nancy Gee and other Curio Bay residents were behind a voluntary set net ban that has been in place for three years.

A jet ski ban and a speed limit of five

kilometres for boats, plus a ban on vehicles on some parts of the beach also help protect dolphins from human impact.

Craig McIvor, in the newly established post of Department of Conservation (DOC) summer warden at Curio Bay, is armed with a list of “messages” to deliver to tourists about responsible behaviour around dolphins. He was on his first day in the job when he spoke to Forest & Bird, but was optimistic that tourists will respond co-operatively with the friendly advice rather than a tougher enforcement approach.

Dreadlocked Damon Cracknell, who conducts guided walks for the Curio Bay camping ground, says he hasn’t noticed much change in dolphin numbers in the last 10 years.

“Some days you see heaps of them – the water can be just boiling with them.”

But he says it is not always easy persuading tourists to stick to guidelines.

“People don’t always read the signs and they get pretty excited when they see dolphins. Sometimes when dolphins appear you can have 30 people going straight out to them. But the dolphins tend to pretty curious themselves – a lot of the time they actually go up to the swimmers.”

A study in Porpoise Bay in 2002-2003

by Erin Green of Otago University on the impact on dolphins of increasing levels of FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

17

Steve Dawson/NZ Whale and Dolphin Trust

Underwater photograph of a group of four Hector’s dolphins. Hector’s dolphins are usually found in groups of 2-8 individuals. Underwater photographs of Hector’s dolphins are relatively rare, as they prefer shallow, inshore waters that are usually fairly murky.

how many dolphins live along the southern coast, their movements and threats to their survival.

Researchers photograph the dolphins’ dorsal fins, which often bear unusual marks and notches that allow the individual to be recognised if it is seen again – over time this should provide useful information about their abundance, movements and survival rates.

One dolphin with a sharp “step”

Erin Green / DOC

tourism highlighted the need for caution.

While tourism appeared to be having “no catastrophic effects on the population,” potential cumulative effects were difficult to measure, and increasing tourism and lack of regulations “should be cause for significant concern,” Green concluded.

DOC ranger Ros Cole says research into Hector’s dolphins at Te Waewae Bay southeast of Invercargill over the last three years will soon start to build knowledge about

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notched out of its fin is named “Step” in DOC records, while another with numerous scars from a boat propeller is called “Fortune.” The monikers of “Big Ted” and “Little Ted” defy explanation. So far DOC has identified and recorded about 60 different individual dolphins.

A dead Hector’s dolphin was found in Te Waewae Bay in December, the cause of death still to be determined. Of the four previous dolphin deaths in the area where autopsies have been conclusive, just one has been definitely attributed to set nets.

The others were deemed to be natural causes.

Ros Cole says it is difficult over such a large area of coastline to monitor dolphin deaths, and therefore causes of death, and DOC encourages the public and fishermen to inform them if they find a dead dolphin so they can better determine what the greatest threats are.

Set nets are responsible for a significant number of dolphin deaths throughout their range, but in this area there is not enough information to identify them as the main threat to Hector’s dolphins, she says.

According to the Ministry of Fisheries, up to eight commercial set netters operated in Te Waewae Bay between 1992 and 2001, A Hector’s dolphin spyhopping, Te Whaata, Te Waewae Bay, Southland. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Judy Rodda / DOC

Helen Bain

Nancy Gee of Curio Bay in Southland says she sees fewer dolphins in the bay every year.

A Hector’s dolphin leaps clear of the water, Te Waewae Bay, Southland.

but the number has since reduced to three or less. Te Waewae Bay’s exposed, rough conditions mean it is not well suited to set netting but the set netters operate more frequently in summer when dolphins come close to shore with their calves.

Otago University lecturer and Forest & Bird Executive member Liz Slooten is convinced set nets pose a significant threat to dolphins. She ranks set nets, closely followed by trawling, as the number one threat to Hector’s dolphins. She rates pollution and then tourism as a distant third and fourth in terms of risk.

Restrictions on set nets and trawling in areas where Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins are found would be by far the most effective protection measure, she says.

A coalition of the major environmental groups and scientists working with Hector’s dolphins reached the same conclusion in October 2004. The group, including Forest & Bird, called on the Government to establish a recovery plan for Hector’s dolphins within six months – two years later, they’re still waiting.

The group also set targets for recovery of Hector’s populations: 16,304 dolphins by 2025; 20,016 by 2055, and recovery over the dolphins’ natural historic range.

Without changes to protection levels, the group estimated that the number of Hector’s dolphins would fall to 4788 in the next 50 years.

Set net bans are in place to protect the critically endangered Maui’s dolphins off the north-west coast of the North Island, and to protect Hector’s dolphins around Banks Peninsula, but in other areas the dolphins are unprotected.

Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate

Kirstie Knowles says a ban on set netting is urgently needed in all Hector’s and Maui’s dolphin areas.

“The set net ban off the northwest coast of the North Island clearly demonstrates that if we remove this principal threat, the number of Maui’s dolphin deaths is considerably reduced.”

From 1990-2002 there were 12 reported Maui’s dolphin deaths, at least seven linked to set nets. Since the ban was introduced, there have been four deaths, and none of them were believed to be associated with set nets.

Forest & Bird is seeking a national set net ban, both to protect these threatened dolphins and to move the threat from

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

these nets to seabirds and non-target fish.

The establishment of Marine Mammal Sanctuaries in each of the critical areas for Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins is essential to addressing threats other than set nets such as trawling and propeller damage from boats, Kirstie Knowles says.

“With so few of these dolphins left, we cannot afford to waste time or take risks.

The death of three Maui’s dolphins in the last two months is extremely worrying and highlights the urgency with which we must eradicate human induced threats to this, the world’s last remaining population of this species.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer.

Credit: Alistair Hutt / DOC

A Hector’s dolphin mother and calf, Haylocks Bay, Banks Peninsula. Researchers can identify individual Hector’s dolphins from dorsal fins, which sometimes carry distinctive nicks or markings.

19

Peka-a-waka Earina mucronata is found throughout New Zealand growing on trees and rocks, especially in lowland forest.

New Zealand’s ancient orchids are unique because most can self-pollinate.

Margaret Willard discovers why.

N

ATIVE orchids have inspired people for centuries, but many New Zealanders are less familiar with these unassuming little plants than with our ferns, trees and climbing plants.

This is perhaps because relatively few native orchid flowers are more than two centimetres long, the fleeting appearance of the more colourful flowering varieties and the ability of some to merge so effectively with their surroundings.

Take the tiny spider orchid with its kidney-shaped leaves that are easily overlooked or the grasslike flowers of greenhoods (Pterostylis) which blend so well with their plant neighbours.

Native orchids can be found in native forest and scrubland at all altitudes, in wetlands, and along mossy stream banks.

A few hardy species even survive under winter snow on alpine herbfields.

Surprisingly they also favour exotic forests, particularly in association with Pinus nigra. The most prolific known

20 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

habitat is now a reserve at Iwitahi at the Taupo end of the Napier-Taupo Road, where large colonies of various genera can be found in numbers not usually seen in the natural landscape. It is thought they are sustained by the abundance of the soil fungi within the fallen pine needles.

All but a few of the 140 known orchid species are ground-dwelling, with either an underground tuber or rhizome, which in some species provided food for Maori.

While the epiphytic orchids can be grown easily, the terrestrial plants’ complex relationship with soil fungi makes many of them very difficult to cultivate.

Orchids are thought to have been among the first primitive flowers to have colonised West Gondwanaland during the Jurassic period. Lilies came first, then an evolutionary leap saw the modification of their carpels and stamens into a single structure – the column – while the petals and sepals adapted to form the general orchid characteristics we know today.

Michael Pratt

Darwin’s dream flowers

These primitive orchids and other West Gondwana plants co-existed with the kauri, frogs, tuatara, ferns and kiwi on the New Zealand that eventually drifted from Australia.

Despite New Zealand’s isolation, fine seed blown on the prevailing westerlies from south east Asia and Australia has made effective landfall here, with some of the Australian migrants now our most threatened species. Some species arrived with their necessary pollinating insects, but a few did not and so have not been able to reproduce, while others were unable to adapt to New Zealand’s range of habitats.

Terrestrial orchids are common everywhere, but New Zealand’s orchid species are unique in the ability of most of them to self-pollinate, due to a lack of pollinating insects. Some of the sun orchids flower only on dry sunny days. If the sun remains behind cloud or it rains, its unique internal structure enables it to fertilise itself, and the ovary of the bud gradually swells, depriving a hopeful photographer of an opportunity.

Charles Darwin had some difficulty coming to terms with this phenomenon.

He once wrote, “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Nature tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors perpetual self-fertilisation.” Later he conceded that orchids could self-pollinate, but only when normal, healthy crosspollination failed, and only temporarily.

The alternative was that they would “become extinct from the evil effects of long-continued close interbreeding.”

It is thought that cross-pollination may not be as necessary for variation in the gene pool as Darwin believed. In his book The Nature Guide to Native Orchids in New Zealand, NZ Native Orchid Group Convener Ian St George suggests that in the same way that viruses mutate, it is possible some self-pollinating orchids are capable of genetic modification, as has been observed in the evolution of Corybas cheesemanii from its Australian cousin C. aconitiflorus.

Other native orchid characteristics include, in three genera, a total lack of chlorophyll, with a resulting dependence on soil fungi for nutrients. The leafless Gastrodia not only lacks chlorophyll, but lives under trees on parasitic fungi that are destructive to other living tissue.

Some orchids have an ability to dupe insects into an unrewarding association by offering floral scents and pseudopollen.

The Australian Cryptostylis, which has established itself in Northland, tricks a male wasp into mating with it, and members of the Pterostylis genus snap shut w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

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

Michael Pratt

Michael Pratt

Pink fingers Caladenia alata is found in scrubland from Rotorua northwards. The flowers can be pink, mauve, red or white.

Pink fingers Calandenia variegata is found in scrubland and light forests at scattered localities in North-West Nelson, Lower North Island and west of Lake Taupo.

The distinctive spotted sun orchid Thelymitra nervosa is found in scrubland and tussock in the Central North Island, Wellington and NorthWest Nelson

The greenhood orchid Pterostylus patens is found in North Island montane to subalpine forests.

The sun orchid Thelymitra hatchii is found in the Catlins, Southland.

about conservation because it varies for different species.” St George says. Since the introduction of exotic weeds, many species have taken the opportunities offered by human intervention, for example by colonising tracksides.

Our rarest endemic orchid, the spider orchid Anzybas carsei is now found only in bogland next to a Waikato railway line.

During the steam engine era occasional burning off helped it to thrive, but since diesel trains replaced steam, the orchid has declined in numbers as pest weeds overwhelm it. Another threatened wetland orchid, Pterostylus micromega, is now found in only a few upper North Island and Chatham Island swamps.

“Swamps provide a habitat for a range of orchids,” Ian St George says, “and the

draining of wetlands has had an impact on numbers. To conserve them, fencing off reserves is sometimes the best technique, but for some it isn’t the best way, especially if swamps and reserves are invaded by competing weeds.”

“Orchids can be used as a symbol for conservation and the needs of other flora.

That’s quite powerful, especially when you look at Anzybas carsei. It’s our rarest orchid, and nearly all black, which could make it quite iconic - almost like the black robin.”

Margaret Willard is a freelance writer who is fascinated with the smaller native organisms that are easily overlooked. She works in a voluntary capacity as Public Relations Officer with the Rimutaka Forest Park Trust and its kiwi project.

Michael Pratt

Michael Pratt

The copper beard orchid Calochilus aff. herbaceous is found in wet ground amongst scrub north of Auckland.

Rod Morris

Michael Pratt

when an insect enters, necessitating a tight squeeze through the pollen chamber.

The thousands of tiny seeds produced in each fruit are easily dispersed by wind, but lack their own nutrients and the means of obtaining them. Orchids therefore form an association with a fungus to provide food for development into a protocorm, from which the plant grows.

The relationship between orchids and fungi has been described as symbiotic. But while Cymbidium and its fungus appear to be mutually dependent, most terrestrial fungi that provide orchids with nutrients and stimuli can live without them and get very little from the orchids in return.

“Orchids have been described as cheats,” says Ian St George. “They take the benefits of pollinating insects and the fungi they live on without giving anything back.”

The plants have attracted many artists, perhaps drawn by what Ian St George describes as “a fragile grace that I find quite stunning”. In his book he quotes zoologist Peter Whitehead, “The artist-scientist… elaborates at the interface between us and the world around us, between what we know things are and what we feel things are, and in doing so touches exactly at the point where understanding begins. We feel the truth as much as we know it.”

In the 25 years since amateur botanist Dorothy Cooper founded the Native Orchid Group, more than 160 amateur and professional botanists have worked together to advance knowledge about orchids through field trips, a quarterly journal and individual investigation.

Ian St George says that while professional scientists provide expertise, lay people are a source of down-to-earth evidence about what they may be thinking.

“We’re more often in the field and can give information about the location and numbers of orchid species. On the other hand, when we go off on a tangent they can steer us back onto an orthodox course.”

Since the group was founded, the number of known species has grown from around 80 to 140 or more, and species thought extinct have been rediscovered. “As far as we know, no species has declined,” says Ian St George.

Where structure and anatomy were once the primary criteria for identification, examination of other factors such as habitat, flowering time, latitude and minor structural differences have led to identification of many new species. Now DNA analysis is proving hugely important in differentiating species.

Despite progress with classification, orchidologists believe a lot is still unknown, and many questions remain on how best to protect and care for the plants. “I don’t think we know enough

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

21

Creatures great and small Vanishing act: this male Archey’s frog guarding his young was photographed on a forested ridge in 1985. Since then, most of the frogs in this colony have disappeared.

Rod Morris is one of New Zealand’s leading nature documentary film-makers and wildlife photographers.

Michael Szabo met him between takes to talk about digital film-making and hedgehogs from Mars.

Photographs by Rod Morris.

Rod Morris

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W

ith his baseball cap and broad smile, Rod Morris has the air of a contented man about him when we meet at Ernesto’s café on Wellington’s Cuba Street. Maybe it’s the recent trip to the Galapagos Islands? Or perhaps it’s because he’s about to leave for a month long trip to Antarctica?

Life isn’t all exotic destinations for him, though. A lot of his work is closer to his Dunedin home. Just in the past few days he’s been to the Banks Peninsula to photograph the Canterbury jewel gecko.

He thinks they might be a separate species from their Otago namesakes.

“They seem to breed at different times of year, and Otago jewel geckos have blue mouths and black tongues whereas Canterbury ones have pink mouths and red tongues,” he explains.

His knowledge and enthusiasm extends beyond nature to embrace new technology.

As we turn to talk about March of the Penguins and the demise of the New Zealand nature documentary, he enthuses about the spread of digital technology and laptops, which he thinks are going to play an increasingly important role in empowering people to photograph nature and make wildlife films.

“For instance, new geckos are being brought to attention these days because trampers can photograph them with cellphone cameras and film-makers

can edit their documentaries on laptop computers at home, relatively cheaply.”

“Sooner or later a new documentary outfit will burst out of a hallway or a garage somewhere, editing on a Mac, and a television executive somewhere will see what they’ve done and buy it because it’s fresh and innovative,” he predicts.

It’s a couple of years since he left Natural History New Zealand, the company he spent most of the past two decades working with producing and directing films about kiwi, kakapo and komodo dragons. He hasn’t made any documentaries lately, he says, but he’s still proud of the early ones he made.

“I’m very fond of a Wild South documentary about black stilt we did in 1984. Hal Smith, a wonderful script-writer worked with me on that one. Hal felt that the story was as much about the landscape as the bird and so we went on a road trip through the Mackenzie Country, so Hal might capture the spirit of the place in words – I thought he did it beautifully.

Then in 1988 we collaborated again, on the book Wild South – Saving New Zealand’s Endangered Birds.”

The Wild South documentaries and subsequent books such as Wild South’s Living Treasures of New Zealand have played a vital role inspiring future conservationists and scientists, and brought to life less wellknown species such as the black stilt (kaki), w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

kakapo and kokako for audiences that were not so familiar with them before.

“I went on to bigger and better things, but I’ve come to realise that as our smaller native species become rare, their stories also need to be told. So it’s back to photography for me – and what I enjoyed most about the late 1970s and early 1980s, although now the unknown animals are generally of smaller size.”

He has a passion for photographing lesser known species such as geckos and insects – some of which are still waiting to be described, he says – “so that people can put a face to a name”.

“It was good to see one of my black-eyed gecko photos in a recent issue of Forest & Bird. It gets them out there just as a kakapo photo might have helped familiarise people with the species back in 1979.”

These days he finds satisfaction in travelling around New Zealand, searching out obscure smaller species and photographing them. “Many smaller species aren’t yet known to New Zealanders. For example, take the Uchid collembolla, a group of giant spring tails, that no longer spring. They live in the leaf litter and the largest species only grows to seven millimetres. They’re fantastic – like hedgehogs from Mars.”

When he finds Uchids he also sends specimens to a researcher at Massey University. “They’re unique to New w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Zealand and need protecting across their range. When I find one it feels like another piece of the puzzle has been put together.”

He’s still showing us things about New Zealand’s unique bird life, over 20 years since his first documentary. Two years ago he photographed the first “golden” kea seen in 100 years. “I photographed a museum specimen for the Wild South book in 1988 so I knew that unusually coloured parrots had occurred here in the past. Then in 2005 I heard about an all yellow kea that had been seen in a remote part of the South Island. As soon as we were able, I went to look for the bird with the person that had found it. Fortunately the kea was still in the area and I was able to film and photograph it.”

His film-making travels in the Pacific have taken him from Hawaii and Tahiti in the north and east to New Guinea and Tasmania in the west and south. He says being a New Zealander and a biologist has developed his fascination with the natural history of islands and the way life develops on them, such as flightlessness among birds and the tendency towards gigantism or dwarfism in certain species.

It was these experiences that helped him develop an appreciation of the minutiae of the natural world and that he captured in hundreds of superb images in Island Magic – Wildlife of the South Seas, the book he produced with writer Alison

Male giraffe weevil, Marlborough Sounds

Rod Morris

Rod Morris

Rod Morris

Hedgehog from Mars: at seven millimetres long this Uchid collembolla or orange-spined giant spring tail is big. Tiny endemic animals such as this play a vital role in maintaining the health of beech forests by aiding the breakdown of dead leaves to release nutrients.

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Rod Morris Rod Morris

Kea gold: In 2005 Rod Morris photographed the first all yellow kea to be seen in over 100 years.

Don Merton and kakapo “Waynebo”: if conservation credits are ever introduced like people talk about carbon credits these days, Don Merton would surely be one of the richest men in the world, reckons Rod Morris. Don played a large and influential role in Rod’s early days with the Wildlife Service and continues to be an inspiration for him today.

Rod Morris

Jackson/Arawhata River confluence: scenic views such as this can be deceptive, says Rod Morris.

Every year it becomes harder to find and photograph some of the smaller creatures and plants of New Zealand’s native forests and wild rivers.

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Ballance in 2003.

During his travels he discovered that places as far apart as Tasmania and Patagonia had a biogeographic affinity with New Zealand. “I loved seeing marsupials in the southern beech forests of Tasmania and species like the Magellanic woodpecker in Chilean beech forests. It was just like walking through Fiordland’s beech forests again. There were strange new creatures, but also ‘old friends’ – peripatus under logs, galaxid fish in streams, and beech strawberries in the trees. I enjoyed finding alpine buttercups in the Chilean Andes that were salmon-pink rather than ours (which are creamy white), and plants that looked just like our penwipers growing on the scree, until I saw their tiny purple flowers hidden amongst the overlapping leaves, and realised they were scree violets.”

There are still some southern destinations he’d like to visit more, including Antarctica and subantarctic Macquarie Island. “I’ve seen the New Zealand subantarctic islands; Macquarie is the only one in the region I’d still like to visit. I’m also hoping I’ll get to see royal penguins there – and emperor penguins in Antarctica one day.”

He’s looking forward to a trip to Northland in early 2007 just as eagerly, where he will be talking to Forest & Bird branches and seeking out mudfish, beetles and geckos along the way. “New Zealand can be just as exciting as the Galapagos or Madagascar for a naturalist, and visiting Northland will be a very different experience for me.”

And there is the prospect of visiting continental Africa after his next planned trip to Madagascar, where he hopes to see the largest flightless bird in the world, the Somali ostrich, and the only penguin species in the region, the African penguin.

Seeing ostrich in the wild is an ambition he has held since the 1980s when he came face to face with a Philippine eagle, which has the largest wingspan and body length of any species of eagle. “That was an extraordinary experience,” he recounts.

“I’ve never felt so scared of a bird in my life. It was the first Philippine monkey eagle reared in captivity and I was there in the Philippines researching a documentary proposal. The keeper invited me into the aviary. As we stepped in the door the bird swooped down on us. It landed six feet from me and clapped its wings, which cracked like a bullwhip in a threat display.

Suddenly there was this very large eagle, standing there with its eyes level with mine, peering at me. And I thought, ‘this is a bird to be afraid of – this is how it must have felt like to confront Haast’s eagle’”.

“As we left the aviary I noticed the keeper had a scar on his throat. It turned w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Michael Szabo is Forest & Bird’s Communications Manager and editor of Forest & Bird magazine.

Rod Morris Rod Morris

Weta haka: Rod Morris says weta like this Wellington tree weta are great warriors, with fierce faces, a flickering tongue, waving arms and stamping legs – “it seems they perfected the haka a long time ago.”

Deadly duo: Two giant centipedes paralyse a common gecko on the rat-free Poor Knights Islands, before they devour it.

Harvestmen sparring: these arachnid predators snare and pounce on spring tails, mites and other small insects.

Rod Morris

out that the eagle had attacked him once.

He’d turned his back on it and it swooped down, grabbing him around the neck with its claws. He was knocked to the ground, unable to move, and one of its claws pierced his throat. Luckily someone saw it happen and ran in to help. They had to bend the eagle’s leg at the joint to release the tendon to save the keeper.”

The experience inspired him to work on a script for a documentary set in Aotearoa at the time of the Haast’s eagle and giant moa, which perhaps one day will be made.

But the seed of an idea to see Somali ostrich – the largest and most successful modern flightless bird – a sort of surrogate moa – was planted that day.

Increasingly he now dedicates his time to nature photography, publishing new books and occasionally guiding tours to destinations such as Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands and Madagascar, for Heritage Expeditions and others.

“I love photography. It’s the thing I’m happiest doing. A large part of the challenge lies in the number of times you may have to search for a species before finding it. Take Montingena, the scree pea.

I’ve searched for it in inland Canterbury four or five times now, but I’ve still not seen it in flower – the introduced hares eat the plants before I can photograph them.”

He doesn’t think of himself as a photographer though. “I’m more interested in the wildlife than the photography itself, but I hope from the photography that others might find beauty in small things too.”

By focusing on individual creatures in fine detail he tries to record the threads of the tapestry that make up the natural history of New Zealand. “I’m just like everybody else – we all photograph the things we love – where we live, our family, our friends. I photograph animals and plants for the same reason, and because I believe we will only conserve what we know and love.”

Rod Morris

Maud the takahe eating a banana

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25

Beyond the Furious Fifties

Dr Franz Smith describes his expedition to the Balleny Islands in the Ross Sea with a team of scientists aboard RV Tiama which last year gathered data to support New Zealand’s proposal for a Marine Protected Area around the remote archipelago.

Franz Smith

The impressive volcanic terrain of Sabrina Islet and the Monolith in the Balleny Islands, where the largest colony of penguins in the archipelago was located.

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RV Tiama under sail off Rangitoto

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Volcanic spires, hanging glaciers, and the incredible blues of the ice shelf at Young Island in the Balleny Islands

“beyond the Furious Fifties” was suddenly before us.

The Balleny Islands are located near the Antarctic Circle in an area where two major weather systems converge, creating unpredictable winds. The archipelago itself is often clouded over, so the ability to predict ice conditions in the vicinity has been problematic. This, combined with the fact that the islands are usually encased in ice for 11 months of the year, limits the type of vessel that can get close enough to land at the islands.

There have been fewer than 30 documented landings on the islands themselves and most landings from boats involving rough sea conditions and steep beaches. Accounts from one of the only yacht voyages to the archipelago – by David Lewis some 25 years ago – conjured up harrowing images of what it might take to get ashore at the Ballenys. From my experience working with Henk Haazen at

RV Tiama sails past abrupt headlands, hanging glaciers and broad ice tongues typical of the Balleny Islands’ coastline, where few shore landings are possible and anchorages are difficult to find.

Franz Smith

EAVING the southern tip of Stewart Island bound for the subantarctic islands, it seems unlikely that we will encounter a place familiar to the New Zealand most of us know. Heading into the vastness of the Southern Ocean aboard the purpose-built 15-metre expedition yacht RV Tiama, there is a great sense of wonder and anticipation of what lies “beyond the Roaring Forties”.

Arriving at the Auckland Islands, though, there is soon a sense of familiarity and the relationship with mainland New Zealand becomes clearer: the volcanic cliffs are clad in lichens and topped with tussocks, shags fly low over the wind-swept sea while albatrosses (toroa) and petrels (titi) swirl around us, penguins (hoiho) dart beneath the surface, bull kelp fronds flop along the tidal fringe and bellbirds (korimako) chime throughout the trees.

The cliffs – and the connections – also extend below the tide line. Over the past few years I had been researching the patterns of diversity and community structure of shallow subtidal ledges of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands with the Department of Conservation (DOC) to help better understand their ecology.

These submerged cliffs are covered with a colourful variety of sponges, anemones, and seaweeds – some of which are surprisingly similar to assemblages found in areas of the South and North islands.

However, in amongst tufts of bryozoan lace corals and the iconic finger sponges characteristic of reefs around New Zealand, a few Antarctic elements begin to appear in the form of extensive yellow, pink and green loaf sponges and large sea squirts adorned with bright red siphons. A solitary trumpeter swims in the distance – similar to what one might see in parts

Franz Smith

Courtesy of Henk Haazen

of Southland – but closer to the bottom a school of subantarctic ice fish hang in the water column.

During one of these subantarctic expeditions, musing over a coffee with RV Tiama skipper Henk Haazen, we both entertained the question of how far south these relationships extended and whether or not there would be any familiarity with rock ledges in the Ross Sea. At the time, though, the opportunity to mount an expedition to answer these questions seemed even more remote than the islands themselves. But if the opportunity were to arise, I knew that Henk would be a good choice of skipper – having almost 20 years of experience sailing in Antarctic waters, including as Logistics Coordinator on several Greenpeace expeditions to Antarctica, as well as a voyage there aboard his own ice-capable yacht RV Tiama.

The subject came up again in conversation with Ministry of Fisheries Scientific Officer, Ben Sharp, in relation to the collation of the survey work I have conducted on sponges, corals, and bryozoans from the Kermadec Islands to the subantarctic islands. During the conversation he mentioned that he had recently returned from a meeting of CCAMLR (the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources) where he had presented a paper on the scientific justification for establishing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) around the Balleny Islands.

Although arguments based on “ecological first principles” support the designation of the Balleny Islands MPA, the weakest aspect of the proposal was the lack of empirical data on the biological assemblages and functional linkages within the marine ecosystem. Here, I suggested that it might be possible to mount a dedicated research voyage aboard RV Tiama to gather information to support the proposal, and the opportunity to sail

27

Franz Smith Rod Morris

Documenting the location of Weddell seals and penguins during a shore landing at Borradaile Island in the Balleny Islands.

The expedition found more than 300 chinstrap penguins at Sabrina Islet in 2006, which represented a significant increase in the number recorded there by the previous survey in 2000.

the Bounty and Antipodes islands getting people and equipment off raging intertidal platforms, I had confidence that we could handle the rough conditions and the landings.

We had two months to establish a team and prepare for the voyage after agreeing a project plan with the Ministry of Fisheries.

Our brief not only included shore landings to establish the population status of the penguins and other seabird species, but also to obtain samples for chemical analyses of diet composition. We also planned diving surveys using a variety of methods for different habitat types such as steep ledges and soft-sediment habitats and deeper stations using a drop camera. DOC gave us training and equipment for biopsy sampling marine mammals, in the event that we were able to get close enough to get any tissue samples for genetic analyses.

Because of the varied nature of the sampling and the limited space available on RV Tiama I needed a research team with a complimentary mix of skills. I had made several research trips with Dr Nick Shears, formerly of the Leigh Marine Laboratory, and knew him to be an accomplished diver

Rod Morris

Adelie penguins breed in association with chinstrap penguins at the Balleny Islands

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and videographer – having hundreds of hours working in heavy surge around the country. Rebecca McLeod, a PhD student from the University of Otago, was an obvious choice for her expertise in softsediment assemblages and tissue sampling for diet analyses. I had also made several trips with her throughout Fiordland and was sure she had the stamina to undertake the voyage. Next in line would be Clinton Andrews, a geologist, avid mountaineer, and surveyor, who was ideal to help on the shore landings and logistic aspects of the penguin colony surveys. To complete the expedition team, we were joined by first and second mates Mike Delamore and Steve Parsons.

We sailed out of Bluff on a beautiful afternoon in February 2006, bound for the Auckland Islands. The intention was to stage here while waiting for the ice to clear and a window of weather to make the seven day journey from the Auckland Islands to the Ballenys. Once there we received a message from an Antarctic tour operator en route to the Ross Sea, informing us that the Balleny Islands were ice-free.

We embarked the next morning, and four days later we were crossing belts of towering icebergs encountered in the early 60s. Our journey to the Balleny Islands continued through mist and solemn seas before we encountered our first snow petrels and Antarctic species of fulmar, petrel and prion. Early on the morning of 14 February I could just make out the glaciers atop the darkened cliffs of Young Island, hovering above the clouds on the horizon.

Within 20 minutes of arriving at the north tip of Young Island, Cape Ellsworth, we encountered a group of humpback whales. As this might have been our only opportunity to get some identification material from them, RV Tiama remained in the vicinity as we photographed tail flukes and attempted to get biopsy samples.

Afterwards, we progressed on our journey to Borradaile Island (our destination to look for an anchorage). However, after another 20 minutes, we were upon another group of humpbacks – so we stopped for another opportunity to obtain photos and biopsy samples.

This encounter was followed by another group of whales, and another. It seemed as if we would never make it to Borradaile in amongst all of the whales! This opportunity to obtain information that could recognise individual whales was an important part of our brief – as was being able to establish a link between the whales that occur around the Balleny Islands with individuals that occur in New Zealand waters and migrate to the tropics. Such a link would highlight the importance of 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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Gordon Cessford / DOC

Weddell seal with pup – the world’s most southerly species of seal.

Adélie and chinstrap penguins. The chinstrap penguin being of particular interest, as it has only been known to breed in very small numbers. A survey conducted on Sabrina Islet in December 2000 documented fewer than 15 breeding pairs.

To our surprise and delight, landing at the south-east promontory of Buckle Island (Cape McNab) we found 26 adult chinstraps with 18 chicks. Our survey of Sabrina Islet –– revealed more than 300 birds consisting of 202 adults and 109 chicks. This indicates an order of magnitude increase in the number of chinstrap penguins at the Balleny Islands.

This species is not regarded as a “true” Antarctic penguin because it only breeds on ice-free areas, so this level of increase may have something to do with climate change. In other regions of Antarctica, documented increases in the number of chinstrap penguins have been associated with changes in regional climate. Finding more of these penguins here than expected shows that their populations in the Balleny Islands are more dynamic than previously thought, which in turn suggests that measures to protect the breeding population in the region should consider

whole-archipelago processes, rather than just the individual islands.

Research conducted by NIWA, using bathymetric surveys and biological sampling aboard RV Tangaroa, has also contributed greatly towards understanding the Balleny Islands ecosystem. Although the samples and data collected during our 10-day research expedition aboard RV Tiama are still being processed, the linkages between the Balleny Islands and the wider New Zealand bioregion already seem apparent.

By advancing our understanding of how the Balleny Islands ecosystem functions in the context of the Ross Sea – as well as the subantarctic islands and mainland New Zealand – our obligations to ensure that this ecosystem is managed to ensure its longevity will only become more apparent.

Dr Franz Smith is a Wellington-based research ecologist. The expedition to the Balleny Islands aboard RV Tiama was supported by Ministry of Fisheries through administered funds of the Biodiversity Strategy. For more information see www. fish.govt.nz or www.tiama.com

Humpback whales were frequently seen off the Balleny Islands.

Franz Smith

Balleny Islands region for the population.

Arriving at Borradaile, we organised ourselves and RV Tiama for the shore landings, diving, drop camera work and fish sampling ahead of us.

We found that one of the most astounding aspects of the shallow region around the Balleny Islands is the abundance and variety of seaweeds. One species here, Himantothallus grandifolius, can grow up to 15 metres (m) long and 70 centimetres across. It forms dense underwater forests along the shallow reefs below 15m of depth and has been recorded down to 80 m – possibly due to the clarity of Antarctic waters.

In other regions of Antarctica, fragments of this species have been found at greater depths and may represent an important link between production in shallow-water with that of deeper regions without light.

Given that the Balleny Islands sit in close proximity to thousands of metres of water, this type of linkage may distinguish the ecology of the Balleny Islands from other areas in the Ross Sea region. Not only is the sheer biomass of the seaweeds outstanding, but the number of species that were collected here on the expedition equalled the total number of species for the Ross Sea present in the herbarium at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

We also collected a terrestrial alga found free-living on snow in proximity to the penguin colonies. This alga (of the genus Prasiola) complements material collected in the subantarctic islands and other locations in New Zealand. Research underway by Wendy Nelson of National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) could provide a better understanding of the degree of isolation of the Balleny Islands in a New Zealand context.

We were able to dive on steep ledges around the three main islands, including a ledge close to Row Island, Buckle Island (near Scott’s Cone), and the south end of Sturge Island (Cape Smyth). Underneath the seaweed forests here, these areas were covered with impressive sponges and bryozoan lace corals and very little vacant space. The analysis of these samples is currently underway and will help develop our understanding of the shallow-water ledges at the Balleny Islands.

In our circumnavigation of the archipelago, we were able to visit the previously documented penguin colonies to determine whether or not they were still active. Most of the capes, headlands and cliffs which are the only ice-free areas are dotted with the nests of various seabirds, including cape pigeons, snow petrels, and both of the skua species present here. Several penguin colonies have been documented at the islands, predominantly

29

Mohua’s Ark

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RAEME Loh inspects the pile of pieces of paper covered with inky footprints like a detective scanning forensic evidence from a crime scene.

The scene of the crime in this case is 100 square kilometres of beech forest in the Catlins in southern Otago. The offenders are introduced rats, the crime serial homicide and the victims the mohua or yellowhead. With a name reminiscent of a major criminal investigation, Operation Ark aims to bust those rats and save these endangered birds from the threat of extinction.

Ink tunnels – a rat-sized tunnel fitted with an ink pad which rats have to cross to reach a tasty bait – indicate how many rats are present in the forest. The rats’ footprints in magenta ink show up on the paper sheets in the tunnels like the fingerprints of a burglar caught literally red-handed.

Evidence of the presence of rats in the Catlins does not make Graeme Loh, of the Department of Conservation’s (DOC’s) Otago Conservancy, happy. He is one of a team with the responsibility for making sure that the mohua and other endangered species aren’t wiped out by rats. His beat contains about a quarter of the total mohua population of perhaps up to 5000 birds in the Catlins beech forest – a recent survey found more than 500 birds here.

There are probably less than 20,000 mohua nationwide – maybe even less than 10,000 – and local populations can be extremely vulnerable. In the Eglinton Valley in Fiordland the mohua population went from several thousand to just a couple of birds between 1999 and 2001. The rapid decline was attributed to predation by rats.

30 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

“That was the shock that made the Government realise that they had to do something about predators in the mainland forests. You can have a really big population and if the wrong thing happens …,” Graeme Loh says.

Operation Ark was set up in 2003 in response to the devastating predation of native species that followed mast years in South Island beech forests in 2000 and 2001. The unusually high yield of beech seed led to unusually high numbers of rats – which took an enormous toll on endangered native wildlife.

Last year saw another beech mast – but it is hoped that Operation Ark will be able to prevent a repeat of the death toll that followed previous masts.

With operations in the Catlins, the Hawdon Valley at Arthur’s Pass, the Hurunui Valley, the Dart and Caples Valleys at the head of Lake Wakitipu, and the Eglinton Valley, Operation Ark aims to protect vulnerable populations of mohua, orangefronted parakeets (kakariki), long and shorttailed bats (pekapeka) and blue duck (whio) from predation by rats and stoats.

Graeme Loh says it is thought that before the Eglinton disaster rats had been relatively rare in the beech forests, and that is why mohua managed to survive in mainland beech forests when they had disappeared from the podocarp forests.

Mohua are highly vulnerable to rats.

Because they nest in holes in trees, they are easily cornered by a rat. Rats are excellent climbers and take mohua chicks, eggs and nesting adult females.

In the 2005 breeding season DOC banded 40 adult birds in the Catlins area but have found only 13 of them last year

Rod Morris

The endangered yellowhead (mohua) is holding on in the Catlins thanks to Operation Ark. Helen Bain reports on progress from the front line.

– suggesting that their survival rate over last winter was worse than expected. About a third or maybe a half of the birds will be killed this year and rats are the prime suspect.

However, trapping and poisoning efforts leading up to the 2006 breeding season show that rat numbers have since taken a big hit as the use of 1080 poison in bait stations has proven effective. The incidence of rat footprints in ink tunnels went from 70% to just 3% late last year after the operation was completed.

Rats are notoriously cagey about accepting any new food. They will take a tiny nibble of anything unfamiliar like a bait and wait to see if any ill effects ensue – if they do, the rats won’t go anywhere near a bait again. So DOC sets out nonpoison bait first to get the rats used to eating it. That way they will happily munch into subsequent poisoned baits, ensuring a fatal dose is ingested.

Laying bait in the 800 stations is “quite a mission” Graeme Loh says, but he would like to see the area of intensive operation extended from 800-hectare (ha) to up to 4000-ha to cover surrounding forest.

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ATCHING the tiny mohua flit among the beech trees is fascinating.

Finding their nests – well hidden in holes way in the top of the tall beech trees – is an art in itself. A mother mohua will spend about 50 minutes at a time inside her nest with her chicks before flying out for about 10 minutes to get food and return.

The Operation Ark team wait till they spot a mohua foraging, then chase it on foot as it flies back to its nest, which is not 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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Cheryl Pullar / DOC

Aerial view of the Catlins where Operation Ark is active.

Helen Bain

easy given that mohua fly very fast and the forest is very dense. Once a nest is found the team marks its position on a map so it can be monitored and protected.

The family dynamics of mohua are rather charming. Their sharing of domestic chores is the bird equivalent of The Waltons – the mother bird is assisted by up to three of last year’s offspring as she brings food back to her nest, and the bright flashes of the yellow heads of the group is a pretty sight.

While ground operations appear to be successful in the Catlins, elsewhere Operation Ark has had to use aerial application of 1080 because ground operations have been less successful in reducing rat numbers.

DOC scientist Graeme Elliott says it appears the aerial operation in the southern branch of the Hurunui Valley in October has been highly effective, and he and his colleagues are now crossing their fingers and hoping the effects will be long-term.

“The crunch will be how long it lasts.

If we didn’t kill all the rats those left could quickly breed up again, but we’re hoping that won’t happen.”

If Operation Ark can keep rat numbers down for six months it will be long enough for the large amount of seed produced in the mast year to run out, so there will not be enough food to support large numbers of rats. Hopefully by then the mohua chicks will have safely fledged and left their nests, where they are most at risk.

But even then, the threat will still be there in future years. Graeme Elliott says he believes climate change is producing more mast years.

“Beech masts are triggered by a warm preceding summer. With global warming the summers are getting warmer. We would expect to get a mast year once every four to five years, which is what we had in the 1960s and 70s, but now we are getting them every two to four years.”

Without the ongoing efforts of Operation Ark, the higher than normal rat populations would be driving our endangered species like the mohua to extinction, Graeme Elliott says.

“That would be a dead cert. We will

Graeme Loh of DOC’s Otago Conservancy at work in the Ark.

be lucky to save the mohua from local extinction in some sites anyway, same with the orange-fronted parakeet (kakariki).

“We don’t know for sure if what we are doing is the best thing. We’ll find out by trial and error, but the stakes are very high.

We could sit back and do a whole lot of

research and after 5-10 years we could say ‘this is the best thing to do’ but by then all the birds would be gone. So we do this sort of science by management and hope it is the right thing.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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Awana Beach, Great Barrier (Aotea) Island, where the waves roll in.

Tim Higham

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Catching the new wave Community conservation efforts are gathering pace on Great Barrier (Aotea) Island. Tim Higham meets some of the locals making the difference.

reat Barrier (Aotea) Island has long been a Mecca for surfers. When the weather conditions and waves are right it’s the place of dreams.

The island’s economic history has also been in waves, charting boom and bust as residents have lived off its natural resources – first whales, then tall timber, ship building, copper and silver mining, firewood, fish and the fertile land for farming.

“Little that has been done on the Barrier has proved sustainable – the landscape shows that,” Okiwi resident David Speir says. He runs a small business providing group accommodation among organic gardens, and is one of dozens of island people preparing for the next big wave, which they’re sure is going to be all about conservation.

Take Judy Gilbert, who bought into the island in 1972. “I was captured by a series of amazing black and white photos of the place that had been put up on a notice board by an anthropology lecturer who had asked for investors. I was in.”

The 230-hectare (ha) Little Windy Hill block – the largest in private ownership at the southern end of the island – has 15 shareholders and is run as a collective, with each member entitled to develop a modest house site and garden area.

And while the “hippies have become lawyers, advocates, resource management experts and practical types”, she says their ethics of community and conservation

Tim Higham

A lookout point above Tony Bouzaid’s Glenfern Sanctuary gives views over two new conservation trust initiatives, on Kaikoura Island and Mohunga Peninsula, at the head of Port Fitzroy.

32 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

Tim Higham

“People here are often reluctant to say they support conservation, but when you talk one on one with them they are very supportive,” says Don Armitage, author of the comprehensive guidebook Great Barrier Island (Canterbury University Press, 2001). Earlier this year he initiated a petition to show support for the marine reserve proposal on the island’s northeast coast and garnered 400 pledges of people over 18 years of age – in contrast to the view, promulgated in the island newspaper and by one or two local body politicians, that the community overwhelmingly opposes the reserve – currently approved by the Minister of Conservation but awaiting concurrence from the Minister of Fisheries.

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haven’t changed. The block is fully managed to control invasive plants and pest animals and over half is protected by QEII Trust conservation covenant.

Judy now manages the Windy Hill Rosalie Bay Catchment Trust which carries out integrated pest management and species protection over 450-ha on a number of neighbouring properties. She has raised half a million dollars in funding for the project, created employment for over ten staff (currently three involved in monitoring, track maintenance and trapping and a half-time administrator), overseen the removal of 25,000 rats, and has established, in partnership with the Auckland Regional Council (ARC), Department of Conservation (DOC), and Auckland City, biosecurity measures at all three of the island’s ports.

In 2004 she was able to introduce North Island robin (toutouwai) from Tiritiri Matangi, after an absence from the island of 140 years. They are now breeding successfully, along with populations of black petrel (taiko), brown teal (pateke) and chevron skink (niho taniwha).

At the other end of the island I meet Tony Bouzaid. We head off in an ex-army Unimog truck with guests of his that are staying at Glenfern Sanctuary cottage.

Taking in the view we drive along a steep road to a ridgeline which offers sweeping views across Port Fitzroy and the Hauraki Gulf towards Auckland.

Tony and his wife Mal bought the historic homestead Fitzroy House in 1992.

After restoring the property they turned their attention to the 60-ha grounds, planting over 9000 trees, creating a network of tracks and initiating cat and rat eradication programmes. In 2005 they were also able to release 27 New Zealand robins

(toutouwai) sourced from Tiritiri Matangi and this year monitored the success of five nesting pairs.

They are currently raising funds to build a predator-proof fence that would create a sanctuary on adjoining public and private land on the Kotuku Peninsula. He describes Glenfern Sanctuary as an attempt to redress the balance over a small but significant ecosystem, “which may act as an incentive to others to do likewise”.

And it seems to be working.

In 2000 the Awana Catchment Trust was formed by local landowners to protect threatened species and habitats around Awana, a stunning beach and dune system on the island’s east coast between Claris and Okiwi. The Trust employs a yearround field worker to advance scientific and enhancement programmes. A little further to the south, local resident Ralph Golaboski has been championing the Kaitoke Beach and Wetlands Pest Management Project “to assist recovery of indigenous biodiversity, create employment and practice the principles of kaitiakitanga”.

Tony Bouzaid points out another example – Kaikoura Island below us, which forms the entrances to Port Fitzroy.

Following purchase by the Government, the Motu Kaikoura Trust was established to oversee management of the island.

Recent funding from the ASB Trusts, the Nature Heritage Fund and DOC’s Hauraki Gulf Fund is enabling it to undertake eradication of deer, pigs and rats. It has appointed a project manager to establish tracks and accommodation, and an agreement has been reached with the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre to use the island as an environmental education and outdoor activity centre for

Tim Higham

Judy Gilbert practices as a conservation advocate – promoting and actively role modelling conservation and biodiversity enhancement on both private and public land. She has been a landowner at Windy Hill on Great Barrier for 33 years and has taken a major role on ensuring the 230-hectare property, which is collectively owned, is in part protected by covenant and actively managed for pests.

Tim Higham

Keen surfer and member of the Great Barrier Island Charitable Trust, David Speir, pictured with son Taric. Kaka leave fledglings in the puriri and totara trees on his Okiwi property to feed and hone their flying skills. He sees the proposed marine reserve on the island’s north-east coast as another beacon for international eco-tourists and students.

“The protected coastal environment would bounce back to Leigh-like levels in 5-7 years.”

the youth of New Zealand.

To the north, between Port Abercrombie and Katherine Bay, the Mohunga Restoration Group has recently been formed to build on the pest control, reforestation, monitoring and track building efforts of dedicated volunteers.

Okiwi School principal Colin Griffiths says that grants from the Biodiversity Condition and Advice Funds will allow the trust to develop comprehensive rat, pig and cat control programmes and assess the feasibility of building a 2.3 kilometre fence across the peninsula to create a 600ha sanctuary area. “Our aim is to create an oasis containing a large range of iconic species using the best technology that is available.“ Such an area would provide a testing ground for interactions between endemic and introduced species, such as chevron skinks and kiwi (not yet present on the island), ahead of any island-wide release.

With much activity already on the ground the Great Barrier Island Charitable Trust was set up in 2002 to develop an overarching vision and voice for the island’s vibrant conservation community.

Associate Professor John Ogden, of the School of Geography and Environment at Auckland University, and a land owner at Awana, chairs the trust.

The conservation value and potential of Great Barrier Island is huge, he explains.

It has none of the mustelids, Norway rats, possums, deer and hedgehogs introduced on the mainland, a wide range of habitat types, and rare threatened species such as black petrel (taiko), brown teal (pateke), New Zealand dotterel (tuturiwhatu) and kaka, so there is a feeling of already being “halfway there”.

Removing rats and feral cats is a

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FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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Soaring property prices and limited employment opportunities are driving Great Barrier Island’s population numbers down, from around 1000 to 800 in the last census.

Tim Higham

Whangapoua Estuary

huge task, but not beyond the realms of possibility, he says. Once they are gone then there is a “moat to keep them out. Kiwi, kokako, saddlebacks (tieke), whitehead (popokatea) and riflemen (titipounamu) could be reintroduced.

Others like stitchbirds (hihi) and bellbirds (korimako) are likely to find their own way here as overflow from populations on Little Barrier/Hauturu and the other conservation islands of the Gulf.

Nationally, the cost of saving our most important endangered species would go down dramatically if this 285 squarekilometre island was to be declared predator-free and available.”

The trust has been publishing a quarterly newsletter, holding public lectures, conducting field trips for locals to Tiri Tiri Matangi and surveying public

opinion. A referendum of island residents and landowners carried out last summer showed over 90% support for the trust to continue researching its vision “to protect native species through the eradication of rats and feral rats, to re-introduce species lost to the island, and to work towards building an ecology-based economic framework for Great Barrier”, and resulted in increased donations and membership.

This has given the trust impetus to undertake further technical and economic studies and engage the community in discussion about the practicalities and implications of an island-wide eradication campaign – use of poisons, pet control, and future biosecurity measures – topics now being vigorously debated in the pages of the fortnightly island newspaper the Barrier Bulletin.

Rebecca Stanley / DOC

Great Barrier tree daisy (Olearia allomii) is endemic to the island.

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DOC is watching the rise of community-based initiatives with interest and has recently prepared briefing papers for its conservation board on managing the relationships with the various trusts. It has long championed collaboration with the community, managing the Okiwi Station in close cooperation with neighbouring landowners the Mabey family to harmonise both conservation and production values.

It has also established a conservation working group with the Ngati Rehua iwi, which has strong conservation interests and initiatives of its own.

“Only when we can demonstrate that the vast majority of landowners see that the long-term benefits of pest eradication far outweigh the short-term costs and risks, will we get the backing of DoC and Auckland Regional Council,” says Ogden.

There are runs on the board already: the island is about to be declared goat-free, after a 15 year campaign led by the ARC and championed by locals, a boon for forest regrowth and reduced fire risk.

Judy Gilbert – also on the trust – says the island needs a point of difference for its tourism marketing. “Being the largest predator-free island anywhere, with a raft of iconic species, would bring people here from all around the world, spreading the current tourist bulge from a few short weeks over the summer. Jobs will also be created in the control, monitoring and biosecurity areas.”

She sees potential for a high school – the lack of which currently starves the island of young people and their families – for world-class environmental and adventure educational facilities, wildlife lodges, guided walks and health-related businesses.

And she believes the community should be involved in defining acceptable and manageable levels of tourism “so that the environment and our lifestyle are not compromised”.

It is another beautiful day here on the Barrier. There’s a low off to the east generating a swell and an offshore breeze giving it shape. And there’s a determined group of people watching, waiting to catch the next big wave.

Tim Higham moved to Great Barrier Island with his family in 2005, after five years overseas working with the United Nations Environment Programme. He has also worked as a communications expert for Environment Canterbury, Antarctica New Zealand and the Department of Conservation. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Your Beneficiaries There are more of them than you realise!

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society has always understood the vital connection between people and nature.

By including a bequest to the Society in your will, you can help ensure a brighter future for both.

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

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FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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Great Barrier Miranda Wildlife Reserve A flock of bar-tailed godwits (kuaka) take to the air.

Most feathered visitors fly over 20,000 kilometres to Miranda from Siberia or Alaska. But if you live in Auckland this internationally important wetland is just an hour south-east of the City of Sails. Brent Stephenson makes a pilgrimage to the southern end of the East-Asian Australasian Flyway with his camera.

Northern New Zealand dotterel

Site description

Brent Stephenson

F

36 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

OR many New Zealand birdwatchers Miranda is a special place they have heard about, but never been to. As a young “birder” growing up in Hawkes Bay its name conjured up images of huge flocks of wading birds, rare migrant species, and Geoff Moon’s classic photographs of birds roosting on shellbanks. On my first visit some years later, Miranda lived up to my expectations with its thousands of bar-tailed godwits (kuaka) and red knots (huahou), and even a pair of rare marsh sandpipers.

You don’t have to be a birder to appreciate its allure though. Miranda encompasses a variety of habitats including coastal marshes, lagoons, shellbanks and mudflats. This coastal zone contains much that is of botanical interest including excellent examples of mangrove forest,

Brent Stephenson

goingplaces

Island

and saltmarsh areas containing glasswort, Selliera, sea primrose and Bachelor’s buttons. The rare “Chenier” plain created through the accumulation of shells is also of geological interest.

Located on the southern side of the Firth of Thames, Miranda has a special relationship with the Siberian and Alaskan tundra. Thousands of wading birds which breed on the tundra during the northern summer, migrate southwards to spend the southern summer in New Zealand. Here on the other side of the planet they find an abundance of food, regain weight lost during migration, and steadily build up fat reserves for their return journey north.

During the summer months these longdistance migrants can be found at many of New Zealand’s estuaries and harbours, but with the largest concentration of them in the country Miranda offers perhaps the easiest access and best opportunity to see them in vast numbers.

Arguably the most remarkable of these bird species is the bar-tailed godwit, with around 6000-9000 of them visiting Miranda each year, undertaking the southward migration in a single flight directly across the Pacific Ocean from Alaska to New Zealand. Red knots, Pacific golden plovers, ruddy turnstones, greytailed tattlers and small sparrow-sized red-necked stints all make similar annual north-south migrations, utilising the Eastw w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

watch them with as they spread out over large areas along the coast once the tide recedes.

Both the bar-tailed godwit and red knot turn a beautiful rich cinnamonred colour, covering much of the birds’ breasts, bellies and underparts. January to March is typically when some of the rarer migrant waders such as great knot, pectoral sandpiper, terek sandpiper, Hudsonian godwit, greenshank and ruff sometimes appear.

However, winter sees an influx of native wading birds, and this time of year is best for seeing one of Miranda’s truly special New Zealand birds, the wrybill (ngutuparore). These charismatic little birds, with a bill always bent to the right, breed on South Island braided riverbeds, and in late summer or autumn move to mudflats in the north where they spend the winter. At this time of year you can sometimes see a flock of more than 2000 birds, representing about 40% of the total global population at one site. Winter is also a good time to see huge flocks of South Island pied oystercatchers, which similarly breed in the South Island and migrate northwards in winter. The Firth of Thames can hold as many as 20,000 of these black and white winter visitors.

No matter what time of the year you go, it is always worth timing your visit around high tide. If you aim to arrive at least one hour before the tide peaks then you will be able to watch as the dense flocks of birds wheel around the shellbanks calling before settling to roost. As the tide recedes they gradually move out again to feed on the mudflats in front of you, allowing you to see how each species occupies a different niche within the seemingly uniform landscape.

The key places at which the birds congregate are the shellbanks opposite a small wooden birdwatching hide adjacent to the Stilt Ponds, and the Stilt Ponds

Where and when to go

I

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Bar-tailed godwits migrate from Alaska to New Zealand.

themselves. A short marked trail from the car park heads towards the hide along the back of the Stilt Ponds. As high tide approaches the waders will congregate on the exposed shellbanks a little offshore, but depending on the size of the tide, these are gradually covered and the birds move closer and onto the main shellbanks in front of the hide.

In really big tides the birds roost on the Stilt Ponds. In the afternoon, if the birds are gathering on the Stilt Ponds it is often better to park at the car park and walk to a spot adjacent to the ponds and view

Curlew sandpipers breed in the Arctic tundra in Siberia and “winter” in New Zealand.

Brent Stephenson

F you are going from Auckland, Miranda is reached by taking the Auckland-Hamilton Highway south.

South of Bombay take SH2 towards Tauranga, and after approximately 13 kilometres (kms) veer left onto Mangatangi Road, which is marked with signs to Kaiaua and Miranda. Alternatively, if heading from the south or east, from SH25 or SH27, turn to the north-east onto Front Miranda Road at Waitakaruru. Once in Miranda itself, head north along East Coast Road. The Stilt Ponds and car park are within 1 km of the junction, with the Miranda Shorebird Centre (see below) approximately 2.5 kms along the road.

Different times of the year offer a different visitor experience. The huge numbers of northern hemisphere migrants create a real spectacle during summer.

Arriving at Miranda in late September, and departing in March and early April, these visitors are best appreciated when they are in their breeding plumage from February onwards. As with most wading birds it helps if you have a pair of binoculars to

Brent Stephenson

Asian Australasian Flyway. This is the route many of these birds take, stretching from central Siberia across to Alaska, down through south-east Asia and across to Australia and New Zealand. This flyway is believed to hold a staggering seven million wading birds, but is under increasing pressure from land reclamation and coastal development.

With there is much still to learn about the migrations these birds undertake, research by Dr Phil Battley and others from the Ornithological Society of New Zealand has in the last three years been directed at understanding the movements of bar-tailed godwits and red knots, both within New Zealand and throughout the East-Asian Australasian Flyway.

So what is the attraction for migrant wading birds at Miranda? The vast mudflats of the Firth of Thames, around 8500-hectares, become exposed at low tide and are prime feeding habitat for these long-legged predators. For this reason, the Firth of Thames is one of six sites in New Zealand listed so far under the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international significance. Shellfish and other invertebrates at differing depths are targeted by each species, with longer billed birds (godwits, oystercatchers) feeding at greater depths, compared to those with shorter bills (knots, turnstones). As the tide rolls in covering the feeding areas, the birds congregate on the shellbanks and shoreline at several main high tide roosts, where they are much easier to see.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

37

Brent Stephenson

Fact file

Wrybill (ngutuparore) move to Miranda in late summer from breeding sites in the South Island.

the birds from the side of the road, thus avoiding having the sun in your eyes. Be careful not to leave valuables in your car as the car park sometimes attracts unwanted attention. The marked trail running out to the hide runs right along the coast to the Shorebird Centre, so if you wish you can leave your vehicle there and walk the 2 km easy flat trail to the Stilt Ponds and the birdwatching hide.

As well as waders, the shellbanks in front of the hide are in some summers home to a large colony of nesting blackbilled gulls (tarapunga), often with white-fronted terns (tara) around as well. New Zealand dotterel and variable oystercatchers also often nest in this area.

The Stilt Ponds are often where the smaller waders roost or feed, so scanning the edges of the pond with binoculars during summer will often reveal wrybills, sharptailed sandpipers or red-necked stints. The mangroves just inside the gateway at the car park are a good spot to look out for skulking banded rails, and listen for their sharp squeaky call which is often heard here. If you are lucky you may see them feeding along the edge of the mangroves around the Stilt Pond. In recent years they

have been breeding on the small pond in front of the Shorebird Centre, and over summer can be more easily seen from inside the building.

Another key spot is the Taramaire Wildlife Refuge Reserve, which is adjacent to the north side of the Shorebird Centre.

This is often where the wrybill flock congregates in winter. It is accessed by shell tracks which drive off the road towards the shoreline, and head back towards a small stream. The waders generally congregate on the shellbanks on the opposite side of the stream about 2 km from the centre and are best viewed with binoculars or a telescope.

Four kilometres north of the centre is Kaiaua, and this area often has small mixed flocks of variable and South Island pied oystercatchers roosting together, giving an excellent opportunity to see the differences between these two similar species. Whitefronted terns (tara) and Caspian terns (tara nui) often roost nearby and the area at lower stages of the tide is often thriving with kingfishers (kotare).

Brent Stephenson is an ecologist and photographer who jointly runs Wrybill Birding Tours.

The Miranda Shorebird Centre located on East Coast Road between Miranda and Kaiaua, and is open seven days (tel 09 232 2781). The centre has extensive displays of the natural history of the area and its international significance, as well as a board showing the latest sightings. Built and run by the Miranda Naturalists’ Trust, the centre has a small souvenir shop (which sells a trail guide with map) and comfortable and reasonably priced accommodation. Staying at the centre helps support the work of the Trust.

They also run a six-day field course each January and other courses through the year, as well as offering educational opportunities for school groups and students. Their website is at www.miranda-shorebird.org.nz For larger groups or camping, accommodation is also available at the nearby Miranda Holiday Park, and there are thermal hot pools to enjoy a few kilometres south of the centre.

The Kaiaua fish and chip shop is north of the centre – so be sure to take your Best Fish Guide with you if you visit. There is also a general store, a petrol station and a pub in Kaiaua.

An excellent website giving information on wader migration and research in New Zealand is www. nzshorebirds.com This includes information on how to record colour bands and where to send your records.

Shorebirds at low tide

Service station in Kaiaua

Firth of Thames

Smaller than a blackbird, Terek sandpipers breed in Siberia and “winter” in New Zealand.

Tamaire River

Car park Shorebirds at high tide

Brent Stephenson

Miranda Naturalists Trust Visitor Centre

3 8 F O R E S T & B I R D • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7

Pukorokoro Creek

Car park

Hide Mangroves

To Miranda

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Conservation project grants awarded by JS Watson Trust Jacqui Knight of the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust will be leading a team tagging monarch butterflies Danaus plexippus and walking transects of all NZ butterflies. The project has been modelled on successfyk schemes in the United States and it hoped it will heighten awareness of NZ’s butterflies and their importance to the country’s biodiversity.

Rod Morris

Lara Shepherd of Victoria University will be investigating whether the rare Pseudopanax aff. Lessonii from the Surville Cliffs is a distinct species from the more common P. lessonni which occurs at the same site. It is hoped that this research will enable the resolution of its taxonomic status and an improved understanding of relationships within the plant genus pseudopanax.

Research at the University of Auckland will use satellite tracking to better understand the dispersal of juvenile blue duck or whio.

The JS Watson Trust has been helping fund conservation projects beneficial to New Zealand’s endangered flora and fauna since 1986. Ten grants for conservation projects were allocated for the 2006-2007 year by the Trust, which is administered by Forest & Bird. Details of the latest projects to be supported are as follows: Helen Blackie of the University of Auckland will be using satellite technology to develop a reliable and comprehensive analysis of the nature and extent of juvenile blue duck (whio) dispersal. Satellite technology would allow for the gathering of data regardless of day, season or weather conditions and is not labour intensive. This research would present a major contribution to the conservation and management of the species.

Kerry Borkin of the University of Auckland will be studying the ecology of the long-tailed bat Chalinolobus tuberculatus in the Kinleith pine forest and its implications for forest management. The research will gain information on bat habitat use and the effects of logging operations on bats. It will identify how industry can work alongside the conservation of New Zealand species.

Karen Stockin of the Coastal – Marine Research Group at Massey University will be assessing the occurrence of incidental bycatch of New Zealand common dolphins in inshore nets. It is intended to complete post mortem examinations and to undertake life history studies in order to assess this occurrence. The overall aim to establish a management action strategy in line with that of other marine mammal species in New Zealand waters.

Brent Stephenson of the New Zealand Storm Petrel Working Group will be leading a project aimed at gathering critical information about the biology of the New Zealand storm petrel, a critically endangered species. Transmitters will be attached to the birds to discover the timing of breeding and also, vitally, discover their breeding location. This will allow sensible management decisions to be made and determine the correct threat status of the species.

Sabine Melzer of the University of Otago will be investigating the functions of native frog skin secretions, primarily as a defence against disease, using a non-invasive method of mild transdermal electric stimulation. It is intended that this study will provide vital information which can be used to manage New Zealand frog populations more effectively.

Samantha Partridge, Executive Assistant

Mike Bowie of the Bio-Protection & Ecology Division at Lincoln University will lead the surveying of the insect “takahe” hadramphus tuberculatus with the vision to secure and conserve remaining populations. This would enable a suitable habitat on Quail Island to be developed securing a healthy weevil population in perpetuity.

JS Watson Conservation Trust

Roger Dungan of the University of Canterbury and colleagues will study the population genetics of the beech scale insect.

The study will further investigate the preliminary finding (evidence that insects in different regions of the South Island are sufficiently genetically distinct to be considered separate species)

This Trust is administered by Forest & Bird.

Jennifer Germano of the University of Otago will be studying sex identification of Native Frogs based on enzyme linked immunoassays. This will provide a non invasive method to sex individuals and to gain information about their reproductive state. It is intended to improve the management techniques for captive breeding, translocations and to tell us more about the frogs’ ecology.

JS Watson Conservation Trust Forest & Bird PO Box 631 Wellington

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Applications are invited from individuals or conservation groups for financial assistance for conservation projects for the 2007-2008 year.

Application procedures and forms can be downloaded from our website – www.forestandbird.org.nz.

For further information email office@forestandbird.org.nz or write to:

Preliminary applications close Wednesday 6 June 2007

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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Itinerant Ecologist – Geoff Park

Slips in the Temple

2

006 is likely to be remembered as the year in which climate change scientists first put a tight time frame on things, in terms of our own life spans; that we had less than ten years to reverse course on the addictive powering of our lives by oil, coal and gas which began with the industrial revolution. Or we’d have a different planet.

There is now general scientific agreement that climate change will create more frequent and extreme weather events around the globe. Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, highlighted New Zealand’s particular vulnerability to increasingly violent weather, courtesy of its oceanic Pacific Rim position and topographic configuration.

Yet in the latest United Nations report which says that the trend in greenhouse gas emissions is still moving in the wrong direction, New Zealand, with emissions running at 21% above Kyoto Protocol targets, is one of the worst performers in correcting it. Since 1999, New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions have risen five times faster than the United States’ and four times faster than Australia’s.

These are statistics few New Zealanders could cite. But a rapidly growing number of us don’t need emissions figures to make us aware of the immediacy of the problem.

We sense it in the changing weather, and in the storms whose sudden heightened frequency and intensity we have not experienced before. Growing just as fast is the list of New Zealanders who have been literally unsettled by the phenomenon.

Some of the latest recruits to the list lived just around the next bay from me.

Until a landslip of mud and pine logs plunged down the slope above their two houses, and across the coast road to the beach. No one has been allowed to return home, and by all accounts they never will.

Dispute has been raging ever since as to why the slip happened. As the Eastbourne fire chief told the local newspaper, most of the logs that smashed into the houses and spewed onto the beach had “chainsawed ends”. So, I discovered, when I ventured up to the slip-face, did every one of

40 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

the impenetrable jumble of pine logs surrounded it. What was clearly evident too, though, was that the slip was the consequence of another, prior, storm.

The logs were the debris from the felling, earlier in the year, of a forest that had been one of the more spectacular casualties of the big February 2004 storm.

Most had swayed with the wind and stayed standing. But some hadn’t, and in their falling, ripped huge holes in the ground, one of which was the head of the latest slip.

Had the pines not been felled as they were, the impact of the rain’s intensity on the ruptured ground might not have been what it was, and the slip may not have flowed.

I wasn’t home to witness the landslip closing the coast road and making houses uninhabitable. When I heard the news I was on the other side of the Pacific, in John Muir country, exploring the world’s first protected natural area, a landscape he called a temple.

John Muir spearheaded the western movement to preserve wild beauty, and was a prime mover in creating what in a recent National Geographic has been called the best idea America ever had: the national park system.

He, too, it was who coined the notion, so pertinent in our climatically changing times: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything in the universe”.

For his pre-ecology times, John Muir had a remarkable sense of the interconnectedness of life and land, and of a landscape as living evidence of the forces and time that had shaped it, and shapes it still. He could admire Yosemite’s giant sequoia trees as the world’s largest living things preserved, but the true beauty of their ancient groves lay in the vast time in which they had kept their Sierra watersheds moist.

“Compared with Sequoia”, he wrote late in life, “glaciers are young, fleeting things, and since the first Sequoia forests lifted their domes and spires to the sky, mountains great and small, thousands of them have been weathered, ground down, washed away and cast into the sea”.

Trees, Muir believed, constituted the hospitality of a landscape. It was why, when he came seeking New Zealand’s big tree forests in February1904, he was so apprehensive at what he saw: an entire kauri forest destroyed, its soil … “already avalanching … ”.

Whether it was the burning East Coast hills he saw from a coastal steamer, or the Wanganui and Manawatu he saw from the train, wherever he looked, he said, the “sad signs of disforestment are visible on all the available hills and mountains … forests being gradually ruthlessly burned for grass to future drouth and floods … a dismal policy fraught with ills in great part irremediable.”

The deforestation Muir saw burst into our consciousness exactly a century later in a storm that caused 62,000 slips in the Manawatu alone, and washed an estimated 200 million tonnes of its precious topsoil out to sea. But as was evident to anyone who walked the beaches of the southern North Island’s west coast in the months after February 2004, and saw the sudden piles of logs of forest trees, it certainly didn’t leave forests untouched. Is this, many asked in its wake, what climate change means?

If there is a forest anywhere that I might call a temple, it is the grove of old black beech through which I walk each morning I am at the bay. Standing under its trees, with the sounds of cars in your ears, you can look inland to nothing but beech forest, and imagine the country as it was before us.

In one sense it is an anomaly, a forest of ancient trees coming almost down to the sea, where everywhere else of its kind was long ago burnt to clear, and after the farming, made into suburb. In another, it is the last forest of its kind in the region, protected longer than almost any other coastal forest in the land.

On the morning after the February 2004 storm, I headed up to the grove with the two dogs in my care for the week pacing out in front, itching to get under the trees’ shelter. I’d slept through the night’s rain, and hadn’t heard the news of the damage it had wrought. But in the yellowed, silt-laden harbour, and the leaves lying everywhere, it was evident that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

At the grove, a big black beech branch lay smashed on the ground. But that seemed all that the storm had brought down. Then I turned the corner to see the dogs up to the top of their legs in a deep soft yellow ooze still sliding down into a gully, and piled up, way below, the roots and trunks of some of the forest’s oldest and most beautiful trees.

The shock was like coming across the body of someone loved. Years of ecological 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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Geoff Park Geoff Park

The regenerating path of the February 2004 slip through beech forest from a pine planting above.

The path of a 2006 slip from below a track drainage diversion chute.

Geoff Park

learning might have taught me that no matter how beautiful it might be, whether protected or not, a forest is just a natural system subject, at any time, to complete destruction.

John Muir once declared how “everything in Nature called destruction must be called creation – a change from beauty to beauty”. Storms of every sort, he insisted, “torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, ‘convulsions of nature’, etc., are only harmonious notes in the song of creation”.

I should believe him. But familiarity with the forest had made it precious, and despite what ecology taught, its old trees’ beauty seemed forever.

It took some weeks to bring myself to investigate the head of the slip and determine whether a natural event had caused it, or some human action had. As I picked my way up around the slip’s edge, where I’d never had reason to walk before, it was evident that the whole forest floor carried centuries-old traces of former slumps and slips of just the same kind.

Nearly all the way up, I walked in old beech forest with the growing expectation that the slip’s cause was natural, and nothing to do with human action. Every tree that lay levelled and muddied in the slip’s path was beech too. But the breakpoint was just above the beech forest, at the edge of a group of old pines that the storm had uprooted and opened the ground to the deluge. One still lay toppled against the sodden, sliding slip face.

It wasn’t the only slip that the February 2004 storm gouged in the forest, and more did in the months to come, some of them clearly associated with human disturbance, but others with not a sign of it, I couldn’t avoid the feeling that if rain of such intensity had fallen on the forest before, it hadn’t for a long, long time.

The biggest slip of all, last winter, breaking out directly under a track drainage chute meant to deflect stormwater, obliterated the main track up from the bay and is so large it still hasn’t been cleared. Its lesser predecessors were cleared soon after they occurred, and what was oozing mud two years ago is a mass of new growth.

In one, the growth has had human help, and young northern rata and nikau are flourishing among the colonisers of the new ground. Soon, only the most observant eyes will be able to discern there was anything but forest there.

Planted northern rata and nikau among the natural regeneration of a February 2004 slip.

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in the field

Marine mammals A brief guide to identifying some of our most engaging native wildlife at the beach this summer.

Words by Ann Graeme.

Illustrations by Tim Galloway.

M

ARINE mammals have been hunted since people first came to New Zealand. Maori hunters came first, driving the sea lions and fur seals from the mainland, but huge populations still bred on the islands to the south.

Then the big slaughter began with the arrival of European and American sealers and whalers. Their insatiable quest for blubber and fur went on until too few animals were left to make hunting worthwhile.

So great was our ability – and our inclination – to overexploit these animals that we almost exterminated them.

But finally, when only tiny populations of many species remained, we called a halt, and gave them protection, at least from intentional slaughter.

To the delight of the tourists, sperm whales, dolphins, orca and fur seals frolic in the sea around Kaikoura. Further north, sharp-eyed walkers may sometimes spot young fur seals resting on the rocks around Mount Maunganui and see pods of orca and dolphins swimming and playing at the entrance of Tauranga harbour.

The sea lions are returning to the mainland. At first only young ones came ashore to rest on southern beaches but now a small colony of the great bulls haul themselves ashore at Cannibal Bay in the Catlins and in 1993 a sea lion called Mum reared her first calf at Taieri Mouth in South Otago. This was the first time a sea lion was known to have bred on the mainland in more than a hundred years.

What a treat it is to meet a fur seal or a sea lion on the beach! Don’t go too close.

Stand quietly and observe it carefully. Fur seals and sea lions are called eared seals because they have little ears.

They can also turn their hind flippers forwards and sit upright. In this they differ from the true seals who have no visible ears and whose hind flippers point backwards like the tail of a fish. While this is fine for swimming it means that on land true seals have to hump along like caterpillars while fur seals and sea lions

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lollop along on all fours.

You are much less likely to meet one of the true seals because they prefer the cooler Antarctic waters. In the sea, true seals are lithe and beautiful but on land they look regrettably like slugs, a huge, bloated slug in the case of our rare elephant seal and a mottled tiger slug in the case of the equally rare leopard seal. But be warned. Although they look sluggish, these seals can move

very quickly. Make sure you keep your distance because they can bite!

Unlike fur seals and sea lions, the dolphins and whales never come ashore, (except by mischance), but, being air-breathing mammals, they have to come to the surface to breathe. A spouting whale is a rare sight but you are likely to see pods of dolphins leaping and playing. Their stream-lined

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of Blue Zealand bodies, arcing out of the water in the dancing spray, are unmistakable and unforgettable.

But what sort of dolphins are you looking at? Of the more than ten species of dolphins that can be found in our waters, three large species are by far the most common.

The common dolphin, as befits its name, is the most abundant. It is the one you’re most likely to see in the Hauraki Gulf, off Northland and in the Cook Strait on a ferry crossing, but it is rarer further south. About two metres long, the common dolphin can be distinguished by its prominent beak and its remarkable colour scheme.

The dusky dolphin is a similar size but it lives in the coastal waters of the South Island and rarely ventures further north.

The bottlenose dolphin is larger, three to four metres long, and is found all around the country, often coming into bays and harbours.

Two little dolphins are easy to recognize.

Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins are small, less than a metre and a half in length and have characteristic black, rounded dorsal fins.

A school of orca is a sight to behold.

Orca used to be called killer whales in the mistaken belief that they were man-eaters.

They are fierce hunters, as fish, dolphins, seals and even the great whales can testify, but they have never been known to attack people. They are considered the most intelligent of all cetaceans – (perhaps this explains the omission of people in their diet!)

Orca are easy to recognize. They’re big, boldly coloured in black and white and they have a huge, pointed dorsal fin. The male can be more than nine metres long.

biggest whales. The right whales, sperm whales and humpback whales were hunted nearly to extinction. Slowly, slowly the numbers of the survivors are increasing.

Sperm whales can be seen at Kaikoura where the deep water comes close inshore.

In winter a handful of right whales explore the sheltered bays around New Zealand, where once they calved. Humpback whales can occasionally be seen migrating north

in the autumn and south in spring to Antarctic seas.

Around the world, most wild populations of large mammals are in decline. It is a cause for joy that some of our marine mammals are returning from the brink of extinction. Let’s enjoy them and admire them and most of all, allow them to live unmolested around our shores.

Would that you might see a whale swimming in the sea. Sadly you are more likely to encounter a stranding, particularly of pilot whales. But many species do live in our waters for, to whales, New Zealand looms large on the world map. To some whales New Zealand is home, to others it is a destination or to yet others, it is a staging post on their long migrations.

You have few chances of seeing the w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

43

Member of the public / DOC archives.

Conservation

▲ Four Hector’s dolphins caught in a single recreational set net at Neils Beach near Haast in October 2005. The net was set in an area well known for frequent sightings of Hector’s dolphins and then left unattended. No controls on set netting exist on the West Coast of the South Island.

Dolphin deaths highlight need for national set net ban THE DEATH of a Hector’s dolphin in a recreational set net on a South Westland beach in January shows the inadequacy of interim protection measures for Hector’s dolphin announced by Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton in December. Another Hector’s dolphin was found washed up at Southland’s Te Waewae Bay. Its cause of death was unknown because of the advanced state of decay.

The interim measures only require recreational fishermen to stay with their nets in waters off the Kaikoura coast and Te Waewae Bay. Nothing was done to protect Hector’s dolphins off the South Island’s West Coast, despite this being the population stronghold for the species with 75% of the population found here and set netting being popular in the region.

A proposed Threat Management Plan for Hector’s dolphins seems unlikely to provide improved protection given the ineffectual interim measures. The Plan’s completion has also been delayed until late 2007 and there is no certainty this deadline will be achieved given past delays. Incredibly, there is still no Population Management Plan (PMP) or Threat Recovery Plan (TRP) for Hector’s dolphins despite both plans being first proposed more than ten years ago.

Hector’s dolphins are in the same Endangered threat category as China’s giant panda is on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction.

Bycatch in recreational and commercial set nets and trawl nets is the major threat to Hector’s dolphin. The population has declined by an average of 570 dolphins per year from 1970 to 2003 and the decline is continuing. Only around 7400 individual animals remain, down from about 26,000 in the 1970s when monofilament set nets were first introduced.

Continued dolphin deaths in set nets show that current measures, including voluntary codes of practice, are ineffectual.

Between 1995 and 2005, 41 Hector’s dolphins have been reported caught and killed in set nets on the South Island’s West Coast alone. Given the under-reporting of entanglements, this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of actual human induced dolphin deaths.

For example, in the observer programmes off Canterbury in 1997 – 1998 six dolphins were caught on boats carrying independent observers. The Ministry of Fisheries estimated that 18 Hector’s dolphins were caught that year in the

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commercial set net fishery. Yet none of the boats without observers reported any dolphin catches.

Set netting is an indiscriminate wasteful fishing method that produces poor quality fish, mostly used for fish and chips. Virtually all fishers who use set nets could use other less harmful methods.

As internationally recognised Hector’s dolphin scientist and Forest & Bird executive member, Associate Professor Liz Slooten has said, “New Zealand is a staunch supporter of protecting whales. We need to show the same level of commitment to protecting our endemic dolphin species.”

A ban on set net use in water depths of up to 100 metres throughout the species’ range is needed, together with new marine mammal sanctuaries. Restricting the use of set nets would also benefit reef fish, sharks and seabird species such as shags.

The establishment of the Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary in 1988 by then Minister of Conservation Helen Clark has halved Hector’s dolphin bycatch deaths in that area. There is no commercial set netting in the sanctuary and recreational set netting is restricted.

New sanctuaries need to be established in other important Hector’s dolphin habitats, including Kaikoura, the South Island’s West Coast, Porpoise Bay in the Catlins and Te Waewae Bay in Southland. The Banks Peninsula sanctuary needs to be extended because dolphins are found well outside the current sanctuary boundaries, especially in winter when they move offshore. Continuing bycatch exceeds sustainable levels.

What you can do: Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has reportedly said that if the interim measures he introduced do not work a total set net ban could be considered.

Please write to Prime Minister Helen Clark expressing your support for: • an immediate ban on set nets in waters of depths up to 100 metres throughout Hector’s dolphin range.

• observers on set net and trawl fisheries that overlap with Hector’s dolphin habitat such as elephant fish and rig shark.

Forest & Bird’s Best Fish Guide lists elephant fish and rig shark in the red “Avoid” category – these fish species are commonly sold in fish and chip shops.

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, PO Box 631, Wellington w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z Phone (04) 385 7374 • Fax (04) 385 7373 • Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz

THE USE OF 1080 in pest control is crucial in protecting New Zealand’s native forests and birds.

Forest & Bird and Federated Farmers have joined forces to support an application to the Environmental Risk Management Authority by the Department of Conservation and the Animal Health Board for reassessment of 1080.

DOC and the Animal Health Board propose that current approvals for the use of 1080 be maintaining under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, as 1080 has significant benefits in controlling possums and other introduced pests. Sodium fluoroacetate or 1080 is the main poison used for control of possums, rabbits, rats and mustelids (mainly stoats).

DOC and regional councils use 1080 to protect native forests from browsing by possums and protect native birds and other native species from predation by introduced pest species. The Animal Health Board uses 1080 to control possums, which are the main source of bovine tuberculosis in cattle and deer herds.

The application states that 1080 is the most cost-effective method of controlling pests, degrades completely in the environment, does not bio-accumulate in food chains, and has had no adverse effects on human health. It says 1080 is the only vertebrate toxin able to be applied from the air for possum control and this is vital, given that much of New Zealand’s terrain is too rugged and remote to be covered by ground operations.

“Without the continued use of 1080 … the most likely alternative control option would be increased use of cyanide bait and traps. The result would be a reversal of hard-won gains in Tb control and the protection of native ecosystems and threatened native species.”

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says 1080 is the best solution currently available to protect forests and native species from the ravages of introduced pests.

“In the last couple of decades 1080 has been the key factor that has allowed our forests to come alive. We have seen that 1080 can be the difference between survival and extinction of some of our most critically endangered species.”

Use of 1080 has been critical in reducing pressure by introduced pests on acutely and chronically threatened native species including mohua, kakariki, North Island kokako, kaka, Okarito brown kiwi, North and South Island brown kiwi, great spotted kiwi and southern dotterel. Without 1080 these species would face local population declines and increased risk of extinction.

Rod Morris

1080 Reassessment

▲

Brush-tailed possum eating native mistletoe. 1080 is the most cost-effective method of controlling pests, degrades completely in the environment, does not bioaccumulate in food chains, and has had no adverse effects on human health..

Federated Farmers President Charlie Pedersen says 1080 has been just as important in protecting New Zealand’s $8 billion agricultural exports from the threat of Tb. Tb in cattle and deer herds has fallen by more than 90% in the last decade, and New Zealand is on track to achieve official freedom from Tb by 2013 or earlier.

Forest & Bird’s advocacy on 1080 is funded from the Restore the Dawn Chorus Annual Appeal.

Ngunguru Sandspit at risk from coastal development NGUNGURU Sandspit is at risk from the destruction a proposed housing development would inevitably wreak on this precious coastal habitat.

Developer Landco proposes to build a “coastal village” of 350 houses on 36hectares (ha) of the 80-ha sandspit north of Whangarei which would see about 1000 people living in this fragile natural environment.

Forest & Bird Northern Branch Secretary Beverley Woods says a housing development of anything near that size would have a detrimental impact on such a vulnerable coastal habitat.

“Landco want us to believe that its development will include measures that will mitigate the environmental impact, but no amount of ‘mitigation’ will change the fact that a large-scale residential development is totally inappropriate in a virtually untouched w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

natural wilderness,” Beverley Woods says.

The visual effects of a large housing development on the unspoilt beauty of the area would be significant, and the presence of 1000 people poses a serious risk to vulnerable coastal birds present on the spit such as New Zealand dotterels, she says.

Forest & Bird urged local people to attend public meetings held at Ngunguru Memorial Hall in November and to let Landco know they are opposed to the development.

“Landco has said that feedback on the proposal has been mostly positive – we want to make it clear to Landco that the public wants to protect the precious community asset of the sandspit, and that means not letting this development go ahead,” Beverley Woods says.

The Department of Conservation has recognised the Ngunguru Sandspit as

ecologically unique. It is visited by up to 36 bird species (including 14 endangered species), has outstanding landscape and amenity values, and contains wahi tapu sites.

@

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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New sea lion kill quota set Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has set the new kill quota for New Zealand sea lions in the Auckland Islands squid fishery at 93 – just four lower than at the start of last season.

Forest & Bird’s Save Our Sealions petition last year calling for the sea lion kill quota to be set close to zero was signed by a total of 20,000 people, and Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says it is disappointing that the minister has ignored public concern and evidence of serious decline in the sea lion population.

The number of sea lion deaths which will be permitted risks pushing this endangered marine mammal towards extinction, she says.

Forest & Bird also fears the minister may again approve a midseason increase in the kill quota – last season he raised it to 150 partway through the season in response to demands by the squid fishing industry. Forest & Bird will be keeping a close eye on the number of deaths throughout the season and will continue to put pressure on the minister not to raise the kill quota.

“The new kill quota is 40% greater than the average yearly kill over the last 13 years, when the population is already in serious decline. This level of kill is clearly not sustainable.”

In recent years the population of New Zealand sea lion has shown a steady decline and is estimated at 11,700, with an adult breeding population of just 5000. Pup production has declined by 30% since 1998.

The New Zealand sea lion is listed as a threatened species under the Marine Mammals Protection Act, and listed as Vulnerable by the World Conservation Union, due to its high risk of extinction.

The model used to calculate the number of sea lions that can be killed without threatening the sustainability of the population is deficient, and has failed to predict the decline in numbers that has occurred in recent years.

Sea lion exclusion devices (SLEDs) which aim to prevent sea lions becoming trapped in squid nets are not proven to be effective – most sea lions ejected from SLEDs suffer injuries which would probably be fatal.

Fishing for squid using the alternative method of jigging (which uses lines of hooks, and lights to attract squid) would not harm sea lions. Jim Anderton has claimed that jigging would not be safe in

▲ The new sea lion kill quota is 40% greater than the average yearly kill over the last 13 years, when the population is already in serious decline.

the rough conditions of the sub-Antarctic Islands.

However, more than 200 squid jigging vessels operated in the New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone in the 1970s and 1980s, including in the Auckland Islands, and other fishing operators have expressed interest in resuming jigging if the trawl fishery is closed.

Once widespread right around the coast of New Zealand, breeding colonies of New Zealand sea lions are now limited to the subantarctic Auckland Islands.

Forest & Bird asks that: • the sea lion kill quota be reduced to near zero • the Government and fishing industry implements research and trials on the cost/benefit of squid jigging around the Auckland Islands • the Marine Mammal Sanctuary around the Auckland Islands where trawling is banned by extended to 100 km or to the continental shelf edge • A Marine Mammal Sanctuary be established around the Campbell Islands You can read the full technical report by Kirstie Knowles on the conservation management of New Zealand sea lions at www.forestandbird.org.nz Forest & Bird’s advocacy for sea lions is funded from the Save Our Sealions Summer Appeal 2006.

Government’s proposed fisheries reforms welcome

▲ Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton speaking at the November Forest & Bird Council meeting.

46 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

THE GOVERNMENT announced a move in December which promises to strengthen the Fisheries Act and provide a more precautionary approach to ensure real sustainability of fisheries management.

The announcement was made by Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton and fits well with the government’s stated intention of leading New Zealand towards a sustainable future.

The minister proposed a strengthening of the Fisheries Act, so that in situations where there is uncertain or limited information or situations compromising the marine environment, decisions can be made which favour sustainable management of fish species and which minimise the environmental effects of fishing on marine mammals such as New Zealand sea lions and seabirds such as albatrosses.

“The collapse of the orange roughy and South Island West Coast hoki fisheries are prime examples of what can happen when environmental sustainability measures are sacrificed for immediate short-term economic gain,” Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says. “This is why Forest & Bird strongly supports the decision by the Government to amend the Fisheries Act in such a way.”

You can write to Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton (janderton@ ministers.govt.nz) expressing your support for the proposed reforms. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

▲ One of the 51 albatrosses caught as bycatch by the Seawin Emerald, while longline fishing for swordfish in the Kermadec fishery inside New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone in November.

Urgent action sought on albatross slaughter

Forest & Bird urged Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton to close a longline fishery near the Kermadec Islands after a vessel killed dozens of albatrosses in a single trip in November.

A Ministry of Fisheries report shows that the Australianregistered vessel, Seawin Emerald, which was fishing for swordfish in the Kermadec fishery within New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), caught 58 seabirds as bycatch, including seven petrels and 51 albatrosses.

Photographs taken by an observer on the vessel show that “a number” of the albatross killed were vulnerable antipodean albatrosses, but because the dead birds were not brought on board as required, the exact number caught was not known.

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton initially proposed closing the Kermadec fishery to all surface longline fisheries for three months,

and restricting surface longlining to the hours of darkness (when risk to seabirds is much less) over the whole New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). At the time Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles said the measures proposed by the minister were strongly supported by Forest & Bird.

However, he stopped short of this and instead proposed consulting on weaker measures.

Forest & Bird responded by urging the minister to close the swordfish fishery around the Kermadec Islands in December until he sets regulations that require night setting in this and all other longline fisheries in the New Zealand EEZ. “This new swordfish fishery is clearly problematic and should be closed until the minister introduces regulations requiring all longlining vessels to set their lines at night.” Kirstie Knowles said.

“This would prevent vessels killing more albatrosses and send a strong message that seabird bycatch will not be tolerated in New Zealand waters. Without immediate emergency measures, however, there is nothing in place to prevent licensed vessels targeting swordfish and catching more albatrosses.”

“Swordfish fisheries notoriously have a higher rate of bycatch than tuna fisheries. Swordfish fisheries off Hawaii, for example, were closed in March 2006 because of their marine turtle and albatross bycatch.”

Tuna and billfish fishing effort in Australian waters is also being scaled back. With no bycatch mitigation measures required in the swordfish fishery when it opened in New Zealand in October, it is no surprise that this fishery is experiencing bycatch problems similar to those recorded overseas.”

The antipodean albatross (Diomedea antipodensis) is endemic to New Zealand and is a globally threatened species listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Red List of Species Threatened with Extinction.

What you can do Write to Fisheries Minister (janderton@govt.nz) expressing support for reform such as requiring night-setting in all longline fisheries.

FEDERATED Farmers has challenged its members to reduce nutrient loss from farms by 10% in 10 years – but Forest & Bird says they should aim to do much better.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says it is good to see Federated Farmers acknowledging that nutrient loss is a problem, but they need to set much more ambitious targets if they are to make significant improvement to its environmental impact.

“A target of just 1% reduction a year is not trying hard enough – and is going to see very little improvement in environmental terms. Aiming for a 10% reduction in five years would be a much more meaningful target. We need bold action, not timid targets.”

Recent criticism of the high “food miles” of New Zealand’s primary produce exports to Europe show that international markets are increasingly demanding that products meet high environmental standards, Kevin Hackwell says.

“If we want to counter the possible backlash to our exports on the grounds that high food miles mean they are not environmentally friendly, we need to make sure our clean and green record at home on the farm really stacks up.”

What you can do Write to Federated Farmers encouraging them to aim higher with a target of 10% in five years.

The postal address is Federated Farmers, PO Box 715, Wellington.

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

Craig Potton

Feds target nutrient loss

▲ The Buller River

Buller River Tribunal set up Environment Minister David Benson-Pope has appointed a tribunal to consider an application by Fish & Game to amend the Buller River Water Conservation Order.

Fish & Game wants the conservation order changed to recognise and protect the outstanding nature of the Gowan River trout fishery and its contribution to fisheries in the Buller River and Lake Rotoroa.

The tribunal will be chaired by resource management and local government barrister Jim Lynch; other members will be Otago University freshwater ecologist Dr Gerry Closs and Te Atiawa resource management officer Glenice Paine.

Forest & Bird is also seeking protection of the Matiri River which flows out of Lake Matiri, the Black Valley Stream near St Arnaud, and eels in the Gowan River.

A hearing date is yet to be set. After a hearing the tribunal will report back to the minister and its findings can be appealed to the Environment Court.

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

47

Dave Hansford

branchingout

Governor-General Anand Satyanand was presented with a photograph of a whio (blue duck) in flight at the Forest & Bird Council meeting in November.

Governor-General addresses Council Meeting

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OREST & Bird’s most recent council meeting was held at Silverstream in the Hutt Valley on Saturday 11 November.

Attended by delegates from almost all the 55 branches and chaired by Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison, the meeting was addressed for the first time by the society’s new patron, Governor General Anand Satyanand.

The Governor General also launched Whio – Saving New Zealand’s Blue Duck, a new book about the human and natural history of one of our most iconic freshwater species, written

by David Young and published

by Craig Potton Publishing.

During his address, the Governor-General told delegates how he and his wife Susan have been “footsoldier members” of Forest & Bird and that they were thrilled to be at the meeting in the context of their new role.

He commented that while New Zealand is a country blessed with an abundance of nature, “there have been times of settlement in Aotearoa, where we treated our natural taonga rather shabbily. It would be too simplistic to ascribe this inconsiderate behaviour on the part of those before us to ignorance. I am not alone in suspecting that there were forces which knew pretty well what they were doing and just didn’t care“.

Launching Whio – Saving New Zealand’s Endangered Blue Duck he said the book had a particular resonance for him and his wife Susan because of a holiday they had in the 1990s between Raetihi and National Park. “There were many local attractions like Smash Palace and JD’s garage. But there was also the Manganui o te ao where we actually went and saw whio at dusk and Chapter Two is such a wonderful recollection of that thrill.”

After presenting a copy of the book to author David Young delegates responded to the Governor-General’s speech with a standing ovation and General Manager Mike Britton presented him with a framed whio photograph taken from the book.

On the evening prior to the council meeting Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton spoke to delegates about his primary production portfolios.

Emphasising the importance of the environment to the economy he said that climate change is now “eclipsing all other environmental issues”.

Turning to fisheries management he acknowledged problems such as over-fishing and marine mammal bycatch, and signalled the possibility of reforms in this area.

“Around the top of the North Island orange roughy fishing was not sustainable,

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so I significantly cut the total allowable catch. However, as some of you will know this is being challenged in the courts and the judge has not allowed me to enforce the lower catch for this season. I am concerned about the court’s rulings on the discretion of the Minister of Fisheries to manage our fisheries sustainably so I am looking carefully at whether I have sufficient tools available to me.”

He also spoke about steps being taken to curb seabird bycatch, giving an undertaking that, “I will take further regulatory action if the current approach is not enough. I’ll also be looking closely over the next twelve months at inshore long line fisheries, where voluntary measures have been disappointing.”

The minister then answered questions about New Zealand sea lion and Hector’s dolphin bycatch, ways of achieving sustainability in fisheries management and current biosecurity challenges.

The following day National MP Nicki Wagner gave a presentation about her party’s recently unveiled Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand and also answered questions from delegates.

Presentations were also made on the Saturday by Clutha Branch member Andrew Pennicut on the importance of marine reserves, and by Auckland Branch Chairwoman Anne Fenn, Kaipara Branch Chairwoman Suzi Philips and North Shore Committee member Fleur Schulz on their respective branch fundraising and membership promotion activities.

Staff presentations were made by Communications Manager Michael Szabo on new fundraising and membership promotion initiatives, Otago/ Southland Field Officer Sue Maturin on South Island high country conservation work, Kevin Hackwell on Restore the Dawn Chorus conservation work, and Kirstie Knowles on marine conservation work.

These were followed by a series of workshops attended by delegates on Sunday 12 November to discuss future priorities in the society’s current areas of work, which will help inform work planned for 2007 and 2008.

After the workshops Dr Peter Maddison thanked delegates for their attendance, noting that the branches were “in good heart”, before drawing the meeting to a close.

Notice of 84th Annual General Meeting

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HE 84th Annual General Meeting of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc will be held in Wellington on Saturday 23 June 2007 at 8.30 am at Silverstream Retreat, 3 Reynolds Bach Drive, Lower Hutt.

The business to be transacted will include the receipt of the annual accounts and annual report to members. All members are welcome. The AGM will be followed by the council meeting which is conducted by branch representatives.

Award for Branch Secretary

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AITAKERE Branch Secretary Ken Catt has received a Kauri Award in the Keep Waitakere Beautiful Trust’s EcoWise Community Awards. He served as trustee on the Weed-free Waitakere Trust established by Forest & Bird

President Peter Maddison and won the award for being “most active individual volunteer working in the community to beautify Waitakere City by reducing litter, weeds and/or graffiti.”

Helen Bain

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OREST & Bird branches have been very active during 2006 with a number of successful events that have raised funds and local profile.

North Shore Branch sold out one cinema and had to book a second to meet demand for tickets to its fundraising screening of Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. Organiser Fleur Schultz says 230 people attended the screening, which raised $1800 towards the Tuff Crater project and other branch activities.

Far North Branch is part of the Puketi Forest Trust, a partnership between iwi, the community (including Forest & Bird Far North Branch), and DOC to restore Puketi Forest in Northland. Far North Branch helped the trust raise $12,000 at a ball and auction hosted by TV3’s John Campbell and Carol Hirschfeld in September. It

was also announced at the ball that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa had accepted the trust’s invitation to become its patron.

Manawatu Branch cosponsored the Aotearoa Environmental Film Festival in September. The event was attended by 400 people and attracted 31 film entries.

Waitakere Branch held a highly successful concert of music on a bird theme in November.

Branch Secretary Ken Catt says the concert was attended by more than 130 people and raised $2300 towards the release of stitchbirds (hihi) at Ark in the Park this month.

Kaipara Branch’s second annual art auction was a great success. Nearly 100 art works were sold. The auction at Waimauku in July brought in a valuable contribution to the branch legal fund and Atuanui Restoration Project.

Tautuku Lodge hat a fantastic welcoming committee: a flock of at least 40 kereru flying overhead as I arrive at Forest & Bird’s Tautuku Lodge in the Catlins.

The 10-bed lodge, four-bed Francis Coutts Cabin and two-bed A-frame are located in Forest & Bird’s 550-hectare Lenz Reserve and are a great Kereru are abundant in the area. base to see the many natural attractions in the surrounding area.

There are three walking tracks within the reserve itself: a short nature path, a longer trail and a wetland board walk.

Much of the wildlife and scenic attractions of South Otago and Southland are within easy reach of the lodge – visitors’ entries in the guest book recount sightings of sea lions, penguins, fernbirds, yellowhead and Hector’s dolphins during trips to the many beaches, wetlands, rivers, caves and forests nearby.

The lodge buildings are equipped with bunk beds, full kitchen facilities, showers and toilets – guests need bring only sleeping bag, pillow case, towels and rubbish bags.Wet weather gear would also be advisable.

Tautuku Lodge is on State Highway 92 (the Southern Scenic Route between Balclutha and Invercargill).

Accommodation in the main lodge and cabin costs $12 per person a night for Forest & Bird members ($15 for nonmembers); school-age children $5 and under-fives free. The A-frame costs $8 a night for members ($10 non-members) and the same charge for children as the other buildings. For bookings contact Diana Noonan, Papatowai, RD 2, Owaka, South Otago, 03 415 8024, diana.n@clear.net.nz.

Helen Bain

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DOC

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Helen Bain

Branch fundraising successes

Five stalwarts of 25 years of planting native trees and shrubs on Matiu/ Somes Island at the ceremonial planting of Hutt Valley totara.

L-R: Ron and Angela Freeston, Bill Milne, Stan Butcher, and Reg Cotter.

Matiu/Somes Island project celebrates its 25th anniversary

M

UM and Dad’s Army (aka Forest & Bird Lower Hutt Branch) was out in force for the 25th anniversary of restoration on Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington in November.

Twenty-five years ago Forest & Bird began planting native plants on the then almost completely deforested island, and quarter of a century, 100,000 volunteer hours and nearly 100,000 native plants later, Matiu/Somes has been transformed from a bare, brown island into a leafy, green one.

The restoration work has enabled the release of native animal species, including North Island robin (toutouwai), tuatara, kakariki, forest geckos, giant and tree weta, and – released to mark the 25th anniversary – 25 ornate skinks.

Five of those present at the first planting day 25 years ago – Ron and Angela Freeston, Bill Milne, Stan Butcher and Reg Cotter – attended the anniversary celebration, and planted the first of 25 “anniversary” totaras to mark the occasion.

Bill Milne says the restoration began with planting tough protection plants to cope with the island’s wind and sea-swept conditions, and now larger species such as tawa, totara, rimu, kahikatea, rewarewa, kohekohe and matai are thriving. Planting is now virtually complete, except for the cultivation of some rare

species that have been all but wiped out in the Wellington region.

Every 10 days for 18 months beginning in 1986 volunteers checked bait stations set up to eradicate the island’s rats, and Matiu/Somes was finally declared predator-free, allowing the transfer of endangered species to take place.

“I’m very pleased to have been involved,” Bill Milne says.

“When we first came here it was just bare hillside and brown grass, so it has been very satisfying to see how the place has evolved.”

Department of Conservation acting Wellington Conservator Jeff Flavell says Forest & Bird’s efforts have turned Matiu/ Somes into “the conservation jewel in Wellington’s crown.”

Most of the ornate skinks released on the 25th anniversary came from an unusual source: Wellington woman Kelly Bargh’s cat developed a habit of collecting skinks and brought home 20 unharmed. Fattened up on insects in “Club Med accommodation” over the winter, they are now fending for themselves on predator-free Matiu/Somes.

Once widespread, predation has reduced ornate skink populations to isolated pockets.

Wellington was once home to 17 different types of lizard and it is hoped that populations of many of these will be rebuilt on Matiu/Somes.

Helen Bain

FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

49

Helen Bain

Retired High Court Judge Sir Rodney Gallen (standing) flanked by Ian Noble, Chairman of the Forest & Bird Hastings/Havelock North Branch.

Landmark for Blowhard Bush

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HERE are two schools of thought on how the Blowhard Bush got its memorable name.

One theory has it that the Forest & Bird reserve, 50 kilometres inland from Hastings, is named for the area’s notoriously strong winds. The second is that it was named because the horses that once pulled the coaches along the Napier-Taihape Road past here used to “blow hard” as they toiled up the steep inland ranges.

As Blowhard “Make-over Manager” Don Tait put it at a ceremony in October to celebrate the opening of the Blowhard’s new shelter – and the 50th anniversary of Forest & Bird’s Hastings-Havelock North Branch – the extremely gusty weather on the day “provides pretty solid evidence” to support the former theory.

Donated to Forest & Bird by the Lowry family in 1962, the Blowhard Bush covers 63 hectares of native forest. Its limestone rock formations have been fractured into

blocks by the surrounding active fault-lines, covered with layers of pumice ash by the central North Island volcanic eruptions, and worn into strange shapes by water and wind over thousands of years.

They contain many intriguing water-cut natural passages, several caves and massive monoliths that loom out of the forest, many visible – and explorable – from the Blowhard’s many tracks, which range from a half and hour to two-and-a-half hours walk.

The Tui track passes Patiki Cave, which was lived in by a Maori family in the nineteenth century and is of historic significance. The caves and rock formations also prove fascinating to children, who love exploring them today.

Among the huge, ancient trees in the Blowhard Bush are rimu, matai, miro, beech (possibly remnants of beech forests that survived the ash showers during the Taupo eruption) and kahikatea. Many forest giants remain, despite the bush having been exploited for

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timber in former times.

Many of the trees in the podocarp/broadleaf forest are more than 500 years old – one 25-metre-tall matai has been estimated to be 700-800 years old, and a 26-metre rimu is believed to be 700-750 years old.

Smaller plant treasures can also be found in the Blowhard.

A rare orchid Thelymitra “Comet” was discovered here

by Bill Liddy in December 1999 – it had not been seen in the wild since 1992.

Blowhard Project Leader Teresa Hurst says the bush has made a significant recovery since comprehensive pest control was started by Forest & Bird in 2003. She says the impact of the 116 poison bait stations on rat and possum populations – and the subsequent health of the forest – has been dramatic.

“We know we are on top of them. Last time we laid the bait only four stations out of 116 were emptied – that shows us the pests aren’t there anymore to take the poison. The birds and the regrowth of seedling trees is tenfold, it is just amazing.”

Walking through the bush today you can hear the abundance of native bird life: tomtits (ngirongiro), North Island robin (toutouwai), bellbird (korimako), tui, grey warbler (riroriro), kereru, shining cuckoo (pipiwharauroa), long-tailed cuckoo (koekoea), pipit (pihoihoi) and morepork (ruru) are all found here, in increasing numbers. Tree and cave wetas are also at home in the reserve – the caves at night are a delight for those who don’t have an aversion to creepy-crawlies.

Recent efforts in preserving this natural heritage saw the Blowhard Committee win the National Heritage Award in the 2006 Norsewear Conservation and Heritage Awards.

Revegetation efforts have been carried out on the erosion-scarred crest of the reserve since 1969 using tutu, and secondary regrowth has followed in subsequent decades.

In the last four years, as well as maintaining pest control, Forest & Bird’s Blowhard Committee has improved the car park, signs and tracks, and built

toilets and the shelter.

“Never before have so many people come together to open a tin shed!” Hastings-Havelock North Branch Chairman Ian Noble told the 100-strong crowd at the shelter opening.

“But this is more than a shed.”

Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison says it is hoped that the $14,000 shelter will provide a base for pest control maintenance, volunteer workers and the many walkers and school groups that visit the site.

The hard work is far from over. Four-hectares of Conservation Departmentowned retired farmland next to the car park has recently come under the care of the Blowhard Committee, and replanting is underway.

When retired High Court Judge Sir Rodney Gallen cut the ribbon to officially open the Blowhard Shelter he marked a long family association with the area and with Forest & Bird – his grandfather drove a horsedrawn coach on the roadpast the Blowhard and he himself has been a member of Forest & Bird since the age of 16.

Sir Rodney made special mention on Lester Masters, a deerstalker-turnedconservationist who left his estate to Forest & Bird, allowing it to pay for the Blowhard Bush and its maintenance, and read one of Lester Masters’ poems, High Hill Places, that was fitting for a celebration in such a high, wind-swept place: The wind of the west is singing/and the song it sings it seems/ is the song of the high hill places …

“That’s why we’re here today,” Sir Rodney said as he declared the shelter open.

Helen Bain

RON GREENWOOD ENVIRONMENTAL TRUST 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.

More information is available from the Trust, at: PO Box 10-359, Wellington

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Michael Szabo

Nick Beveridge

Staff members Sue Yates and Laura Richards with the display.

Ellerslie Flower Show success

Horowhenua Branch Chairwoman Joan Leckie, with Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison.

OREST & Bird’s display at the Ellerslie Flower Show was a great success, with thousands of visitors learning how to turn their gardens into native bird “restaurants”.

Communications Officer Laura Richards says Forest & Bird’s theme of showing people how to attract native wildlife – particularly birds – into their own gardens was very popular.

“People really love seeing and hearing our native birds like the tui, fantail and kereru, and they were really keen to get advice

Manawatu Estuary Ramsar status celebration

on practical things they can do to attract the birds and help them to thrive in their gardens.”

Information on providing food sources for native birds, native plants suitable for gardens, and keeping native birds safe from predators was snapped up by visitors to Forest & Bird’s display.

More than 140 people joined Forest & Bird and Kiwi Conservation Club at Ellerslie, and Forest & Bird’s display received a Merit Award.

Peter McKellar

F

L-R: Mr Barry Bonnington (Violet’s cousin), Rosemary Michie (Chair of the Mt Ngongotaha Bush Restoration Trust), Steve Chadwick (MP Rotorua), Chris Carter (Minister of Conservation.

M

ORE than 100 people and two short-finned eels turned out in October for the official celebration in Foxton marking the Manawatu Estuary becoming a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention.

The people were there to listen to the various speakers, but at least one of the estuary’s inhabitants couldn’t wait to get back in the water, and so livened up proceedings by climbing out of its display tank and wriggling onto the grass.

After the amusing interlude keynote speaker Banrock Station Manager Tony Sharley upstaged the errant eel, congratulating the Manawatu Estuary Trust and its supporters on achieving the designation for the site, and boosting local conservation efforts with the announcement of a further $3000 donation. Previously Banrock Station has donated $5000 to the trust.

Forest & Bird National President Dr Peter Maddison thanked Joan Leckie for her dedicated efforts towards achieving the listing and persuaded her to join him to receive an enthusiastic vote of thanks.

Joan has played a principle role in efforts to achieve Ramsar status for the estuary and is chairwoman of both the Manawatu Estuary Trust and the Forest & Bird Horowhenua Branch.

Local MP Darren Hughes presented Joan with an official certificate from the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland.

Other speakers included Robin Hapi of Ngati Raukawa, Horizons Regional Council Chairman Garrick Murfitt and Foxton Mayor Brendan Duffy.

A stone sculpture – of an eel, naturally – was unveiled on the esplanade overlooking the estuary to mark a memorable occasion.

used by the Mount Ngongotaha Bush Restoration Trust, which has cut out blackberry infestation and is undertaking possum control to protect the only remaining large rata tree in the area.

Forest & Bird Rotorua Branch Chairman Chris Ecroyd says all the other large rata in the area were lying dead on the forest floor, with possums probably the main

factor in their demise, so it was important to save the last remaining specimen.

The Rotorua Branch had long wanted to improve public access to Ngongotaha Mountain, which had previously been very difficult, and the opportunity to purchase the reserve land was a great opportunity to realise Violet Bonnington’s wishes.

Helen Bain

New Rotorua reserve

F

OREST & Bird Rotorua Branch has opened a new reserve bought with a bequest from former Rotorua Hospital matron Violet Bonnington.

The half-hectare Violet Bonnington Reserve was opened by Conservation Minister Chris Carter in October at a ceremony attended by about 70 people, including Violet Bonnington’s cousin Barry Bonnignton and Rotorua

MP Steve Chadwick.

Violet Bonnington, a keen supporter of the environment who died in 1985, wanted her bequest to be used to buy land for the development of a native bird reserve in a place easily accessed and enjoyed by Rorotua people.

The new reserve provides public access along a walking track to Ngongotaha Scenic Reserve, and is already being

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FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

51

WILDERNESS WEEKS

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Ruakaka Kayaking

2.5 hour Guided Eco Tour of a Northland estuary suitable all age groups.

For bookings ph 09 432 8668 or 021 233 6748 8 Princes Rd, Ruakaka

The Real Vanuatu

Get off the beaten track, help contribute to the future of Vatthe National Park.

• 14 days exploring 3 islands • Easy forest walking • Stay in a remote village • Relax on tropical beaches • Snorkel over vibrant coral reefs • Watch a live volcano on Tanna Tour limited to 12 • Departs June/July 2007 Sue Maturin – Vatthe Tours, Dunedin. ph 03 4876 125 s.maturin@forest&bird.org.nz

BIORESEARCHES CONSULTING BIOLOGISTS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS ESTABLISHED 1972

Environmental Impact Studies Surveys of Marine, Freshwater & Terrestrial Habitats Pollution Investigations Resource Consent procedures Archaeological; Historic Places Appraisal bioresearches@bioresearches.co.nz www.bioresearches.co.nz P.O Box 2828 Auckland PH: AUCKLAND 379 9417 Fax (09) 307 6409

52 FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

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

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© Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai/Dick Veitch

Want Sustainability? – apply here!

Kokako with chicks

Sustain is Forest & Bird’s monthly giving programme that offers you all the benefits of membership and more. Current Forest & Bird members are invited to join Sustain, as well as non-members.

By becoming a Sustain Member you’ll be helping sustain more of New Zealand’s native wildlife and habitats.

As a Sustain Member you’ll make a minimum monthly contribution of $20.

Extra benefits for Sustain Members include: • Regular Sustain newsletters as well as Forest & Bird magazine • Invitations to special Forest & Bird events • Helping reduce administration costs, which means more resources for conservation

Don’t delay – fill out the credit card or direct debit form overleaf and send it to us Freepost today.

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Waikava Harbour View 4 bedroom luxury lodge Peaceful native setting Waipohatu bush walk Curio Bay fossil forest Hector’s dolphins, yellow-eyed penguins, seals 14 Larne Street, Waikawa, Southland Tel: 03 246 8866 Email: waikawa@southcatlins.co.nz

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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.

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Summer and Autumn schedule out now.

PH/FAX: 03 249 6600 FREEPHONE 0800 249 660 PO Box 40, MANAPOURI EMAIL info@fiordland.gen.nz www.fiordland.gen.nz

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WINNER 1999

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From Comfortable Lodge stay to off track wilderness backpacking.

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www.bushandbeyond.co.nz FOREST & BIRD • FEBRUARY 2007

53

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FOREST BIRD

FOREST BIRD

ForEST BIrD Number 322 • NovEmBEr 2006

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Forest & Bird PO Box 631 Wellington

FOREST BIRD

Freepost Authority Number 669

branchdirectory Upper North Island Central Auckland: Chair, Anne Fenn; Secretary, Isabel Still, PO Box 1118, Shortland St, Auckland.

Tel: (09) 528-3986.

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, Brian Griffiths; 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, Suzi Phillips, Private Bag 1, Helensville 1250. Tel: 021 271 2527.

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, Dene Andre; Secretary, Vacant, PO Box 23 602, Papatoetoe. Tel: (09) 267 4366.

Thames/Hauraki: Chair, Marcia Sowman; Secretary, Hazel Genner, PO Box 312, Thames 3540.

Tel: (07) 868 9057.

Mercury Bay Section: Chair, Bruce Mackereth; Secretary, Wendy Hare, PO Box 205, Whitianga 2856.

Tel: (07) 866 2501.

Upper Coromandel: Chair, Don Hughes; Secretary, Jeanette McIntosh, PO Box 108 Coromandel. Tel: (07) 866-7248.

Waitakere: Chair, Robyn Fendall; Secretary, Ken Catt, PO Box 45144, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere.

Tel: (09) 834-6214.

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.

Central North Island Eastern Bay of Plenty: Chair, Rosemary Lower Hutt: Chair, Stan Butcher; Secretary, Bill Watters, PO Box 31194, Tully; Secretary, Sue Greenwood, c/o Ezebiz Tax, PO Box 582, Whakatane, Lower Hutt. Tel: (04) 565-0638.

Manawatu: Chair, Brent Barrett, PO Box 3158. Tel: (07) 308 5576.

961, Palmerston Nth 5301. Tel: (06) 357Gisborne: Chair, Dick McMurray; 6962; Secretary, Joanna McVeagh, PO Secretary, Grant Vincent, 1 Dominey Box 961, Palmerston North 5301.

Street, Gisborne, Tel: (06) 868-8236.

Tel: (06) 356 6054.

Rotorua: Chair, Chris Ecroyd; Secretary, Nicola Dooley, PO Box 1489, Napier: Chair, Isabel Morgan; Secretary, Margaret Gwynn, 23 Clyde Rd, Rotorua. Tel: (07) 345 8687.

Napier. Tel: (06) 8 35 2122.

South Waikato: Chair, Anne Groos; Secretary, Jack Groos, 37 Waianiwa Place, North Taranaki: Chair, Ian Barry; Secretary, Murray Duke, PO Box 1029, Tokoroa. Tel: (07) 886-7456.

Taupo: Chair, Anne Gallagher; Secretary, New Plymouth 4340.

Tel: (06) 751 2759.

Bett Davies, PO Box 1105 Taupo, Rangitikei: Chair, Tony Simpson; Tel: (07) 378 7064.

Secretary, Betty Graham, 41-Tutaenui Tauranga: Chair, Vacant; Secretary, Rd, Marton. Tel: (06) 327-7008.

Cynthia Carter, PO Box 487, Tauranga.

South Taranaki: Chair, Rex Hartley; Tel:(07) 552 0220 .

Secretary, Lynda Sutherland, 39 High St, Te Puke: Chair, Neale Blaymires; Eltham 4657. Tel: (06) 764-7479.

Secretary, Colin Horn, PO Box 237, Te Upper Hutt: Chair, Dr Barry Wards; Puke. Tel : (07) 573 7345 Secretary, Vacant; Waihi: Chair, Ian Bradshaw; Secretary, PO Box 40-875, Upper Hutt.

Krishna Buckman, 17 Reservoir Road, Tel: (04) 970 4266.

Waihi. Tel: (07) 863-8455.

Wairarapa: Chair, Geoff Doring; Waikato: Chair, Dr Philip Hart; Secretary, Secretary, Vacant,10 Waiohine Gorge Rd, Jim MacDiarmid, PO Box 11-092, RD 1. Tel: 021 619 599.

Hillcrest, Hamilton, Tel: (07) 849-3438.

Wanganui: Chair, Stephen Sammons; Wairoa: Chair, Stanley Richardson; Secretary, Ray Hutchison, PO Box Secretary, Glenys Single, 72 Kopu Rd, 4229, Wanganui. Tel: (06) 345-2651.

Wairoa 4192. Tel: (06) 838-8232.

Wellington: Chair, Merrin Pearse; Secretary, Louise Taylor, PO Box 4183, Lower North Island Wellington. Tel: (04) 971-1770.

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.

South Island Ashburton: Chair, Edith Smith; 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, Sue Jarvie; 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, Tony Bryant, 49 Motueka Quay, Motueka, 7120.

Tel: (07) 528 5212.

North Canterbury: Chair, Lois Griffiths, 48 St Andrews Square, Christchurch 8052. Tel: (03) 355 4715; Email: MandLgriffiths@clear.net.nz Secretary, David Ellison-Smith, 405 Armagh Street Christchurch. Tel: (03) 355 4715; Email: paudin.dev@xtra.co.nz.

South Canterbury: Chair, Marijke Bakker-Gelsin; Secretary, Margaret McPherson, 29 Mountain View Road, Timaru. Tel: (03) 686 1494.

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, Mark Ayre; Secretary, Angela Brown, PO Box 38, Lake Hawea, Central Otago 9192.

Tel: (03) 433 7020.

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.

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.

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.

Wellington. Tel: (04) 385-7374, fax: (04) 385-7373. Email: office@ forestandbird.org.nz

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, Tai Haruru Lodge, Piha, hot springs and museum. The lodge West Auckland accommodates up to 15 people. It has A seaside haven set in a large sheltered a fully equipped kitchen including garden on the rugged West Coast, stove, refrigerator and microwave Ruapehu Lodge, 38km on sealed roads from central plus tile fire, hot showers. Supply Auckland. Close to store, bush reserves Tongariro National Park your own linen, sleeping bags etc. and tracks in the beautiful Waitakere Situated 600 m from Whakapapa Ranges. Double bedroom and 3 Village, at the foot of Mount Ruapehu, For information and bookings please singles, plus large lounge with wood this lodge is available for members and send a stamped addressed envelope to burner, dining area and kitchen. The their friends. It may also be hired out Pam and John Wuts, 15 Durham Ave, self-contained unit has 4 single beds. to other compatible groups by special Tamatea, Napier. Tel: (06) 844-4751 Email: wutsie@xtra.co.nz Bring food, linen and fuel for fire arrangement. It is an ideal base for and BBQ. Booking officer: Patricia tramping, skiing, botanising or visiting Matiu/Somes Island, Thompson, 78 Neil Avenue, Te Atatu the hotpools at Tokaanu. The lodge Wellington Harbour Peninsula, Waitakere City 0610. Tel: holds 32 people in four bunkrooms Joint venture accommodation by (09) 834-7745 after 9am. and provides all facilities except food Lower Hutt Forest and Bird with Off peak rates apply. and bedding. Bookings and inquiries DOC. A modern family home with to Forest and Bird, PO Box 631, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, large lounge and w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

dining room, just 20 mins sailing by ferry from the centre of Wellington 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. Tel: (04) 569-2542.

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) 4158244. Email: diana.n@clear.net.nz

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