Forest & Bird Magazine 324 May 2007

FOREST BIRD N u m b e r 3 2 4 • M AY 2 0 0 7

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FOREST BIRD Number 324 • MAY 2007 • www.forestandbird.org.nz

In this issue

Ngunguru Kaipara

Features

12 World Heritage New Zealand Forest & Bird suggests three new sites for the Tentative List.

Coromandel

Tapuae Bushy Park

Otanewainuku

Manawatu

14 Keramadec Islands Michael Szabo makes the case for World Heritage status.

16 Kahurangi and Farewell Spit Andy Dennis on north-west Nelson

Nelson Hawkes Bay

Farewell Spit

18 Rakaia-Rangitata-Hakatere Eugenie Sage on the McKenzie High Country.

20 Fiordland’s lost world

Kahurangi

Tony Jewell meets our newest reptiles.

22 Saving Pacific parrots

Copland Valley Kaikoura Map artwork: Bruce Mahalski

Fiordland

Lake Heron Rakaia-Rangitata Ashburton

Michael Szabo on new hope for the region’s parrots.

24 Shark trek Malcolm Francis and co-authors track sharks.

26 Happy feat Helen Bain visits Te Rere Reserve.

28 River spirits Helen Bain on protecting freshwater eels.

Stewart Island

Te Rere

41 Annual Report 2007

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

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

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

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

Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. General Manager: Mike Britton Communications Manager: Michael Szabo North Island Field Coordinator: Mark Bellingham South Island Field Coordinator: Chris Todd 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: m.bellingham@forestandbird.org.nz Christchurch Office: PO Box 2516, Christchurch.

Tel: (03) 366 6317 Fax: (03) 365 0788 Email: c.todd@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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2 Comment

Goodbye butterfly? by Dr Peter Maddison

3 Conservation Briefs Kiwi benefiting; Hihi; Threatened species list; Godwit distance record; Ferrets on Chatham Island; Fairy terns breed on Kaipara; QEII Trust 30th anniversary; The tui has landed – National office; Whitebait return to Maungatautari; Hihi back in Waitakere Ranges; New bird distribution atlas; Kiwi vision; Kaikoura shearwater colony; Coromandel wildlife sanctuary; Tapuae marine reserve; New alpine plant.

30 Conservation News Set net “death traps” for Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins; Mothers’ Day sea lion campaign; 1080 reassessment report; Lake Heron 4x4 road; Marine protection proposed for World Heritage subantarctic islands; Seabed protection measures fall short.

34 In the Field 1080 – a birdbrain’s guide by Ann Graeme and Tim Galloway

36 Itinerant Ecologist The forest that went out on the tide by Geoff Park

38 Going Places Kaikoura’s World Heritage by Michael Szabo

44 Branching Out Isabel Morgan NZOM; Rotorua Branch award; Lower Hutt education centre; Communications materials for Branches; Otahuhu Intermediate wins Green Schools award; Coromandel stall success; New Ashburton reserve; Birds and windows; Kiwi released at Otanewainuku, Kerin Welford; World Wetlands Day; Cat-proof fencing; Bushy Park thanks Stan Butcher; Conservation scholarship winner; Nelson garden tour COVER: SINBAD SKINK, FIORDLAND. PHOTOGRAPH: ROD MORRIS F O R E S TF O&R B E SI RT D& • BNI RODV E• MMB A EY R 2006 7

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Comment Goodbye butterfly?

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Rod Morris

HERE have been some recent concerns raised about the decline of butterflies in New Zealand.

New Zealand has never had a large, obvious butterfly fauna, perhaps related to our early separation from the large Gondwana super-continent.

There is currently debate about whether there has been a decline in monarch butterflies. In 2004 I found a great decline in the over-wintering colony of monarch butterflies in Butterfly Bay in the Far North, from several hundred in the 1960s and 1970s to only four individuals in 2004.

There are those who argue that the monarch butterfly is not indigenous to New Zealand, having arrived in the 1870s.

Certainly this butterfly could not have established here until the swan plant was introduced from southern Africa – it was first reported in the wild here in 1870.

Various theories are being advanced for the apparent reduction in monarch butterfly numbers, including climate change, reduction in nectar sources in commercial flowering plants, and the effects of the painted apple moth aerial spraying. The evidence points

Introduced wasp attacking a native stick insect

towards predation of the caterpillars by introduced wasps as an important reason for their decline.

I have watched as Chinese paper wasps strip several swan plants of small monarch butterfly caterpillars. The Chinese paper wasp was introduced in the 1970s and is a voracious predator of caterpillars.

Paper wasps and their cousins, the large colonial nesting German and common wasps are well-known predators.

Imagine the impact of a large German wasp nest with perhaps 5000 occupants if each wasp kills one caterpillar a day, every day, from the plants near the wasp nest. These caterpillars are a key part of the food chain, particularly for our insecteating native birds such as stitchbird (hihi), grey warbler (riroriro) and fantail (piwakawaka).

There is also great concern about reductions in populations of other butterfly species. Brian Patrick of Alexandra Museum is concerned about threats to an undescribed species of boulder copper butterfly found only in a car park at Chrystal’s Beach in South Otago.

Helm’s butterfly, or the forest ringlet, has become extremely rare in northern New Zealand, and has not been seen in the Waitakere Ranges for more than five years.

Reports of the decline of red and yellow admiral butterflies have also been received. I would be interested to learn from Forest & Bird members whether butterflies have declined in their areas.

Certainly introduced wasps are important. The gradual decline of several butterfly species has been attributed to the effect of introduced parasitic wasps – both ichneumon wasps and tachinid flies, which had been introduced for biological

control of pests such as the cabbage white butterfly, and which have gone on to plague our native butterflies.

Such introductions gave bio-control a bad name in the mid-20th century and have resulted in the now extensive screening processes required by the Environmental Risk Management Authority in considering any new release of such bio-control agents.

It appears that – as with our native birds and reptiles and their introduced vertebrate predators – we need to recognise the vast impact of introduced invertebrate predators on our native wildlife.

The message for Forest & Bird is that the job of protecting New Zealand’s unique biodiversity just keeps getting harder – and the list of introduced pests on our hit list longer.

Given that biosecurity and pest management are as essential to “what is New Zealand?” as our culture, health and welfare, they deserve proper funding by Government.

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.

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HERE has been a major increase in efforts to save New Zealand’s threatened kiwi species from extinction through the non-government sector and community initiatives according to a new report released in March detailing the status of each species.

The report shows there are now over 60 nongovernmental, individual, iwi and community-led kiwi conservation projects in New Zealand, including Forest & Bird branch involvement at Otanewainuku Forest, Maungatautari, Bushy Park and Boundary Stream.

“These non-government initiatives have lifted the area of kiwi habitat under conservation management by about 50,000-hectares (ha), complementing the 70,000ha under active management by the Department of

Conservation (DOC),” Conservation Minister Chris Carter told those in attendance at the launch at Auckland Zoo. “Assisting growth in community involvement has been the Bank of New Zealand Save the Kiwi Trust, which now contributes 15% of total funding spent on kiwi conservation in New Zealand,” he said.

The new status report shows that where kiwi habitat is managed and pests and predators controlled, kiwi are doing well. As a result, goals for kiwi recovery were becoming more ambitious.

“But despite this progress, we still have a great deal of work to do on kiwi. In areas where kiwi are not managed they are continuing to decline, and we still face real challenges in the South Island where the Okarito brown kiwi

Kiwi Encounter/Rainbow Springs

Kiwi benefiting from more community support

One of the North Island brown kiwi released at Otanewainuku Forest in April, a Forest & Bird Te Puke Branch project.

(rowi) and Haast tokoeka kiwi are consistently being hit by rat and stoat plagues, despite conservation efforts,” he said.

“The Department of Conservation can’t tackle these issues alone, it needs

community and private sector help. The massive growth in community kiwi conservation demonstrates that New Zealanders are starting to recognise this,” he said.

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conservationbriefs Hundreds more species face extinction HE Department of Conservation (DOC) released a new threatened species list in January which shows New Zealand has 416 more threatened taxa than when the list was first published in 2002.

Among those with a declining status were species of bird, reptile, freshwater fish, weta, butterfly, moth, beetle, spider, land snail, aphid, moss and vascular plant.

Forty native bird species are

considered to have genuinely worsened in status, including black-fronted tern, Fiordland crested penguin, red-billed gull and rifleman. There was a glimmer of hope in that the status of four bird species is considered to have improved over the past three years – namely, Australasian crested grebe, black petrel, Campbell albatross and Codfish Island fernbird.

Conservation Minister Chris Carter said the list was a

2007 THREATENED SPECIES LIST

• South Island rifleman: Not Threatened to Gradual Decline.

• North Island rifleman: Not Threatened to Gradual Decline.

• Red-billed gull: Not Threatened to Gradual Decline.

FRESHWATER FISH Decline in status: • Dune lakes galaxias: Serious Decline to Nationally Vulnerable.

• Eldon’s galaxias: Gradual Decline to Nationally Vulnerable.

• Gollum galaxias: Not Threatened to Gradual Decline.

• Upland longjaw galaxias: Sparse to Gradual Decline.

• “Southern” galaxias: Data Deficient to Gradual Decline.

• Codfish Island fernbird: Nationally Critical to Range Restricted.

• Australasian crested grebe: Nationally Critical to Nationally Endangered.

• Campbell albatross: Nationally Vulnerable to Range Restricted.

• Black petrel: Gradual Decline to Range restricted.

• Bounty Island shag: Range Restricted to Nationally Critical.

• Fiordland crested penguin: Gradual Decline to Nationally Endangered.

• Chatham Island shag: Range Restricted to Nationally Endangered.

• Grey duck: Serious Decline to Nationally Endangered.

• Black-fronted tern: Serious Decline to Nationally Endangered.

• Pitt Island shag: Range Restricted to Nationally Vulnerable.

• Salvin’s albatross: Range Restricted to Nationally Vulnerable.

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• Moth Notoreas “Wellington”: Gradual Decline to Serious Decline.

• Moth Gingidiobora nebulosa (Philpott, 1917): Sparse to Gradual Decline.

• Karikari tree weta: Range Restricted to Gradual Decline.

• Ground beetle Mecodema howitti Castelnau, 1867: Range Restricted to Gradual Decline.

• Large land snail Powelliphanta “Haast”: Range Restricted to Gradual Decline.

BRYOPHYTES Decline in status: • Moss (Chorisodontium aciphyllum): Range Restricted to Nationally Endangered.

• Moss (Seligeria diminuta): Range Restricted to Nationally Endangered.

VASCULAR PLANTS Decline in status: Goldstripe gecko

REPTILES Decline in status:

• Grand skink: Nationally Endangered to Nationally Critical.

• Otago skink: Nationally Endangered to Nationally Critical.

• Whitakers skink: Range Restricted to Nationally Vulnerable.

• Matapia Island gecko: Sparse to Gradual Decline.

• Goldstripe gecko: Sparse to Gradual Decline.

• Harlequin gecko: Sparse to Gradual Decline.

• Ornate skink: Not Threatened to Gradual Decline.

Rod Morris

Red-billed gull

BIRDS Decline in status:

Eldon’s galaxias

Improvement in status:

Rod Morris

DoC

There were net increases of 23 species listed in the Nationally Critical category, 32 species in Nationally Endangered and 10 species in Nationally Vulnerable, a reduction of 8 in the total listed as in Serious Decline, and increases of 23 in Gradual Decline, 72 in Sparse and 264 in Range Restricted. These are net changes: in each category, some species were added and others were removed; these changes include both movements between categories and new additions to the list.

wake-up call for the country.

“Human-induced threats and the introduction of predators and pests continue to plague our native species,” he said.

“The species that make up our country – the unique bird, reptile, plant and insect species that are endemic to these islands of ours – are what helps to make us New Zealanders, give us a unique place in the world and give us our identity.”

The list updates the threat classification status of 5819 of

Rod Morris

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New Zealand’s native plants and animals. Almost half of the species listed fall into one of the seven threatened categories.

An additional 984 were newly listed as Data Deficient. They are likely to be threatened, but there is not enough information to fit them into a threatened category. This brings the total number of species in this category to 3031.

Chris Carter said that it was crucial for New Zealand’s native species that their threatened status is understood, so that better planning could be made for protecting them.

TERRESTRIAL Helm’s butterfly INVERTEBRATES Decline in status: • Aphid Paradoxaphis aristoteliae Sunde, 1987: Data Deficient to Nationally Critical.

• Snail Rhytida oconnori Powell, 1946: Nationally Endangered to Nationally Critical.

• Spider Zealoctenus cardronaensis Forster & Wilton, 1974: Data Deficient to Nationally Critical.

• Forest ringlet butterfly: Gradual Decline to Serious Decline.

• Cortaderia turbaria: Nationally Endangered to Nationally Critical.

• Hebe societatis: Range Restricted to Nationally Critical.

• Puccinellia walkeri subsp. chathamica: Range Restricted to Nationally Critical.

• Leptinella rotundata: Gradual Decline to Nationally Vulnerable.

• Tetrachondra hamiltonii: Gradual Decline to Serious Decline.

• Leucogenes tarahaoa: Range Restricted to Serious Decline.

• Jovellana sinclairii: Range Restricted to Gradual Decline. 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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conservationbriefs

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SATELLITE-tracked bar-tailed godwit has set a new world record for longdistance non-stop flight. The bird flew from New Zealand’s North Island to Yalu Jiang, at the northern end of the Yellow Sea in China – a distance of 10,200-kilometres, a team from the Pacific Shorebird Migration Project have reported.

Previous research had revealed the godwits’ long journey southward, aided by favourable winds, from Alaska to New Zealand and Australia.

The new findings show the godwits’ capability in flying northward, without the benefit of tailwind. The record flight took just nine days.

“Satellite-tracking is an important tool helping us to learn more about the incredible journeys these birds undertake and the threats they face along the way,” BirdLife’s Global Flyways Officer Vicky Jones says.

“The challenge is to use this knowledge to ensure effective conservation of migratory bird species throughout their flyways. This means protecting populations not only on their breeding and wintering grounds, but also at critical stopover sites used on passage.”

Site protection remains a critical issue. Human induced changes – particularly reclamation and pollution – to wetland habitats along flyway routes have contributed to the recent declines observed in many of the world’s migratory waterbird species.

The bar-tailed godwit tracking study is being undertaken as part of the Pacific Shorebird Migration Project, involving the US Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska, Point Reyes Bird Observatory in Petaluma, California, with teams in New Zealand and the Yukon.

Rod Morris

Long-distance godwit sets new world record

Ferret sightings at Chatham Island

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TTEMPTS are being made by the Department of Conservation (DOC) to confirm the presence of introduced ferrets after sightings were reported by the public late last year at Ocean Mail and Waitangi West on the Chathams.

Traps were set, and a predator search dog was brought in but no ferrets have been detected to date. DOC and the Chatham Island Council are very keen to hear of any future sightings.

A ferret which has killed a penguin chick.

Public support is essential for the success of the programme and DOC depends on public information to identify wild populations, and to gain access to private property.

Ferrets are banned under the Chatham Islands Council Pest Management Strategy because of the potential impact on Chatham Island fauna. Weka, Chatham Island oystercatcher and parea are most at risk from ferrets.

DoC/GM Parrish

Fairy tern chick

Fairy terns breed on the Kaipara

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HE survival chances of one of New Zealand’s rarest breeding bird species have been boosted after news that a fairy tern chick has fledged on the Kaipara Harbour for the first time in five years.

The rare New Zealand fairy tern was once widespread in the North Island, but has been on the brink of extinction since the 1970s with a population of just 35-40 individual birds now.

The new Kaipara chick was hatched from an egg that was mainly incubated at Auckland Zoo before being returned to its parents to hatch in the wild.

Fairy terns nest on shell and sand banks just above high tide, which leaves them vulnerable to introduced predators,

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disturbance by people, 4WD vehicles and dogs. They are also at risk from storms and very high tides.

“The birds cannot be transported to predator-free offshore islands because they are very particular about where they nest, and the chicks cannot be raised in captivity as they have to be taught by their parents to dive for fish,” Department of Conservation Biodiversity Manager Thelma Wilson says.

A team of wardens and volunteers spent months trapping introduced predators and preventing nesting birds from being disturbed by humans in preparation for the new arrival. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Helen Bain

conservationbriefs

QEII National Trust Chairman Sir Brian Lochore with HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, at the Lake Pounui 30th anniversary celebrations.

QEII National Trust 30th anniversary celebration

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HE key to the success of the QE II National Trust has been “people, people, people,” trustee Gordon Stephenson commented on the trust’s 30th birthday.

The commemoration at Lake Pounui, in South Wairarapa, was attended by Prince Andrew, Conservation Minister Chris Carter and about 300 guests – many of them landowners who have established covenants on their own properties.

Gordon Stephenson, one of the original trustees and Forest & Bird South Waikato Branch

committee member, said there are now 3000 covenants covering about 100,000hectares (ha).

Early critics said it would be impossible to get landowners to voluntary lock up their own private land in perpetuity without compensation, but it worked, he said. The key to the success of the trust was people who had the courage and conviction to sign their land into covenants, which now protected a wide diversity of natural environments.

Prince Andrew said the

achievements of the trust in its 30 years were remarkable.

“The fact that so many of you have decided to covenant unique bits of this country in perpetuity is not only to be congratulated, but must be encouraged further. This and other covenants are going to allow future generations to experience what New Zealand has to offer for years to come.”

QEII Trust Chairman Sir Brian Lochore said establishing the trust had taken incredible foresight and innovation, and great generosity on the part of landowners.

“It is a wonderful legacy for the future of New Zealand and you can all be incredibly proud of what each of you has done.”

Prince Andrew cut a cake decorated with a map of New Zealand showing all the covenanted areas, and helped schoolchildren plant two rimu.

The QEII National Trust was established under legislation in 1977 to encourage the protection of open space.

About 70% of New Zealand (about 19 million hectares) is privately owned, and most

threatened habitats are on privately owned lowlands – so the trust’s work is crucial is protecting much of New Zealand’s natural heritage.

Landowners retain ownership and management of covenanted land and public access still requires landowners’ permission. The covenant remains in place even if the property changes hands. In return landowners can get help with fencing, pest control, planting, management advice and monitoring.

Lake Pounui, an 81-ha lake on the eastern flanks of the Rimutaka Ranges, was covenanted along with the surrounding 284-ha by its previous owners Evelyn and Don Cameron in 1990 and the covenant is supported by current landowners Annette and Bill Shaw.

The deep lake was formed by gradual back-tipping of the land caused by movement on the Wairarapa fault-line, and is surrounded by unmodified beech forest, wetlands and groves of podocarps.

Helen Bain

The safer way to kill rats and mice.

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F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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Helen Bain

Maungatautari Ecological Trust

conservationbriefs

The tui has landed

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HE world’s biggest tui made its first and only flight in March – on to the roof of Forest & Bird’s central office in Wellington.

The four-metre giant tui was sculpted for Forest & Bird by Wellington prop-makers Izzat Design using polystyrene, steel and resin, and was lifted by crane to its perch on the roof.

The tui, which is depicted about to feed on a kowhai flower, represents Forest & Bird’s tui and kowhai logo, and is sure to become an unmissable icon in central Wellington. Images donated by some of New Zealand’s leading wildlife photographers also form the backdrop to Izzy’s new home.

These photographic images portray the natural environment of New Zealand, highlighting Forest & Bird’s key campaigns. Contributing photographers were Craig Potton, Steve Dawson of the

New Zealand Whale & Dolphin Trust, Rod Morris of Rod Morris Productions, Dave Hansford of Origin Natural History Media, Gilbert van Reenan of Clean Green Images, Simon Woolf of Photography

by Woolf and Jonathan Barran for Project Crimson.

Communications Officer Laura Richards says that when Forest & Bird moved office last year, the organisation wanted to make its presence felt in a way that was at least as eye-catching as its much-loved conservationthemed mural that covered its previous office in Taranaki Street.

“In collaboration with Izzat Design we came up with the idea of a giant tui, and from there it was a major mission to find out exactly how you go about creating a larger-than-life bird. Izzat have made that idea a reality.”

Helen Bain

Hihi back in the Waitakere Ranges

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IHI or stitchbirds were successfully returned to the Auckland mainland in February for the first time in 125 years.

Thirty of the endangered birds were transferred from Tiri Tiri Matangi Island to the Ark in the Park project site at Cascade Kauri Park in the Waitakere Ranges.

Of the thirty birds released, 17 have been seen since the release, although one male was confirmed dead. Juvenile males

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have been seen in the company of one another or with a juvenile female or adult male.

There is currently plenty of natural food available for them including coprosma fruit and pate, lacebark and nikau flowers. Birds have also been seen feeding on kahikatea and horopito fruit for the first time.

The majority of sightings have come from listening for their calls while walking the tracks at the site.

Whitebait return to Maungatautari

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HREE species of endangered native freshwater fish (kokopu) were returned to Maungatautari in the Waikato in April after an approximately 60 year absence.

It was also the first time that banded kokopu have been released back to the wild. The transfer was made possible with expert assistance from Waikato whitebait farmers Jan and Charles Mitchell and funding from the Waikato Catchment Ecological Enhancement Trust.

Ten shortjaw, 40 giant and 200 banded kokopu were transferred from the Mitchells’ aquaculture farm at Raglan into streams within Maungatautari’s Xcluder pest proof fenced enclosures.

Maungatautari Trust Chief Executive Jim Mylchreest says the return of the kokopu is an important link in recreating, as close as possible, the ecosystem that once existed on

Kokopu being released at Maungatautari.

Maungatautari.

“With the modified landscape of farms and dams between the mountain and the sea the reintroduction of fish would not have occurred naturally, therefore we are extremely fortunate that Charles and Jan have been breeding kokopu – and on our doorstep. The ancestors of the kokopu that have been returned would have lived on the mountain – it is a real homecoming.”

The pest proof fence around Maungatautari includes specially designed Xcluder culverts which are placed at all water outlets. Each has hinged gates covered in five millimetre by 40 millimetre aperture heavy grade woven mesh which allows the movement of young native fish in and out of the reserve to mature and breed, while stopping all introduced mammalian predators from entering.

Hihi or stitchbird

Michael Szabo

The world’s biggest tui

The transfer was undertaken as part of the Ark in the Park project, a partnership between Forest & Bird and Auckland Regional Council, supported by the Department

of Conservation, Auckland Zoo Conservation Fund, Waitakere City Council, ASB Community Trust and Waitakere and Portage Licensing Trusts.

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conservationbriefs

New bird distribution atlas maps changes HE Ornithological Society of New Zealand (OSNZ) has completed the most comprehensive survey of the distribution of New Zealand’s bird species ever produced.

The Atlas of Bird Distribution is due to be published in August and shows that, of 137 bird species mapped previously in 1985, 45 have increased and 33 have reduced their distribution significantly.

The majority of the reductions (25) are among the endemic species. The increases have been quite evenly spread among endemic (15), native (12), introduced (17) and migrant (1) species.

The tui – the bird species in Forest & Bird’s logo – is one of the species showing an increase in distribution.

The mapping techniques used also show that even among birds with a plentiful distribution, there are signs of localised reductions as areas of important habitat are changed.

The 500 page atlas contains more than 1800 maps covering

over 200 endemic, native, migratory and introduced bird species and is the result of five years of extensive surveying by more than 800 people throughout the country.

The OSNZ published its first Atlas of Bird Distribution in 1985 (covering the years 1969-1979), and these old distribution maps are reproduced alongside the new maps to demonstrate visible changes in the bird distribution throughout the country over some 35 years.

Lead author Christopher Robertson says seasonal and breeding data is provided for each of the birds and there is a full section devoted to habitat use. “Using the latest mapping techniques they have explored our national biodiversity for birds to demonstrate a statistical snapshot view of the hotspot areas round New Zealand which require consideration for conservation management and protection.

It is also a good guide to where to find the birds that interest you.”

Touchy feely kiwi

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CIENTISTS have found that kiwi are virtually blind and rely on touch and smell rather than vision when foraging for food.

Professor Graham Martin from the University of Birmingham’s School of Biosciences, along with a team from the Universities of Lincoln and Auckland, has shown that kiwi’s eyes are very small and that their visual fields are the smallest yet recorded in any bird, which is very unusual for a nocturnal bird species.

The parts of a kiwi’s brain that serve vision are also found to be virtually non-existent, making their brains unique among birds.

However, the parts of the brain that are devoted to touch and smell are large.

Kiwi are the only birds to have nostrils at the end of their beaks and the research

bird distribution in New Zealand 1999–2004

C J R Robertson P Hyvönen M J Fraser C R Pickard

Forest & Bird is pleased to announce an exclusive special pre-publication purchase offer to members. All orders received by 2 July 2007 will receive a 30% reduction off the cover price. Cheques payable to OSNZ for $75.00 (including GST and postage) should be sent to OSNZ ATLAS, PO Box 12397, Wellington 6144, New Zealand, by 2 July 2007. Delivery is scheduled for late August 2007.

North Island brown kiwi

has found that around these nostril openings there is a high density of touch receptors.

“We had heard anecdotal stories of blind kiwi living in a forest on New Zealand South Island. I was sceptical, but these new findings suggest that it could well be true,” Professor Graham Martin from the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Ornithology, says.

By combining new information about eye structure and visual fields, with new information about bill and brain structure, the team have shown that kiwi are out on an avian evolutionary limb. “These birds get most of their information from their bill tip, not through their eyes as other birds do.

From the sensory point of view kiwi look more like small mammals, rather than birds,” he says.

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Rod Morris

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conservationbriefs

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ROUND 100 Hutton’s shearwater (titi) chicks were moved to Kaikoura Peninsula in March in the third phase of an attempt to establish a new breeding colony for the endangered seabird species.

The Hutton’s shearwater chicks were taken from the existing Te Uerau Nature Reserve colony in the Seaward Kaikoura Ranges to the peninsula where they were placed in burrows built for them. They stayed there for several weeks, being daily handfed a mashed sardine mixture through a syringe, until they fledged and migrated to waters off Australia.

Last year 80 chicks fledged from the peninsula burrows after being moved there and 10 fledged from there in 2005.

The transfer was coordinated

by Department of Conservation Species Programme Manager,

Steve Cranwell, who says the new breeding colony is being set up to help secure the long term survival of the species.

The existing two colonies in the Seaward Kaikoura Range are vulnerable to events such as landslides which could lead to the extinction of the species.

“This attempt to establish a third breeding ground for Hutton’s shearwater is a trial.

Its success will be determined by whether or not the titi chicks that fledged from the peninsula colony site return there to breed,” he says.

“The chicks have to be moved before they are ready to fly as they would recognise the burrows they fledged from as their home breeding ground.

They will return to breed when they reach breeding age four to five years after fledging. It will be 2009 or 2010 before the first of them might come back

Rod Morris

New shearwater colony for Kaikoura

Hutton’s shearwater in the Seaward Kaikoura Range

and we will know if this has succeeded.”

The Department of Conservation, Te Runanga O Kaikoura, Whale Watch Kaikoura, Kaikoura District Council and local Forest & Bird members are involved in the project to establish the new breeding colony on land owned

by Whale Watch Kaikoura at the south-eastern end of Kaikoura Peninsula.

“We had fantastic support from the Kaikoura community last year. People volunteered with feeding the chicks or came to watch and a number of businesses assisted, providing services for free such as supplying food for volunteers,” Steve Cranwell says.

A further and final transfer of another 100 or so Hutton’s shearwater chicks is planned next year.

Coromandel’s newest wildlife sanctuary

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N 1973, potter, conservationist and engineer Barry Brickell bought a 22-hectare (ha) block of hilly, scrub-covered land at Driving Creek district three kilometres north of Coromandel Town. It was here that he had a vision for its development and to combine art, conservation and engineering.

Today, he feels that his vision has been realised. The handcraft pottery and sculpture studios attract international artists, the native forest restoration project is ongoing with 30-year-old kauri and podocarp trees visible close to the railway which thousands of tourists see at close quarters as they glide past on the trains.

He established the Driving Creek Wildlife Sanctuary Trust

in 1997 to attract funding for a new conservation project of vital importance and donated the 1.6-ha area to the Trust. A QEII National Trust covenant now applies to the Trust’s land as well as to the major catchment area above through which the railway runs.

To date, a lake and adjacent wetland have been created, thousands of native shrubs and trees planted and pathways created. There is, however, a shortfall in the funding of the pest-proof fence.

A resident caretaker manages pest control operations at the site such as trapping, poisoning and weed control, but without the fence Barry Brickell fears it will not be possible to conserve, breed and relocate the

threatened species of reptile, amphibian, insect, freshwater fish and bird species which were once common on the Coromandel Peninsula.

To assist with obtaining funding for the fence, a “Friends of the Sanctuary” group has been set up which produces a newsletter and offers incentives to people wishing to donate towards the cause.

To date, a pair of pateke (brown teal) have chosen the lake to breed and raise five clutches of ducklings. The predation rate has decreased here as more pest controls have been put in place. The latest clutch resulted in eight ducklings, but their survival is tenuous until the fence is complete.

Become a friend of the Driving Creek Wildlife Sanctuary Trust Individual membership $20 per year, $60 for 5 years. Family: $30 per year, $80 for 5 years. Donations over $100 are recorded on a plaque to be displayed. Donations under $100 recorded in a commemorative book.

All proceeds will go towards the pest-proof fence. A newsletter will be distributed. railway@driving creek.co.nz. • ph/fax 07 866 8703 • P O Box 87 Coromandel 3543.

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conservationbriefs

Kim Westerskov

Trevally

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OREST & Bird welcomed the Government’s approval of the new Tapuae Marine Reserve off the Taranaki coast in April.

The new reserve was announced by Conservation Minister Chris Carter and Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton and will protect 1426-hectares (ha) of coastal waters near New Plymouth from Herekawe Stream to Tapuae Stream.

Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles said Forest & Bird and the Nga Motu Marine Reserve Society have been advocating for the establishment of the reserve for many years and were delighted that their efforts have finally paid off.

“This is a huge gain for marine conservation. Protection of marine biodiversity must take account of the whole marine ecosystem from the sea surface to the seabed, which this reserve will rightly do”.

Kirstie Knowles says everyone – including fishers – win with the establishment of marine

reserves because they safeguard the future of a healthy marine environment.

“Given the opportunity, marine reserves can help restore fish populations. They also provide for scientific research and education, and can attract recreational visitors,” Kirstie Knowles said.

Although Tapuae is the 17th marine reserve to be established since 2003, less than 1% of New Zealand’s coastal waters are protected within a marine reserve. Forest & Bird wants to see a comprehensive network of marine reserves established to protect a full range of marine species, habitats and ecosystems.

“The Tapuae Marine Reserve is a great step, but we would also like to see the Government meet its target of protecting 10% of coastal waters in marine reserves by 2010. Then we could really celebrate,” Kirstie Knowles said.

The new reserve contains a variety of marine environments that are not represented in other marine reserves and will be a haven for more than 80 species of fish.

Ann Cartman

Tapuae marine reserve approved Ranunculus acraeus coming into bloom.

New alpine plant species

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RARE and beautiful alpine buttercup with large yellow flowers has been identified in North Otago mountain ranges.

Landcare Research botanist Dr Peter Heenan has named it Ranunculus acraeus. The plants are up to 50-centimetres (cm) across, and form numerous shoots with brilliant yellow blooms five cm wide.

R. acraeus is found on boulder fields above 1500metres on mountains mainly to the south of the Waitaki Valley in North Otago. The largest population of about 200 plants was found on Mt St Mary in St Mary’s Range. Much smaller populations of three to four plants only were found on mountains around the Ohau skifield and near Tekapo.

Older herbarium specimens of what is now known as R. acraeus were collected from the Hawkdun Range.

Peter Heenan says based on current distribution and abundance information, the newly described R. acraeus qualifies as acutely threatened and nationally critical.

“However, field surveys are needed for more accurate knowledge on the distribution, abundance and threats the plants face.”

“Introduced herbivores, particularly thar and chamois, are known threats to the new buttercup, just as they are to other alpine plants such as the Mt Cook lily. While our team was researching R. acraeus in its habitat, we witnessed browsing damage, and thar were nearby,” he says.

“The find caps off a long list of new discoveries in the past six years, which shows there is still much to learn about our native plants.”

COATES WILDLIFE TOURS “Specialists in Nature Tours”

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Informative Naturalist/Birding leaders – Small groups – scheduled tours or private charters.

A choice of either fully accomodated or camping land based tours.

Inspiring NATURAL HISTORY destinations include: Exploring the rugged Australian outback, West Australia’s Kimberley, Pilbara and Queensland’s Cape York.

Experience the birdlife and spectacular wildflower display through the Mid and South West Regions of West Australia.

We also visit the naturally spectacular Christmas, Lord Howe and Abrohlos Islands plus the wildlife hotspots of Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Antarctica and Borneo.

For your copy of our 2007/2008 tour brochure contact Tom or Sylvia E-MAIL: coates@iinet.net.au • WEB: www.coateswildlifetours.com.au TEL: (61 8) 9330 6066 • FAX: (61 8) 9330 6077 Suite B8 Attadale Business Centre 550 Canning Highway, Attadale, West Australia 6156 GSA Coates Tour Licence no. 9ta1135/36

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World Heritage New Zealand UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee will meet in Christchurch from 23 June to 2 July to decide on future sites to be declared World Heritage Areas. New Zealand is expected to announce its Tentative List in the run up to the meeting. In this issue we showcase three of the sites Forest & Bird is campaigning for to be declared World Heritage Areas.

Mt Ruapehu, Tongariro World Heritage Area

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HE World Heritage Convention was adopted by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 1972 with New Zealand becoming a signatory in 1984. The Convention seeks to ensure the protection and conservation of cultural and natural heritage by establishing a list of World Heritage places and properties which are deemed to be of “outstanding universal value”. There are now 788 listed sites (611 cultural, 154 natural and 23 mixed natural/ cultural).

Fiordland National Park and Aoraki/Mt Cook and Westland/Tai Poutini National Parks were accepted for World Heritage listing in 1986. These three national parks, together with Mt Aspiring National Park and the magnificent temperate rainforests of South Westland were subsequently renominated as part of the larger 2.56

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million hectare (ha) Te Waipounamu/ South West New Zealand site and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1990.

This was the climax of Forest & Bird’s successful campaign to protect South Westland’s rainforests from logging, have them added to the public conservation estate, and their international significance clearly acknowledged.

Tongariro National Park was accepted as a natural property on the World Heritage list in 1990, recognising the park’s outstanding volcanic phenomena and its record of volcanic eruptions.

The additional listing of Tongariro as a cultural site in 1993 recognised the cultural significance of the mountains of Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe to Ngati Tuwharetoa, the tribe’s continuous association with them, and the gifting of their summits to the Crown by Te Heuheu Tukino in 1887 to create New Zealand’s first national park.

New Zealand’s third World Heritage Area was listed in 1998. It comprises the five island groups of New Zealand’s

subantarctic islands – Auckland, Campbell, Snares, Antipodes and Bounty islands and their surrounding territorial sea.

The increasing workload of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in evaluating nominations for new sites and monitoring the protection of listed sites means it will now only consider nominations for new sites if they are on a state’s Tentative List of potential World Heritage sites.

In early 2005 the Department of Conservation sought public comment on six areas proposed for inclusion in New Zealand’s Tentative List of future World Heritage areas. Four were cultural sites – Waitangi Treaty House and grounds, the Papamoa Pa complex, Napier’s art deco historic precinct, and the port and central business district of Oamaru. Only two were natural sites – the Kermadec Islands and Marine Reserve and Kahurangi National Park and Farewell Spit.

Both clearly merit World Heritage status. In addition, Forest & Bird has proposed that a 160,000-ha area of the central Southern Alps and Canterbury w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Criteria for assessment of natural sites

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NESCO guidelines for implementing the World Heritage Convention require that natural sites nominated as being of outstanding universal value meet one or more of the following criteria: • contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance; • be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features; • be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;

Rod Morris

• contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

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Erect-crested penguins.

Ord Lees colony, Antipodes Subantarctic World Heritage Area

Rod Morris

high country between and including the Rangitata and Rakaia rivers, the rivers’ headwater mountain ranges, and intermontane basins has outstanding universal values which deserve listing as a World Heritage Area.

The University of Canterbury and astronomers are also promoting the skies above the Mackenzie Basin for World Heritage status because of the area’s clear, dark night-time skies, absence of dust and light pollution, and the ability to see the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds.

The Government is expected to announce New Zealand’s Tentative List prior to the 31st session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Christchurch from 23 June to 2 July. New Zealand, represented by Tumu Te Heuheu, currently chairs the 21-country Committee.

The meeting will be attended by more than 600 delegates representing the 178 states which are party to the Convention, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and the International Council on Monuments (ICOMOS).

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Kermadec Islands

Forest & Bird has high hopes these Islands will be included on New Zealand’s World Heritage Area Tentative List. Michael Szabo sets the out the case for their inclusion.

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REMOTE volcanic world where seabirds nest in nikau groves and sharks throng over the coral, the Kermadec Islands lie a thousand kilometres north-east of the coast of Northland marking the point where temperate New Zealand meets the subtropical Pacific.

Closer to Tonga than the North Island, the Kermadecs are our northernmost land and territorial seas – the nearest to a classic “tropical paradise” you’ll find in New Zealand.

These 15 islands named after Captain Kermadec are the tips of a chain of huge submarine volcanoes, known as the Kermadec Ridge, which rise to a height of 8000 to 10,000 metres from the Kermadec Trench as part of the “Pacific Ring of Fire”.

Two of the islands, Raoul and Curtis, are

Green turtle and two-spot desmoiselles, Kermadec Islands

still active volcanoes with Raoul erupting as recently as 2006 and before that in 1964, and Curtis Island still belching gases into the air and hot water into the sea. This is one of the most active earthquake zones in New Zealand with earthquakes a daily occurrence on Raoul Island.

As with other volcanic oceanic islands, such as the Galapagos and Hawaiian Islands, the Kermadecs are a crucible of evolution with a high degree of endemism.

At 2900-hectares(ha) Raoul Island (Rangitahua) is the jewel in the Kermadec crown. Along with the other main islands of Macauley, Curtis, Cheeseman and the Meyer Islands it is strictly protected as part of the Kermadec Islands Nature Reserve.

The plant life in these islands is internationally significant because of its

Kim Westerskov

Blue shark

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unique assemblage of species of subtropical and temperate origins, and the number of endemic taxa which have evolved – and are still evolving – on the islands.

The indigenous plants here have been shaped by isolation and periodic volcanic activity, combining to form distinctive ecological communities. Volcanic activity has resulted in an unusual community of indigenous grasses and herbs along the cliffs of Raoul Island, for instance, which is associated with high temperatures and other often unfavourable conditions.

Of the 115 indigenous plants found in the islands, 23 are endemic, including two species of tree fern, Cyathea milnei and the rare and declining Cyathea kermadecensis.

Despite the distance from the mainland, the affinities of these plants are overwhelmingly with New Zealand. Over 100 plants and ferns are common to both areas and there are also affinities with plants on Norfolk Island and tropical areas further north.

The subtropical moist forest on Raoul Island is dominated by two endemic species closely related to species on the New Zealand mainland: groves of Kermadec nikau palms and mixed forest with a 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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Roger Grace

Roger Grace

Lionfish

Juvenile grey angelfish

such “tropical” bird species as red-tailed tropicbird (amokura), masked booby and a variety of noddy and tern species. There is also a recognizably distinct population of Kermadec red-crowned parakeet (kakariki).

Declaring the Kermadec Islands and its surrounding seas a World Heritage Area would not only promote greater international recognition of their combined outstanding universal values, but would also complete the span of major habitats represented in New Zealand’s World Heritage network.

Michael Szabo is Forest & Bird’s Communications Manager and editor of Forest & Bird magazine. This article draws on the Department of Conservation’s 2004 World Heritage Areas consultation document and articles by Malcolm Francis and Brent Stephenson.

White-naped petrel

Brent Stephenson

Kim Westerskov

canopy of Kermadec pohutukawa. The pohutukawa dominated forest has a varied understorey which includes Kermadec karamu, Kermadec ngaio, Kermadec tutu and Kermadec five finger.

One of the world’s rarest plants – Hebe breviracemosa – occurs on Raoul Island and has only two small populations.

With many of the plants associated with both Norfolk and Raoul Islands now endangered on Norfolk Island, the Kermadec Islands are increasingly important as a repository for these species.

The 748,000-ha Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve that surrounds the islands was established in 1990 following a campaign by Forest & Bird and others during the mid to late 1980s. It is one of the largest and longest established strictly protected marine areas in the world. It protects marine habitats over a huge range, from the sandy beaches and rocky reefs of the coastal zone down to the deep ocean floor over 2000-metres below.

Given its relatively intact state, the marine environment here ranks among the most pristine in New Zealand, and is on a par with New Zealand’s Subantarctic Islands World Heritage Area. The position the Kermadec Islands occupy between tropical Pacific islands and the temperate New Zealand mainland means an unusual variety of tropical, subtropical and temperate marine species occur here.

Sublime tropical fishes include the flamboyant lionfish which lives alongside species familiar from the New Zealand mainland such as blue maomao. Spotted black grouper in the Kermadecs form one of the last surviving populations in the world of these spectacular fish which can grow up to two metres in length and live for perhaps 100 years.

Of the 165 marine fish species recorded here, five are endemic to the islands with a sixth – a recently discovered orange species

Roger Grace

of brotula – awaiting scientific description.

A further six species are endemic to the Norfolk-Kermadec region.

The diversity and abundance of sharks is also remarkable, and includes Galapagos, tiger, smooth, hammerhead, smalltooth sandtiger, blue and mako sharks, and a recently discovered endemic spiny dogfish, Squalus raoulensis.

Marine mammals that occur here include bottlenose and common dolphins and Fraser’s dolphin, making this the only area of New Zealand where this species has been recorded. Migratory humpback, sei, minke and sperm whales also occur.

The marine ecosystems around the Kermadec Islands are unique, having a rich blend of tropical, subtropical, temperate and endemic species. Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, located at similar latitudes in the north Tasman Sea, have the most similar floras and faunas. Numerically, the subtropical and endemic species dominate the shallow marine communities of the Kermadecs.

Like the Campbell and Auckland Islands in the Subantarctic Islands World Heritage Area, the Kermadecs are oceanic.

Because the Kermadecs were geologically recently formed, and are not located on the continental shelf, they have never been physically connected to the New Zealand mainland or continental Australia, and so lack endemic reptile and mammal species.

Historically, the islands supported millions of breeding seabirds, nesting in the islands’ forests, on the ground and in underground burrows, their guano helping to fertilise the islands’ soils.

Today, the world’s largest breeding populations of Kermadec petrel, whitenaped petrel and black-winged petrel are found in the Kermadec Islands.

Twenty one indigenous bird species breed on Raoul Island, including four endemics. Curtis and Macauley Islands contain the world’s largest populations of Kermadec little shearwater and blackwinged petrel. Macauley is the only breeding site of the globally threatened endemic white-naped petrel and the Kermadec and white-bellied storm petrels.

The islands are the only breeding site within the New Zealand region for

Black spotted grouper

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Kahurangi and Farewell Spit Andy Dennis describes why this extensive large wilderness area comprising nearly 500,000-hectares of mountain landscapes and native flora and fauna deserves World Heritage status. recognized by the Ramsar Convention as internationally important, both as an outstanding landform and as one of New Zealand’s most important coastal wetland habitats for migratory wading birds.

Prior to the creation of Kahurangi National Park in 1996 the former Northwest Nelson Forest Park was mainly known for its magnificent network of tracks and huts and for the very deep and extensive labyrinths of caves that were gradually being discovered beneath Mt Arthur and Mt Owen.

Then, during the campaign to create the park, increasing numbers of New Zealanders became aware that few (if any) other parts of New Zealand fulfilled the spectrum of criteria for national parks

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as comprehensively as this north-west corner of the South Island. In much the same way the combination of these two areas also presents a compelling case for World Heritage nomination, the more so since there are potential grounds for qualification under each of the four criteria prescribed by UNESCO for the nomination of natural areas.

Among its foundations the park contains by far the best sequence of ancient (Palaeozoic) rocks in New Zealand and these in turn contain the country’s oldest fossils. This complex suite of ancient rocks

Ice pick: a weka feeds in the snow.

Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai/Rod Morris

Great spotted kiwi have their stronghold north of the Buller River.

Moria gate (or Little Arch), the smallest of three superb limestone arches in the forested lowland Oparara Basin near Karamea.

Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai

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AHURANGI National Park extends from the Buller River in the vicinity of Murchison to the base of Farewell Spit at the north-west tip of the South Island. Incorporating the geological diversity of the ancient rocks of the Tasman Mountains and striking marble landscapes of the eastern Arthur Range, the park covers 452,881-hectares of rugged mountains, densely forested valleys, dramatic high tablelands and plateaux, and, in the west, the only remaining section of true wilderness coast left anywhere in central or northern New Zealand.

At its northernmost point the park adjoins the Farewell Spit Nature Reserve, whose 30 kilometres of sand spit and 10,000-hectares of tidal flats have been

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Andy Dennis

that regularly changes dramatically from one range to the next; and the 30km long “kiwi’s beak” of Farewell Spit which encloses Golden Bay in an outstanding example of the process of long-shore drift.

In part because it is located at the country’s most significant ecological cross-roads (the meeting place of warmer north and cooler south, drier east and wetter west), and in part because this northwest corner of the South Island contained important refuges for plants and animals during the recurrent ice ages of the past two million years, Kahurangi National Park is also one of the country’s most important areas for safeguarding the future of many unique plants and animals including prominent examples of our Gondwana heritage.

Almost half of New Zealand’s 2500 or so species of higher plants have been recorded within the boundaries of the park, including 80% of the country’s 630 or so alpine species. The park also has one of the highest levels of plant endemism in New Zealand (at least 64 species, with many more occurring in closely adjoining areas), upwards of 120 threatened species, and around 100 native tress, shrubs and alpine plants that reach their northern or southern limits within or close to its boundaries.

Notable examples of indigenous animals that have their principal or only habitats within the park and are of “outstanding universal value” include the threatened endemic great spotted kiwi and giant carnivorous Powelliphanta land snails.

Great spotted kiwi, which have always been restricted to the South Island, are now confined to the northwestern ranges as far south as Arthur’s Pass, with their main stronghold north of the Buller River.

Kahurangi National Park is the main centre of evolution and speciation of Powelliphanta – whose ancestry extends back 235 million years and which snail scientist Kath Walker has described as being “as uniquely New Zealand” as the kiwi – with almost half of the 64 known taxa confined to sites within the park.

Threatened endemic kea and rock wren reach the northern limit of their range in the park; rock wren reside in the Henderson Basin area and kea reach the northern end of the Mt Arthur Range. Other threatened endemic species that occur within the park include weka, whio (blue duck) and New Zealand falcon (karearea).

Farewell Spit Nature Reserve provides habitat of “outstanding universal value” for threatened endemic black stilts (kaki) and black-fronted terns (tarapiroe), as well as the thousands of eastern bar-tailed godwits, lesser knots and turnstones which annually migrate here from their northern breeding grounds in Siberia and Alaska.

High quartzite bluffs on the Garibaldi Ridge at the southern boundary of the Tasman Wilderness Area.

And while these tiny global travellers currently enjoy the highest possible level of protection while resident at Farewell Spit, inluding this huge sand spit in a larger North-West Nelson-Kahurangi World Heritage Area would only assist the urgent task of protecting critical estuarine stopover areas along their East Asian Flyway, the relentless pollution and modification of which poses by far the greatest threat to their future survival.

Andy Dennis is a Nelson-based writer, photographer and nature guide, and a committee member of Forest & Bird’s Nelson Branch.

Farewell Spit

Andy Dennis

Andy Dennis

offers important insights into the tectonic history of this part of the Earth over the past 500 million years, while the fossils enable us to catch rare glimpses of some of the slowly evolving primitive life scattered over more than 200 million years of our most distant past. The oldest of these fossils are of slater-like marine creatures called trilobites, the earliest known representatives of the large arthropod group, which have been preserved in 530 million year old Cambrian rocks in the Cobb Valley. Other notable early fossils found within the park include brachiopods (also of Cambrian age) and 450 million year old (Ordovician) graptolites.

At the other end of the geological time scale the Honeycomb Hill cave in the much more recent (formed 30 million years ago) tertiary limestone of the Oparara basin near Karamea contains by far the richest store of sub-fossil bones that has so far been discovered in New Zealand. Included in this bone-treasure have been almost 60 different species of birds, more than a third of which are now extinct and in most cases have become extinct since human settlement (including nine species of moa).

These and other bones recovered from numerous caves spread across both the lowland and upland regions of the park (including a complete skeleton of the extinct giant New Zealand eagle Haptogornis moorei recovered from a cave on Mt Owen) have made a major contribution to knowledge of New Zealand’s terrestrial fauna in the periods both prior to and following human settlement.

Another legacy of the complex geology of the north-west corner of the South Island is its wonderful diversity of dramatic landforms, which in some cases are very clearly of international significance. The most obvious examples of these occur in the marble mountains of the Arthur Range and Mt Owen, which contain some of the deepest and longest cave systems in the Southern Hemisphere (Nettlebed Cave on Mt Arthur is almost 900 metres deep while Bulmer Cave on Mt Owen contains some 55 kilometres of passages and shafts), the best examples (again in the Southern Hemisphere) of glaciated karst terrain, and in Bulmer and Bohemia caves (both on Mt Owen) superlative manifestations of cave geomorphology.

Other notable Kahurangi landforms include a magnificent suite of tablelands and plateaux some of which are “exhumed” peneplain surfaces from about 60 million years ago when low-lying ancestral New Zealand was slowly sinking under the sea; large areas dominated by graphic evidence of recent earthquake-triggered landslips (especially along the Matiri and Karamea river valleys); ridge-crest topography

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Rakaia-Rangitata-Hakatere Eugenie Sage outlines Forest & Bird’s case for an ocean to ocean World Heritage Area taking in the RakaiaRangitata-Hakatere area.

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OREST & Bird’s proposed RakaiaRangitata-Hakatere World Heritage Area sprawls from the main divide of the Southern Alps to the Pacific Ocean.

The 160,000-hectare (ha) area excludes the farmed and highly modified Canterbury Plains but includes the full length of the Rakaia and Rangitata rivers, their headwater ranges such as the Rolleston, Rugged, Armoury, Potts, Cloudy Peaks, Two Thumb, and Jollie ranges, the inland basins of the Hakatere/Ashburton lakes, the upper Hakatere/Ashburton River, the Arrowsmith Range and front country ranges which separate the high country uplands from the plains.

The proposed site adjoins the north-eastern corner of the existing Te Waipounamu South-West New Zealand site. Establishing it would create an ocean to ocean World Heritage continuum, extending from the Tasman Sea and Fiordland’s ancient, rain soaked rocks, north-east across Westland’s glaciers, to the drier greywacke mountains, tussocklands, and braided rivers which spill into the Pacific Ocean.

The upper Rangitata and Rakaia valleys are landscapes of exceptional scenic beauty with panoramic views of big skies, the snow-topped central Southern Alps, expansive riverbed gravels threaded by glistening strands of water, and the grey scree and tawny ochre colours of the lower mountain ranges. These landscapes

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are a legacy of recent ice ages and the rapid uplift of the Southern Alps. They represent the natural processes and elements that are an essential part of the Canterbury high country.

Shaped by glaciers and rivers, the area’s outstanding landforms include cirque basins, U-shaped alpine valleys, moraines including unusual kettlehole moraines, roche moutonees, steep incised valleys with large screes and fans, stepped river terraces, fluvioglacial outwash plains and dramatic gorge systems.

The Rangitata and Rakaia rivers each flow for more than 100 kilometres from their headwaters in the remote, icebound vastness of the central Southern Alps past the inter-montane basins of the Hakatere/ Ashburton lakes to the sea. The dominance of these high altitude, glacial sources make the Rakaia and Rangitata distinctive among the rivers that dissect the Canterbury Plains.

Few other areas in New Zealand have so many different types of wetland and their associated plant and wildlife communities, a result of the area’s complex glacial history and ongoing geological processes associated with braided rivers. The imprint of the Rangitata and Rakaia glaciers and five separate glacial advances between 140,000 to 10,000 years ago is superbly etched in the river valleys and Hakatere/ Ashburton lakes basins.

As the glaciers retreated, they left huge slabs of ice to form kettlehole tarns while the larger hollows behind the glacial moraines have become lakes. Carved, filled and sculpted by glaciers, the area’s landscapes clearly demonstrate their formative geological processes. The glacial sequences are recognised as being unusually complete and very well preserved.

Braided rivers are rare internationally,

Lake Heron

occurring only in New Zealand, Iceland, Siberia, Alaska, Argentina and the Himalayas. They need mountainous, glaciated areas where a combination of natural gravel production, river flows and a gentle gradient allow them to form. The natural instability of braided river systems creates a rich variety of wildlife habitats.

The aquatic invertebrates in the river braids, tributary streams and deltas, and riparian wetlands contribute to the system’s high productivity, providing high value food sources for riverbed birds and native freshwater fish such as the long-jawed galaxiid and alpine galaxiid.

The upper Rangitata and Rakaia rivers are relatively unmodified with largely natural flows and extensive areas of clean, weed free riverbed. Water conservation orders recognise their outstanding landscape and biological values.

In terms of providing significant habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, the Rakaia and Rangitata rivers and the Hakatere/Ashburton lakes represent the largest habitat (more than 70,000ha) for aquatic birdlife in New Zealand, supporting around 40,000 wetland birds at any one time.

The rivers sustain viable populations of almost all braided river bird species.

They support more than 80% of the world population of the threatened endemic wrybill, more than 10% of the threatened endemic black-fronted tern, and around 5% of the population of the threatened endemic black-billed gull and whitefronted tern. The lakes are habitat for around 20% of the world population of the endemic New Zealand scaup and 20% of the national population of the indigenous Australasian crested grebe.

At least 12 other threatened bird species w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Don Geddes

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It could also encourage DOC to “fill the gaps” by being more strategic in protecting key habitats and landscapes through tenure review, seeking legal protection for the riverbeds as conservation land, and implementing more coordinated and effective management of recreation, and weed and pest threats such as Himalayan thar.

Eugenie Sage is a former Forest & Bird South Island Field Coordinator.

Don Geddes

damaging the habitats of threatened plants.

Weed encroachment and ongoing demands for irrigation water affect the rivers.

Currently, protected lands east of the Southern Alps are a fraction of the extent of the much more comprehensively protected western side. Including the RakaiaRangitata-Hakatere area in New Zealand’s Tentative List would promote greater New Zealand, as well as international, recognition of the outstanding universal values east of the Alps.

Alpine buttercup

Wrybill breed on braided riverbeds

Don Geddes

occur, as well as one species of native bat, four threatened lizard species and more than 20 threatened plant species.

Extensive tussock grasslands and mixed tussock-shrubland communities characterise montane and subalpine areas.

Narrow leaved snow tussock and slim snow tussock are widespread. They and the mixed tussock and shrubland communities provide habitat for a diverse invertebrate fauna including moths and grasshoppers.

Scree slopes support a range of specialised endemics adapted to the demanding environment such as Haast’s buttercup, the black cotula, and the penwiper plant.

Gravel riverbeds are another challenging environment for plants with little shade or relief from the sun’s baking summer heat, and strong dessicating nor’west winds.

Freshes and minor floods can turn and sort the river gravels at almost any time of the year, uprooting all but the deepestrooted plants. Despite the challenging environment, braided riverbeds and their wetland margins are habitat for least 100 indigenous plant species. Their growth forms are especially adapted to braided rivers with species such as Myositis uniflora and several Raoulia species forming low cushions, and Muehlenbeckia axillaris, an important food plant for butterflies and moths, forming wiry mats up to four metres across.

The 32,000-ha Rakaia and 18,000-ha Rangitata riverbeds are unoccupied Crown land managed by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) with no formal protection despite their international significance.

Much of the rest of the area is conservation land, including 10,000-ha of former pastoral lease land protected through tenure review.

Grazing and the clearance of indigenous vegetation for pastoral farming development continue to degrade wetlands, riparian margins and tussockland on pastoral lease land. Increasing off-road vehicle use is scarring landscapes, and

19

Fiordland’s lost world Tony Jewell visits New Zealand’s newest reptile hot spot.

Two adult Sinbad skinks basking at 1600 metres, Barrier Knob, Darran Mountains

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AVE you ever looked at one of those postcard photos of Mitre Peak, or stood with the tourists on the shoreline at Milford Sound and wondered, when the cloud finally rolled back from our most majestic landscape, what creatures could possibly make their home among those harrowingly steep mountain sides?

Rod Morris

The Sinbad Gully forms the eastern flank of Mitre Peak and from Milford is seen to be a spectacular U-shaped valley.

At around 1100-1200-metres (m) above sea level there is a beautiful hanging basin, sides and head enclosed by vertical 20m high rock walls, waterfalls cascading down to the rock-strewn alpine garden below, and the foot itself descending sharply down hill.

The steep terrain enclosing the upper Sinbad Gully, combined with an extreme rainfall and cold winter climate, have for many years held back the invasion by introduced mammalian predators and browsers from below. The result is a refuge, a “lost world” teeming with fabulous creatures, a totally different fauna to the meagre sample of birds and cicadas, and the rather more generous offering of sand flies, that capture the attention of tourists back in Milford.

Sadly, kakapo never quite made it up into this haven; the last of the Sinbad population sought refuge from rats and stoats by scrambling up the step that leads to the basin but stopped there, and had to be removed in the mid 1970s to help establish secure offshore island populations. Luckily weka did find their

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Cascade gecko

way up and now greet visitors, as do the rock wrens, with a close and seemingly fearless inspection.

Among the list of colourful invertebrates found here are a giant 12-centimetre alpine slug coloured green with a bright yellow head; earthworms as thick as fingers that shine iridescent green and blue in the sun; green-spotted peripatus; harvestmen with legspans that overlap an outstretched hand; two-centimetre-long weevils striped with black and white; wingless stoneflies and craneflies; assorted day-flying moths; jewellike orb web spiders; and on the bluffs, an assortment of cave weta that shower down on to approaching climbers.

My own first visit to the Sinbad, in 2004, was to follow up a sighting of the undescribed “cascade gecko” which is endemic to north Fiordland and south Westland, seen by rock climbers about 150m up a slightly overhanging rock wall. My team was unable to locate any geckos then but we did pick up a striking new species of skink which was large in size and coloured black, decorated with green blotches across its back and a bright orange-pink belly. It was under a rock on the valley floor, but when further searching found no additional evidence of the species we began to suspect that it may normally live up on the valley’s steep walls.

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Rod Morris

Head in the clouds: Cascade gecko habitat

diversity of the Sinbad can endure this new invasion will be a cruel experiment unless effective predator control operations, or even a new mainland island initiative, can be established here.

Tony Jewell is making a documentary about Sinbad Gully.

Rod Morris

lone specimen was found among subalpine vegetation at the western portal of Homer Tunnel. This “Homer fern weevil” represents only the second population of Megacolabus known to survive on the South Island, its vulnerability to rodent predation having led to extinction almost everywhere else.

The rate at which new species are turning up in Fiordland is remarkable, and suggests that we still do not fully know the fauna of Fiordland. These discoveries are of relatively large and spectacular species, but who knows how many smaller and more cryptic invertebrates are still being overlooked?

Since my first visit to the Sinbad Gully in 2004, possum sign has increased dramatically. It has taken them over 100 years but these destructive introduced omnivores have finally reached Fiordland’s lost world. That other introduced predators will follow them into this soon-to-fall Garden Of Eden now seems inevitable.

To what extent the vibrant species

Female ground weta

Sinbad skink

Rod Morris

Rod Morris

We also found on this trip two stunning new species of ground weta of the genus Hemiandrus, of which one, at 45millimetres, is significantly larger than any other ground weta. The other is perhaps the most brightly coloured Hemiandrus weta being glossy black with bright red patches and thin white abdominal bands.

Both these weta are common among the rocky garden of the valley floor but only emerge from their subterranean burrows on damp dark nights, so are easily overlooked.

The most recent expedition, in March 2007, turned up another species of skink in the Sinbad, as well as a second example of the Sinbad skink itself. Both were on a steep rock wall. The Sinbad skink had been in an overhanging clump of vegetation and leapt out with the rain of weta as I approached. The new species, which I tentatively refer to here as “black-throated skink” is unique among its relatives, was caught by Trent Bell a few metres away as it sun-basked outside of a deep rock crevice.

This second species is a much smaller animal than the Sinbad skink, and an unassuming drab brown colour above with a murky yellow belly and deeply furrowed scales. A number of cascade geckos were also seen on this trip, proving that what had once seemed to be an inhospitable rock wall actually supports a whole suite of lizard species.

Although, so far, unique for its sheer wealth of undescribed species, the Sinbad Gully is by no means the only site of biological discovery in the general Milford area of Fiordland. The cascade gecko was first discovered by Rod Morris in the Esperance Valley in 1974, and at the same site 30 years on he helped discover a bizarre new ground weta with large webbed spines on its hind legs and robust antennae.

In January 2005, another new skink was photographed by climbers Murray and Bronwyn Judge, this time at Barrier Knob.

A team of researchers led by Trent Bell first suspected it to be a population of Sinbad skinks. But when they captured four specimens in March 2007, they found them to be quite distinct. The tentatively named “Barrier Knob skink” is again large and black, but is more robust than its Sinbad Gully relative, more placid in nature, has a whitish belly, and upper surfaces flecked with tiny cream-coloured specks. The Barrier Knob skink lives at over 1600m elevation on a steep rock wall, just above a semi-permanent ice bank. Again, it shares its home with cascade geckos.

Also on the March 2007 trip, while waiting for the weather to clear so that the helicopter could fly, the team discovered the largest known representative of the endangered weevil genus Megacolabus. The

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Saving Pacific parrots Threatened Pacific parrot species have been handed a lifeline with news that BirdLife International has received major funding towards their conservation from the British Birdwatching Fair. Michael Szabo reports.

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Tim Laman

Ultramarine lorikeet

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Fiji’s critically endangered red-throated parakeet

IRD species throughout the Pacific region are becoming extinct at a higher rate than anywere else in the world, mainly because of predation by invasive species such as rats and cats, but also because of habitat loss, over-hunting and avian malaria.

Over the past 500 years 68 Pacific bird species have become extinct out of a global total of 133.

Today 289 Pacific bird species are globally threatened, with 37 ranked as critically endangered – a quarter of the world’s total in this highest threat category.

Pacific parrot species which have already become extinct are the Raiatea parakeet and Tahiti parakeet which were last seen soon after being recorded on Captain Cook’s 1773 journey and Norfolk Island kaka which was last seen in 1851.

Small species such as parakeets and lorikeets have been lost from smaller islands in French Polynesia and the Cook Islands as rats arrived. On the larger islands of Fiji and New Caledonia smaller parrots have retreated to remote uplands or may w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

even have vanished.

Projects to be helped with the new BirdLife funds include the translocation of 20 Rimatara or Kuhl’s lorikeets from Rimatara, where rats arrived during the building of an airport, to the island of Atiu which has no ship rats. Kuhl’s lorikeets were wiped out on Atiu in the past because of over-hunting for their colourful feathers.

It is hoped a second self-sustaining population will establish on Atiu.

In New Caledonia the Uvea parakeet

Uvea parakeet

Pierre Primot

CINHP/Gerald McCormack

Rimatara or Kuhl’s lorikeet

survives only on one island. Uvea is free of ship rats so funds will be used to prevent ship rats invading the island through improving biosecurity measures, raising public awareness and providing equipment that will help stop rats spreading over the island from shipping wharves.

It is also hoped that signs of the long lost New Caledonia lorikeet will be found in new searches. Only two birds have ever been found, one in 1859 and another in 1913.

Sightings were reported in the 1950s and 1970s but no birds have been found yet.

Similar searches will be made for the long lost critically endangered red-throated parakeet in Fiji.

A cheque for £215,000 (NZ$580,000) was handed to BirdLife International Chief Executive Dr Mike Rands by British Birdwatching Fair organisers in the UK in January to help BirdLife strengthen and raise the capacity of BirdLife Partners in the Pacific Islands, and to help halt parrot declines through identifying and

promoting the protection of parrot habitat through a regional Important Bird Areas (IBA) Programme.

Michael Szabo is a former BirdLife International Communications Manager.

Bill Beckon

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IRDLIFE International has committed to join forces with the South Pacific Environment Programme (SPREP) to save the region’s threatened birds from extinction.

“The Pacific region has more threatened bird species per unit of land area or per person than any other region in the world, and the most extinctions,” BirdLife Pacific Head of Region Don Stewart says.“It is urgent that we protect bird species in the Pacific region. Only coordinated action will help ensure that no further extinctions occur.”

BirdLife International and SPREP have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which commits the two organisations to work together for the next five years.

“SPREP and BirdLife share a common

vision: that partnerships are key to species conservation,” Asterio Takesy, Director of SPREP says.

SPREP is a regional organisation established by the governments and administrations of the Pacific region to safeguard the environment. It is the Pacific region’s major intergovernmental organisation charged with protecting and managing the environment and natural resources.

The MOU will link the conservation actions of the two organisations: SPREP’s work on bird conservation under its Regional Bird Conservation Strategy and BirdLife’s work through the Important Bird Areas Programme and Globally Threatened Species Programme.

“Over 95% of the world’s recent bird extinctions have occurred on islands and around 30% of Pacific birds are threatened with extinction,” Don Stewart says.

K D Bishop

Pacific threatened birds rescue plan

New Caledonia’s endemic kagu

“This partnership will help us hone our efforts, marking a maximum impact in the conservation work both alliances are undertaking.”

The Memorandum of Understanding agreement took place in Apia, Samoa.

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F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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Shark trek Satellite tracking of great white sharks in New Zealand waters has revealed for the first time that they can swim to New Caledonia and southern Vanuatu in just a few weeks.

Researchers Malcolm Francis, Ramon Bonfil, Clinton Duffy, Michael Manning, Shannon O’Brien,­ Barbara Mangold and Heather Fener present their findings.

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REAT white sharks are arguably the most recognisable sharks on the planet. But because of their sometimes bad eating habits, they don’t always get a good press. It could even be said that they have an image problem. White sharks have been the subject of numerous movies, books, articles, and scientific papers, and everyone, it seems, knows lots about them.

Or do they?

When we critically examine our accumulated knowledge, we find that we know surprisingly little about the biology, behaviour and population status of this charismatic shark. White sharks are apex predators (they eat large fish and marine mammals), and because of energy loss in the food chain, their population size must be substantially less than that of their prey. White sharks appear to be declining in most of their world range, but it is very difficult to count or monitor them, and there is no information on whether the New Zealand population is increasing, stable or declining.

Understanding our shark populations WE do know that white sharks grow slowly and do not produce many young (females don’t mature until they are about five metres (m) long, and they only produce about five young per year), so they cannot sustain high catches. In New Zealand, white sharks are regularly caught as bycatch in coastal fisheries (mainly in set nets), and there is a small catch by trophy hunters. In most other parts of the world where they are common (notably Australia, South Africa and the USA), white sharks have been protected for a number of years. The New Zealand Government has also recently protected them (from 1 April 2007).

This begs the question of how effective protection will be. We currently do not know whether New Zealand white sharks form a distinct population or whether they are part of a more widespread stock, and might therefore move outside the range of any planned protection. In a collaborative research programme funded by National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Department opf Conservation (DOC), Wildlife Conservation Society and Shark-Tracker/NABU (BirdLife in Germany), we aimed to determine the spatial scale of movement of New Zealand white sharks over a period of months and find out whether they remain in our waters or rove beyond our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Chatham Islands expedition IN April 2005, we mounted a trial tagging expedition to the Chatham Islands. The Chathams were chosen because we knew we could find white sharks there, and we anticipated that any sharks moving away from the Chathams would undertake openocean movements, most likely towards the New Zealand mainland and perhaps Australia. Success at the Chathams would provide a platform for extending this research to white sharks around mainland New Zealand.

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Fish tags have come a long way since the days of simple plastic markers with a serial number printed on them. Modern electronic tags gather data on time, depth, light intensity (from which geographic location can be estimated), and temperature every few minutes, and store them onboard. Popup Archival Transmitting (PAT) tags can be programmed to auto-release from the shark (by sending a small current through a corrodible link) after a predetermined time. They then float to the surface and transmit the data to a satellite, which beams the data directly to the scientist’s computer by email without the need to recapture the shark. All we needed to do was tag the sharks and then sit back and wait!

At about $5000 each, PAT tags are not cheap, and our budget allowed for the purchase of just four tags. However, these would be the first electronic tags deployed on any species of shark in New Zealand waters, so the opportunity for new discoveries was high.

A tricky manoeuvre AFTER several days of watching bad weather streak by, we hit a window of fine weather and set off for a seal colony on some remote rocks. It’s true that seals attract great whites – surfing or diving in such locations is definitely not recommended! Within nine minutes of starting to berley, we had a shark at the boat. Our tuna baits were hungrily devoured, and several sharks returned repeatedly to the boat, allowing us to choose a good moment to tag them. Tags are anchored under the skin by jabbing with a tagging pole (the needle tip is fitted with a stopper to prevent it penetrating too far). Sharks occasionally reacted to being tagged, but often returned to feed again, indicating that tagging caused minimal discomfort.

In three days, we deployed all four PAT tags, plus three conventional gamefish dart tags. We saw about 10 different sharks altogether, most of them about 3-4.5m long, although one large female greater than five mrtres long was clearly the big mamma of the bunch. Unfortunately, she was very cautious and wouldn’t come close enough to be tagged.

Our PAT tags were deployed for three to six months, leaving us a long nervous wait to see if they would pop up on schedule and transmit data. One tag caused great disappointment when it came off prematurely after only a week and washed up on a beach on Chatham Island, never to be seen again. The other three tags ran their full course and transmitted data, although they all called home about 12 hours late, giving us much anxiety.

Trips to the tropics THE three “successful” sharks remained near the Chatham Islands for two to five months after tagging. We suspect they stayed close to seal colonies feeding on young seals as they learnt to swim. Two of the sharks departed from the Chathams within a week of each other, and the third departed several months later. They all headed north or north-west. One tag popped up near the Louisville Seamount w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Chain north-east of East Cape, about 1000 km from the Chathams.

The other two sharks, carrying five to six month tags respectively, travelled almost 3000 km to New Caledonia and southern Vanuatu.

These results were a great surprise to us – white sharks have not previously been reported from the Louisville Seamount area, and although they have been seen in tropical waters, sightings there are rare. These three sharks sought warm seas during winter, a trait shared by many kiwis. We are puzzled about the reasons for these movements but are exploring several theories that might explain them.

We have only a small sample size so far, but it is clear that moves to protect white sharks in New Zealand waters may not extend far enough. Our three sharks all moved outside the New Zealand EEZ and away from our legal jurisdiction. This suggests that white sharks should also be protected in the areas they visit frequently during their migratory movements.

Chathams re-visited BUOYED by the success of 2005, we carried out a second expedition to the Chatham Islands in March 2006, this time armed with more PAT tags, and also some SPOT tags. SPOT tags are ‘real-time’ transmitters that are attached to the shark’s dorsal fin, and have a small aerial that sends information to a satellite every time the dorsal fin breaks the surface. The satellite then estimates the position of the transmitter. This meant that there would be no more anxious waiting for months for a tag to pop off and transmit data! The main drawback with SPOT tags is that you first need to catch the shark and restrain it while attaching the tag!

Unfortunately the March trip was completely unsuccessful. We lost almost half of our available time to bad weather, and when we did get out to sea, the sharks seemed too full and were uninterested in our baits. We saw sharks on most days as they swam up our berley trail, but they couldn’t be enticed close enough to the boat to tag or catch. Perhaps we were spoilt in 2005, or perhaps it was because we went a month earlier in 2006?

Changing view of great whites WHITE sharks have proven difficult to study in the past, and the use of exciting new electronic technology is opening new windows into their behaviour. Such information could not be obtained in any other way. We have only scratched the surface so far, but the results are already intriguing and astonishing.

Elsewhere in the world, white sharks cross ocean basins. Tagged sharks have moved from California to Hawaii, and from South Africa to Australia and back, and a shark tagged in Australia with a conventional tag was recaptured near Ninety Mile Beach.

It now looks like New Zealand sharks enjoy ocean travel too.

PAT tags have also shown that during ocean crossings white sharks spend most of their time near the surface (often shallow enough for the dorsal fin to break the surface), but they periodically make dives as deep as 1000m. We can only speculate about what they are doing down there in the dark and cold.

No longer can we consider great whites to be stay-at-home, coastal sharks with a mundane lifestyle. They may stay put for extended periods of time (our Chathams sharks remained near the islands for up to five months), so they are “resident” while it suits them, but they are also ocean-going rovers that can cover thousands of kilometres in just a few weeks.

Tagging white sharks isn’t cheap and it isn’t always easy, but the potential rewards in terms of understanding the behaviour of one of the ocean’s greatest predators are enormous. We are slowly unravelling the enigma of great white shark behaviour.

For more information see www.shark-tracker.com Malcolm Francis, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington. Email: m.francis@actrix.co.nz

Stewart Island WE had to wait another long year before we could mount a third expedition, this time to the Titi Islands, north-east of Stewart Island, in March 2007. Again we were plagued by bad weather, and uncooperative sharks. But we successfully PAT-tagged a large 4.4 metre female. This was followed on the afternoon of the last day of the trip by a 3.3 metre male which we were able to catch and manoeuvre into our tagging cradle. With a towel over its eyes, a hose pipe in its mouth to oxygenate the gills, and the loving attention of our vet who administered anti-stress and antibiotic drugs, we managed to attach a SPOT tag to the dorsal fin and a PAT tag just below the dorsal fin. We had just deployed the first SPOT tag ever to be put on a shark in New Zealand.

Using two tags on one animal offers us the best of all worlds – SPOT tags give high quality location information in near realtime whenever the shark surfaces, while PAT tags provide detailed depth and temperature records. We hope to find out if our three Chathams sharks were unusual or typical, or whether mainland sharks also make tropical migrations. The PAT tags on the two sharks were each deployed for 9 months, so we have a long wait for them to pop up in late December – delivering a sack load of new data in time for Christmas. The nine month deployment also gives us a chance to monitor a “there-and-back” migration, if such things occur, and find out more about what great whites do in the tropics.

One day after we tagged the male shark off the Titi Islands, the SPOT tag started transmitting locations to the satellite. We received many hits as he swam backwards and forwards through Foveaux Strait, and to Ruapuke Island in the eastern strait.

Interestingly, he did not return to the tagging site. We hope this tag will keep transmitting for many more months. 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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25

Happy feat

Rod Morris

Forest & Bird’s Te Rere Reserve has been going strong since 1988.

Helen Bain gets up close and personal with some of the yellow-eyed penguins that call it home.

these endemic penguins. Until the 1970s the penguins had come ashore on the rocks here and nested in relative safety in the dense forest that reached right down to the shore, but their continued survival was threatened when a former landowner began clearing the forest.

In the early 1980s Southland Forest & Bird got agreement from the farmer to fence off the area where the penguins nested, and in 1988 Forest & Bird purchased the land and established the Te Rere penguin reserve.

Numbers had built up to 100 adult birds when in February 1995 a fire swept through the reserve, killing more than 60 – a devastating loss to the breeding colony, and a serious blow for a species which numbers 3500 globally.

Their numbers have slowly rebuilt in the decade since the fire, with 18 nest sites found last year and about 30 penguins.

But their precarious situation means Fergus is still anxious about how well they are faring this season.

The penguins nest from October to March, and the last time he checked the nests they held eggs. Today he is hoping they will have hatched into healthy chicks.

The morning’s search brings some cause for concern (apart from sore knees). Yelloweyed penguins are unusual among penguins because they hatch and raise two chicks.

Other penguins sometimes hatch two eggs, but usually leave the weaker chick to die.

Yellow-eyed penguins do their best to make sure both their chicks survive.

However, only six of the 10 nests we find are occupied. Many have just a solitary chick instead of the hoped-for pair. Most worryingly, in one nest we find a dead chick. There is no sign of injury that would indicate it has been killed by a predator, like the stoat and two rats we found in baited traps earlier in the day. The dead chick’s small size and lack of fat suggests its parents might have abandoned the nest, or been A yellow-eyed penguin with one of its chicks. killed and were unable to return to feed the chick, and it starved to death. dense foliage. Making like a penguin and “Poor little fella,” Fergus says and picks tunnelling through the undergrowth is up the small corpse to take home and store often the only way to find them here. in his freezer till an autopsy can determine Finally, just as the stink becomes the cause of death. overpowering, Fergus spots an adult To Fergus’ relief, when we continue the yellow-eyed penguin and its fluffy grey hunt for nests in the afternoon, our search chick, huddled together in a dark hollow finds nest after nest containing two plump underneath a fallen tree. They peer out, chicks each. Fergus even finds a whole new apparently not unduly alarmed by the trio nest that he wasn’t previously aware of and of humans that has just intruded on their his spirits lift. domestic arrangements.

While some of the nests are occupied “It’s a nice fat one,” Fergus says of the year after year, sometimes the penguins chick’s condition, and writes down the abandon what seemed like a perfectly good observation in his notebook. Jacob plots nest and don’t use it again the next year. the exact location of the nest using his Fergus sometimes helps by making home GPS to mark it on a map. Finding it again improvements – a piece of his old waterbed will at least be a bit easier next time. helps make one nest’s roof waterproof.

For the last 25 years, a team of Fergus laughs at how little Forest & Bird volunteers at Te Rere has worked to protect knew about penguins when they first began

A

FTER crawling on our hands and knees through dense scrub and fern for what seems like hours, the smell of penguin is getting stronger.

In fact it is getting distinctly whiffy – a particularly malodorous bouquet of fish, guano and some indescribable stink like no other – suggesting our quarry is close at hand.

I have joined Te Rere Scientific Reserve caretaker Fergus Sutherland and Southern Institute of Technology researcher Jacob Dexter on a search of Forest & Bird’s 60hectare (ha) reserve in Southland for nest sites of rare yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho).

The penguins make their nests under thick vegetation away from the shore, and finding their well-hidden homes is challenging in the steep terrain and

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7. Plasticity in foraging behaviour of Yellow-eyed penguins

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167°20’e

Making tracks

168°00’e

167°40’e

Te Waewae Bay

168°20’e

South Island

The movements and foraging 46°20’S behaviour of yellow-eyed penguins at two sites around Stewart Island have been tracked over the past three years, revealing 46°30’S some marked differences in Fov eau x St rait foraging behaviour at the two sites studied.

Since 2004 University of Otago 46°40’S researcher Thomas Mattern has logged the diving behaviour and Codfish Island geographic position of penguins between dives while foraging from 46°50’S Stewart Island 0 10 20 km the two different breeding sites at north-east Stewart Island and at 0 2.5 5 km Codfish Island off the north-west coast of Stewart Island.

The research reveals that penguins breeding at the north-east coast of Stewart Island made shorter foraging trips during the breeding season, remaining closer to their breeding site within eight kilometres (km) of the Rollers Beach coast and in shallower water less than 20 metres (m) deep, when compared with breeding birds at Codfish Island off the Golden Beach north-west coast of Stewart Island which figure 7.1. Overview if study areas and foraging tracks of Yellow-eyed penguins reconstructed from GPS data out, recorded chick-guard (black lines)site and post-guard lines).shorter Arrow in Stewart foraged for longer periods further induringStewart Island foraged(grey over detail points at tracks by one penguin exhibiting unusual foraging behaviour (see text). waters up to 22 km from theIsland coast, and and returned to their nests in Bathymetry is given as 20distances m depth contours. in waters 40-60 m deep. the evening during the post-chick During the post-chick guarding guarding stage. stage, Codfish Island penguins crossed It is hoped the tracking research will Fouveaux Strait to forage 55 km away give new insights into why the number in Te Waewae Bay off the mainland in of yellow-eyed penguins breeding on the shallow water less than 25 m deep for north-east coast is considerably lower overnight periods and up to 40 hours. In than at nearby Codfish Island. contrast, penguins from the north-east Michael Szabo 40m

60m

40m

20

m

20m

“But I’m an optimist – you just keep going,” Fergus says. He expects that in another 10 years’ time, replanting will have recovered the whole reserve and the penguin population will be greatly increased.

“I think we have tonnes of habitat now and we are waiting for some good breeding years like we had in the early 1990s when numbers increased quite rapidly. I think we can start to feel a little more secure.”

Chairman of Te Rere advisory committee and Forest & Bird coordinator for Te Rere, Brian Rance, says restoring the reserve and penguin numbers after the fire has been a hard struggle, but one that is starting to pay off.

However, he says it is disappointing that while penguin numbers climbed back to about 20 pairs a few years after the fire, they have not climbed much higher since, and he would like to see the population recover further.

“They are a tough, resilient bird and they seem to be able to bounce back from disaster, but threats are always there and I

Thomas Mattern

20m

would feel a lot safer if their numbers were higher. But we have come a long way and I hope that will continue.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer Yellow-eyed penguins

Dave Gandy

their rescue efforts. Like the time they didn’t realise they had set up camp in the middle of the penguin equivalent of State Highway 1.

“We were sitting in our campsite cooking our evening meal and we saw increasing numbers of penguins coming out of the sea and just standing there looking at us. After a while we came to the realisation that they were waiting for us to get out of their way, so we did, and a rush of about 20 of them came charging through our campsite and up to their nests.”

The volunteers also realised that the fence built to enclose the penguin nests didn’t cover anything like a big enough area – penguins had to squeeze under it to reach their nests – so Forest & Bird negotiated to buy a larger piece of land from current landowner Maurice Yorke to increase the size of the reserve.

The most disastrous setback was the fire. After a long spell without rain the area was tinder dry and a strong wind fanned flames that spread from a nearby burn-off – there was no way of saving the penguins’ nests. Many of the penguins were at sea at the time of the fire but came ashore and walked across the hot ashes and embers and were burnt. This may sound like stupid behaviour but penguins have been coming ashore here for about 6000 years, and force of habit isn’t easily changed. More than 60 dead penguins were found afterwards.

Despite that heartbreaking disaster, the volunteers continued their work – which was more urgent than ever after the fire reduced penguin numbers to little more than 20 and seriously disrupted breeding among the survivors.

As a result of regular planting days, tall native shrubs and trees – flaxes, hebes, pittosporums, tree fuchsia and other “toughies” – now grow over much of the reserve where a decade ago there was just smouldering ashes. The dead trunks of the large podocarps still stand as a reminder of the 1995 fire, and firebreaks are maintained to avoid further disasters.

A constant vigil against introduced pests – mainly possums, rats and stoats – is maintained with traps and poison bait.

If left unchecked, predators would make easy meals from the penguins’ nests, and possums would destroy the new planting.

Fergus has long-term hopes of building a predator-proof fence around the reserve to provide more substantial protection for the penguins and other native species here.

Disease such as diphtheria also remains a risk, and human-induced climate change has the potential to wipe out the penguins with rising sea levels, intensification of storms and increasing temperatures that stress nesting penguins, and could deplete their food supply at sea.

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River spirits The endemic long-finned eel is under such pressure that it is listed as a threatened species. Helen Bain meets Caleb Royal and finds out how we can better protect eels.

E

ELS and fishing are in Caleb Royal’s blood. “I’ve always been into rivers and stuff – our whole family are just river people. My uncles fish, my aunties fish, my grandmother still fishes …”

“I like fishing,” Royal’s young son Wiremu, perched on his Dad’s back, chips in.

Given his family background, Royal’s choice of university study – environmental science with a strong focus on freshwater – and subsequent research on local eel populations after returning home to Otaki was probably inevitable.

Royal, of Ngati Raukawa ki te Tonga, wanted to combine his “Western” scientific training and research methods with the store of traditional knowledge held by locals, and develop “Maori indicators” of freshwater stream health.

Now working as kairangahau taiao (environmental researcher) at Te Wananga o Raukawa, he interviewed kaumatua in the area about the freshwater species they traditionally used as indicators.

“The big thing that came out of that was eels. Every kaumatua we spoke to said ‘eels’. Everywhere we went it was eels this and eels that. We thought ‘man, these eels must be pretty damn important!’”

The project developed a sliding scale of eel health and its correlation with water quality in rivers and streams by monitoring catches.

“We found that as oxygen levels in the water decreased there was a strong increase in disease in the tuna (eels).”

The effects of pollution and agricultural nutrient run-off have serious implications for the iwi, which has enjoyed eels as a food source for centuries.

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Royal says eels weighing less than 450 gram (g) are not traditionally considered worth eating. Medium sized eels at 450700g are good “boilers” – cooked with watercress and puha.

Eels heavier than 700g are cut open and dried out, and then grilled. “The fat makes it nice and juicy – just bloody delicious!”

Then there are raurekau tuna. These eels are preparing to migrate to Tonga and breed, and contain virtually no stomach, no slime and plenty of fat.

“They have no puku in them because they live off their reserves of fat during the journey. Your mature migrating shortfin – that’s your perfect eel.”

They are prepared for cooking by skewering them on a stick of pig fern through their mouth and exiting through their tail, wrapped up in raurekau leaves and grilled head down over hot embers.

Photographs from the 1930s show rows of thousands of raurekau eels cooking in long trenches of embers at big hui in the region.

Today those big eels are scarce in the coastal dune lakes and slow-moving streams in the Kapiti and Horowhenua region where Royal lives – and in many other regions.

Commercial eel fishing took off in New Zealand in the 1960s and the nationwide catch peaked at more than 2000 tonnes a year in the early 1970s, before falling to about 1200-1400 tonnes during the 1980s and 90s. In 2000 a freshwater eel quota management system was introduced in the South Island and the North Island followed suit in 2004.

However Royal – and a number of iwi – believe the commercial quotas are

Long-finned eel (tuna)

unsustainable and have led to a decline in eel numbers and size. Catch data and kaumatua accounts of “how things used to be” show that current numbers of mature eels are nowhere near what they were 50 years ago, Royal says.

“Kaumatua said there were thousands of eels in the past. Streams were like spaghetti during the runs – you could hear them coming, they said. In the 1950s and 60s the rivers ran black with migratory eels.”

The age of eels can be determined by examining an ear bone known as an otolith under a microscope. Like counting the rings of tree trunks, counting the rings of an otolith tells you how old the eel is. And as with tree trunk rings, widely spaced rings indicate years of abundant growth.

The minimum weight of an eel which commercial eelers are permitted to take is 220g. Royal indicates the meagre girth of a 220g eel by looping his thumb and index finger – “That’s not an eel, that’s a worm!

That’s pathetic!”

His research shows an eel takes an average 16 years to grow to 220g. A shortfinned eel takes 20-50 or even 70 years before it breeds.

“To get to the age where they can breed, they have to avoid commercial nets for about 30 years. Their chances of doing that aren’t good.”

If eels have little chance of reaching breeding age, the prospects for maintaining their population look grim, Royal says.

The commercial eel quota for the Wellington-Hawkes Bay region (which includes Kapiti and Horowhenua) totals 101 tonnes of short-finned eels and 45 tonnes of long-finned. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai/GA Eldon

Ngati Raukawa Rod Morris

Caleb Royal wants greater protection of freshwater eels.

As well as customary take to supply hui, iwi in the region are entitled to 14 tonnes of short-finned eels and six tonnes of longfinned eels commercial quota as part of the Sealord deal, which automatically gives Maori 20% of fisheries, but Ngati Raukawa ki te Tonga has opposed commercial eeling for the last 30 years.

The iwi does support much smaller scale customary and recreational catch of eels. “Everyone should have the right to go out and catch an eel. We’re just saying it is not sustainable to catch hundreds of tonnes for export and commercial gain.”

Royal would like to see a moratorium on commercial eeling for at least five years to help eel stocks recover. Before the quota management system was introduced, the previous “free for all” was even worse, but commercial quota levels are still much too high to sustain eel populations, he says.

The iwi also works with developers to preserve wetlands and restock them with eels. One local landowner whose former

Eel facts: New Zealand has two eel species: longfinned and short-finned. The endemic long-finned eel is found only in New Zealand, while the short-finned eel is also found in Australia and New Caledonia.

The short-finned eel has a shorter dorsal fin than the long-finned eel, and has a silvery belly. The long-finned eel is larger, growing up to two metres in length (compared to one metre for the short-finned eel) and weighing up to 40kg, although it is very rare to find any heavier than 10kg now.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) attributes declining eel numbers to commercial fishing, habitat loss and pollution. The long-finned eel is assessed

by DOC as a threatened species.

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wetland property had been drained for 15 years allowed it to re-flood naturally and the eels returned.

Getting cattle out of wetlands and waterways is also important because (as well as polluting waterways) they eat the reeds which support the insect species that eels feed on, Royal says. Opening floodgates at strategic times of the year helps ensure that migration and breeding cycles of native fish which eels feed on are not interrupted, and controlling noxious weeds also helps eel populations.

Armed with a Tuna Management Plan, Royal is lobbying the Ministry of Fisheries to ban commercial eeling, or at least set aside customary areas where commercial eeling is excluded.

A ban on commercial fishing in the Motu and Mohaka River catchments and most of the Whanganui River catchment introduced in January 2005 to protect eels is the sort of measure needed, he says.

Ministry of Fisheries advisor Dave Allen agrees the number of large eels is declining, but says it is still too early to see the benefits of the quota system introduced in 2004. Those changes might take 5-10 years to show results, he says.

The primary focus of the system is to ensure sustainability, Allen says, but setting a “magic number” of eels which can be caught is no simple matter.

“It is not possible to estimate absolutely the number of eels in New Zealand – it is a very difficult thing to quantify. We know that the number of eels there historically was obviously greater.”

Average catch – and more importantly the amount of effort required to achieve the catch – gives some idea of whether populations are declining. Since 2002 the average catch for long-finned eels has reduced by nearly 18% and about 9% for short-finned eels.

Allen says further “management tools” are on the way: from April a maximum limit of four kilograms will be introduced in the North Island (it has been in place in the South Island since 1985) to try to preserve

Freshwater eels migrate to Tonga.

greater numbers of large eels, and the industry is looking at voluntarily agreeing to an increased minimum size of 300g.

More catchment closures are also likely to be on the way in an effort to ensure reproduction is supported sufficiently to maintain eel populations.

Eel fishery plans will be developed this year for both North and South Islands and “stakeholders” – industry, recreational eelers, Maori and conservationists – will have the opportunity to have their say.

“There is no simple recipe to managing the fishery,” Allen says. “What we have been trying to do over the last 10-15 years is get the right building blocks in place – and we haven’t finished.”

Helen Bain is Forest & Bird’s Communications Officer.

New size limit A maximum eel size limit has been set for North Island commercial eelers in an effort to increase the chances of freshwater eels reaching breeding age. The 4kg limit, which was already in place in the South Island, was extended to North Island and Chatham Islands commercial eelers on 1 April.

Both New Zealand eel species breed only once, at the end of their lives, and migrate to the south-west Pacific to do so, and their young return to New Zealand.

Forest & Bird is concerned about a decline in freshwater eel populations due to overfishing by commercial eelers, habitat destruction caused by the draining of wetlands, blocking of eels’ passage along waterways by hydroelectric dams and their turbines, and pollution of streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands.

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Conservation

No. 146 MAY 07

Set net “death traps” threaten Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins Twenty deaths of endemic Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins this summer should be an alarm call that set nets must be urgently banned, Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says.

The death of 16 Hector’s dolphins, including four cases where entanglement in set nets was confirmed as the highly likely cause of death, and four deaths of the even rarer Maui’s dolphin subspecies were reported this summer.

Kirstie Knowles says the ongoing deaths of these endemic marine mammals following introduction of interim protection measures in December demonstrates that the measures are not enough and more serious action is needed to protect the dolphins.

The interim protection measures require recreational set-netters to stay with their nets at Kaikoura and at Te Waewae Bay in Southland – a level of protection that falls well short of the national set net ban supported by Forest & Bird.

“We are very disappointed that in the areas where there are no interim protection measures, there was a large number of deaths, and even in the areas where the measures are in place, we are still seeing deaths directly related to the use of set nets.”

Kirstie Knowles says it is of particular concern that the deaths over summer included four Maui’s dolphin – the subspecies that is found off the north-west coast of the North Island.

“There are fewer than 111 Maui’s dolphins left, and that number includes just 25 breeding females. Any death of a single Maui’s dolphin represents a serious threat to the sustainability of the population and pushes it closer to extinction.”

Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai

What you can do • Support Forest & Bird’s Hector’s and Maui’s dolphin appeal recently sent to members in the post. You can donate online at www.forestandbird.org.nz

▲ This Hector’s dolphin was washed up dead in a set net on the west coast.

Join us at www.forestandbird.org.nz

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• Attend one of the consultative meetings on DOC’s proposed Threat Management Plan for Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins – the schedule of meetings will be posted on the Forest & Bird website as soon as details become available.

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

Dave Hansford/Origin Natural History

HAPPY Mothers’ Day

▲ One of the starving sea lion

▲

pups at Sandy Bay, Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands. A skua stands by waiting to pounce.

The pup of every nursing sea lion drowned in squid trawl nets also dies.

Mothers’ Day sea lion campaign Forest & Bird has distributed a Mothers’ Day card to MPs and the public which calls on the Government to dramatically reduce the number of New Zealand sea lions that are allowed to drown in southern squid fishery trawl nets every year.

The card was distributed on 10 May

and follows on from the Save Our Sealions petition which was organised last year.

Meanwhile the death toll of New Zealand sea lions in the southern squid fishery has climbed steadily towards the maximum kill quota this season.

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has

allowed the southern squid fishery to kill 93 of these endemic marine mammals this season, despite calls by Forest & Bird to reduce the kill quota to near zero.

Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says latest Fisheries Ministry figures show that 53 sea lions were killed in the first 10 weeks of the squid fishing season, which opened on 1 February.

“It is very disappointing to see the slaughter of sea lions continue unabated, despite the fact that this level of killing risks pushing these endangered marine mammals to the brink of extinction. This number of deaths is simply unsustainable for such a threatened species.”

Last year more than 20,000 people signed Forest & Bird’s Save Our Sealions petition asking that the kill quota be set close to zero. It is time the government did this, Kirstie Knowles says.

Set nets cause nearly 70% of Hector’s dolphin deaths

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80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Natural

Boat strike

Trauma

Cray pot

Trawler

0 Set net

% of known causes

Set nets are responsible for nearly 70% of deaths of endangered Hector’s dolphins in cases where the cause of death is known.

The figures highlight the urgent need for a national set net ban to protect these endangered “Kiwi” marine mammals, Forest & Bird conservation advocate Kirstie Knowles says.

Figures from the Department of Conservation’s national mortality database show that where the cause of death of Hector’s dolphins was known, nearly 70% of deaths were attributable to set nets.

Other human-induced threats, including trawling, craypots and boat strike, each accounted for less than 10% of known deaths, the figures show.

“The figures clearly show that set nets are the number one killer of Hector’s dolphins. Current restrictions are not enough to halt the death toll. The only realistic solution to protect the dolphins is a nationwide ban on set nets, which would dramatically reduce the number of deaths,” Kirstie Knowles says.

Once common in New Zealand coastal waters, Hector’s dolphins have declined in number from about 26,000 in the 1970s (when set netting began) to about 7000 now, and are listed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as an endangered species. Only an estimated 111 individuals remain of the North Island subspecies, the Maui’s dolphin, which is listed as critically endangered.

Set nets are widely used by both commercial and recreational fishers, but virtually every fish species targeted can be caught by alternative methods. Set nets are banned or tightly controlled in many countries and states, including many states of the USA, the UK and Australia.

Known causes of death

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31

“Recently many newspaper correspondents have expressed concern about the use of 1080 poison in the bush, and it is likely many of our members fear that poison used for the destruction of animal pests will cause heavy mortality among the native birds.”

The quote could easily have come from many articles written in recent months as debate has intensified over the reassessment of 1080 by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) – but in fact it is taken from the editorial of Forest & Bird’s journal of November 1957, spotted

by National President Peter Maddison while browsing the archives recently.

Fifty years after those words were written, many of the arguments both for and against 1080 remain the same, as the 1406 submissions to the ERMA reassessment indicate. Hearings were held in main centres during May and a decision is expected later this year.

Forest & Bird supports the application by the Department of Conservation and Animal Health Board because it believes 1080 is a crucial tool in the war against introduced animal pests.

Forest & Bird Advocacy Manager Kevin Hackwell says 1080 is the best solution presently available to protect New Zealand’s forests from the ravages of introduced mammalian predators such as possums, rats, stoats and ferrets, and without it many of our unique native species are at risk of extinction.

As Forest & Bird’s far-sighted editorial said half a century ago, “Deploring as we do the need for destruction of any life, repugnant as is the use of poison for that purpose, we must face the fact that it is a stark necessity. We have disturbed the balance of nature in New Zealand and we must rectify the errors of the past.”

DOC/Terry Farrell

1080 reassessment report encouraging

▲ This photo of the damaged forest canopy in the upper Karangarua valley, South Westland, was taken in 2004 and shows severe dieback of southern rata. There has never been any possum control in this valley other than casual fur trapping.

DOC/Terry Farrell

Thanks to the many hundreds of Forest & Bird members and branches that responded to the call to make submissions. Encouragingly, an ERMA staff review of the application and submissions just released indicates they support approval of the pest control agent.

@ ▲ This photo of the forest canopy in healthy condition was taken in 2004 in the Copland Valley, a main tributary of the Karangarua valley, while the southern rata were in full flower. Possum control in this valley was started in 1986 by the Forest Service. DOC included this valley and adjacent Regina valley in its sustained control programme, starting ground-based possum control in 1990 and then repeating aerial 1080 possum control in 1996, 2000 and 2003.

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Forest & Bird fears that construction of a four-wheel-drive road around Lake Heron will seriously damage the lake’s unique natural values, tranquillity and endangered bird life.

Forest & Bird is calling on Conservation Minister Chris Carter to reject the Department of Conservation’s decision to build the road.

Forest & Bird Executive member Gerry McSweeney says allowing the three-kilometre four-wheel-drive road around the eastern lake shore and across wetlands to Harrison’s Bight would cause serious harm to the important natural heritage of the area.

Lake Heron is protected as a nature reserve – the highest level of protection for a conservation area. In 2004 the Nature Heritage Fund purchased the Lake Heron lowlands of Clent Hills Station for $3 million to protect the wetlands, tussocklands, glacial moraines and shrublands and recognise the national significance of the Lake Heron Basin.

Lake Heron is home to the largest population of the nationally endangered Australasian crested grebe, as well as other rare native species.

“Construction of the road will disturb endangered wildlife and cause destruction of native vegetation, and will require a wetland to be filled in or bridged. The Department of Conservation is allowing

Rod Morris

DOC rides roughshod over Lake Heron

▲ Lake Heron: at risk from four-wheel-drive vehicles serious degradation of the lake and its wildlife just to appease fourwheel-drivers and fishermen who don’t want to walk around the lakeshore,” Gerry McSweeney says.

What you can do Write to Conservation Minister Chris Carter (no stamp required) at Parliament, Wellington, asking him to stop DOC building the road or email: chris.carter@parliament.govt.nz

Marine protection proposed for Subantarctic Islands World Heritage Area

Seabed protection measures fall short

A process to protect the marine environment around more of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands has been announced by Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton and Conservation Minister Chris Carter.

The Ministers launched the process – dubbed the Subantarctic Marine Protection Project – at the international meeting of parties of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) held in Christchurch in November.

“New Zealand’s subantarctic island groups are a vital part of Southern Ocean ecosystems,” Chris Carter said.

“They provide important habitat for many endangered species that are found nowhere else in the world, and these

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton announced cabinet approval of the fishing industry’s Benthic Protected Areas (BPA) proposal in April.

“On the face of it this means over 30% of New Zealand’s seabed will be protected from bottom trawling, but the irony is that at present very few of these areas require protection from this form of trawl fishing,” Forest & Bird Conservation Advocate Kirstie Knowles says.

These areas are at extreme depths, beyond the reach of modern fishing vessels.

Neither are they ever likely to require such protection given that they are very far offshore and so difficult and expensive to reach, she says.

While the move perhaps signals a shift in fishing industry thinking about the need for marine protection, it does little to prevent coral and sponge habitats being destroyed by current bottom trawling practices in New Zealand waters.

The BPAs will only protect the immediate seabed, with the waters above the seabed still able to be fished.

“In signing this agreement with industry, the Government has also agreed to give industry an unfair $2.4 million break on fishing levies for the research into the impact of their present bottom trawling of large areas of the ocean floor. This means the fishing industry will be making a considerable saving while doing little that benefits conservation,” Kirstie Knowles says.

deserve the highest level of protection that we can provide.”

At issue are the Bounty, Antipodes and Campbell/Motu Ihupuku island groups.

A marine mammal sanctuary and marine reserve around the Auckland Islands/Motu Maha is already in place. The islands comprise one of New Zealand’s three World Heritage areas, recognised for outstanding natural heritage and global significance.

“The government has an obligation to New Zealanders and to the international community to protect native species over its land and sea areas, and that includes the southernmost parts of our country.”

The new project links into ACAP by seeking to conserve albatrosses and petrels at sea and on land. While many subantarctic animal species need predatorfree areas of dry land to rest and breed, they depend on inshore and offshore marine areas for foraging while breeding, resting and rearing young.

What you can do

Kim Westerskov

Write to Conservation Minister Chris Carter and Minister of Fisheries Jim Anderton (no stamp required) at Parliament, Wellington, in support of marine reserves around Bounty, Antipodes and Campbell Islands. or email: chris.carter@parliament.govt.nz jim.anderton@parliament.govt.nz

▲ Yellow-eyed penguin (hoiho) breed at the Auckland and Campbell Islands

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in the field

1080: a birdbrain’s guide Words by Ann Graeme.

Illustrations by Tim Galloway.

Actual bait size and colour Birds are put off by the colour and the cinnamon smell. Colour and smell don’t bother the possums and the cinnamon disguises the smell of 1080.

1080 can kill invertebrates but only the beetles, hoppers, mites and weta living really close to the baits will be at risk.

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Possums and rats are very susceptible to 1080. Feral cats, stoats, ferrets and dogs will also die if they eat poisoned carcasses. Deer, pigs, cattle and sheep may die but they are at less risk because they are bigger and have to eat a lot of bait to get a lethal dose. If they eat less than a fatal dose they just excrete it.

Soil fungi and microorganisms feed on the baits. They break down the 1080 into a salt and vinegar. The poison is rapidly destroyed so it can’t build up in the environment.

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In a typical aerial drop, 1080 pellets are spread at the rate of three kilograms or 280 pellets per hectare.

That means the pellets are at least seven metres apart.

After a 1080 operation, stream water is tested.

The amount of 1080 permitted in the water is 3.5 parts per billion.

At that level, Willie would have to drink more than 100 buckets full, all at once, to get a lethal dose.

That’s impossible!

Tests also show that fish and stream invertebrates are not harmed either, at that concentration.

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GPS allows bait to be spread very accurately so as to avoid streams. If a bait does fall into a stream it quickly dissolves, and dilutes and breaks down into harmless chemicals.

Many plants from India (where tea comes from), South America, Australia and South Africa have 1080 in their leaves. This discourages the animals from eating them.

But NZ’s native plants don’t have 1080, which is why possums love them.

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Itinerant Ecologist – Geoff Park

The forests that sailed on the tide

W

ADE DOAK is preoccupied when I call, and understandably so. The project that has been taking him from the underwater world of his fame to photo-documenting the plants of the North’s forest remnants has had Jan and him in some extraordinary places.

Few more so, it turns out, than the coastal mountain that for thirty years they’ve looked at from their place across the Ngunguru River. But no sooner had they become aware of Whakairiora’s botanical treasures, than they encountered lines of blue, spray-can painted blazes.

Lines that bulldozers were soon following, exposing middens and slicing through the forests where they’d discovered matai and kawaka, the cedar, among Whakairiora’s immense trees.

They are the first roads of the infamous Ngunguru Sandspit subdivision that, for over a decade now, Wade and other “Save our Spit” locals, along with Forest & Bird, have been pushing to have replaced by a nature reserve. That, if the push fails, could have 350 houses on what the Department of Conservation says is an important biological and cultural site it is keen to protect; that, for those reasons, Whangarei District Council has just declared an “iconic landscape”.

No one has lived on the Ngunguru Sandspit since the 1838 battle between Te Waiariki of Ngati Wai and southern tribes following which the survivors declared their former kainga site “waahi tapu”. Just a few months before the battle, the sandspit’s inhabitants had watched a British naval supply ship head out to sea full of all the tall kauri that had grown alongside their estuary, that they’d help fell and pull to the tide, shape into spars and load for England.

It is the spectre of houses on the sandspit than makes Wade so anxious.

Many a coastal subdivision is on sand similarly fresh from the sea. But in these days of growing certainty about rising sea-levels, it isn’t, as he says, the greatest place for a new one, quite apart from the precious ecosystem it would ruin. But it is on the inland side of the estuary, a few bends up from the sandspit, that he has something to show me.

A few months before, during winter’s work in the Alexander Turnbull Library, I’d found the journal of a spar-getter on that British naval supply ship, HMS Buffalo; T.F Cheesman’s Remarks of a Bushranger on the banks of the river Noungudo – New Zealand.

It confirmed what Wade had heard over the years. Like every other northern harbour, by the time the Treaty of Waitangi was

signed a few bays to the north in 1840, the Ngunguru estuary had been plundered of any timber trees close to the water.

There are still southern estuaries like Okarito and Papatowhai where you can see tall trees coming down to the tide – and protected, if not from the sea, from our exploiting urges. But in the north it is a landscape long gone. James Cook seeded the vanishing with his reporting in 1770 that the harbours of northern New Zealand were commodious and timbered “for any number of Shipping”.

Lord Sydney nudged it along in 1786 envisaging them as where “any quantity of masts and ship timber … grows close to the water’s edge, is of size and quality superior to any hitherto known, and may be obtained without difficulty” for England’s new colony in New South Wales. It ended with one of New Zealand’s grandest landscapes becoming one most comprehensively gone, one utterly unrepresented in today’s protected areas system, and one for which not even an image survives.

Cheesman the spar-getter described the Ngunguru Estuary landscape as “thickly wooded”, with “large trees scattered among a thick bush and fern … mangrove trees on either side, partly covered at high water …

Geoff Park

Ngunguru estuary in Northland, where kauri once grew down to the water.

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Commissioners of the British Admiralty, Laslett’s Ngunguru journal is about the getting of the seventy-three spars the Buffalo’s men took from the river banks, a third of them over 70 feet in length, a few over 90. But it is something that Laslett doesn’t mention about spar-getting, that Cheesman does, that had Wade and Jan Doak leading me down to their river a November morning 167 years later.

Because the river people on whom the first spar getters depended were averse to hauling spars very far, they tended to take only the kauri closest to the water. To prepare a spar, a tree would be felled into a position as near to the tide as possible, and its crown of branches removed. On 30 October, 1837 Cheesman described how he “perceived the ground shake when one of the cowdie trees fell at least 100 yards from the place where I was standing”, and how, that afternoon, he had “employed a party of 12 men to cut off the top of an enormous tree measuring 8 feet in diameter.”

The piece of farm with scrub in the gullies that the Doaks bought in the 1970s is now secondary forest of tanekaha and totara bursting through kanuka. Dropping down through it to the water, we pick up their neighbours’ track around the estuary

edge, past old pohutukawa hanging out over the mangroves.

Suddenly, we come upon huge rounded lumps of wood covered in lichen, mosses and Pyrossia fern, lying among the saltstunted manuka. They’re not uprooted stumps. They’re the beheaded tops of huge trees. Lying in a group, suggesting they were felled from the slope just above, rather than having floated here.

Wade gets his knife out, and scraping a rotten layer away from beautiful golden wood, exposes kauri’s tell-tale grain. I imagine what he is imagining. When, until just before the Treaty of Waitangi, the lumps of wood were 25–30 metres up in the air above trunks towering over the water. When his river was a waterway between big trees.

A landscape that undoubtedly “originally gave New Zealand its own recognisable character”, to use a Reserves Act phrase. But one of the lowland landscapes is missing from the conservation estate. Gone before there was government, let alone conservation laws. But one, were its kauri still standing, would be as cherished as Waipoua as a forest of the North.

Wade Doak with a remnant of kauri logged at Ngunguru during the nineteenth century.

Geoff Park

a great quantity of oysters, cockles, winkles, snappers, mullet and eels beside wild duck”.

Early in October 1837 he was sent upriver “with an exploring party in our Launch with Provisions & tools for felling trees”, and until late the following February, “was living in the woods until all the spars were got ready & stowed in the ship”.

Soon after the men of the Buffalo established their timber camp, “a large party of natives came … to assist in felling the Cowdie trees and transporting the spars to the water.” Day after day, Cheesman’s journal records “all the Natives … employed in getting the spars in the water”, or “clearing away the bush for transporting the spars that were finished”, and at night “singing in a most hideous manner”.

He was more enamoured of other singing, the dawn chorus, of bellbirds, especially. Most days’ journal entries begin with “the birds at their usual singing”, or “the bellbirds singing beautifully”. But most evenings, after a day getting spars, he was busy taking the song out of them: “Nov 20th … After tea, I took my gun out and shot a pigeon, which I gave to Laslett to skin & stuff for himself…; Dec 3rd … After dinner a Pigeon being on a tree close to the tent, I shot, skinned and stuffed him’; Dec 14th … After tea shot a Pigeon, 3 Koromako, whiteheaded birds. Skinned and stuffed a Tui; Dec 19th … After tea took my gun out along the marsh, and shot 5 Matata’s (Sylviadae, NZ) took the nest with 3 eggs - flesh-coloured with dark violet spots - nest composed of dry rushes situated about 4 inches from the ground.”

By my tally, Cheesman shot 66 birds in his 1837-38 summer on the Ngunguru River, almost a third of them kereru. Whether he was collecting for an institution like the British Museum, or for a wealthy amateur, is not evident. But he was not the only one on the Buffalo shooting birds as well as felling trees, and at least two others had taxidermy skills.

One of them, Thomas Laslett, was the expedition’s timber purveyor and, by good fortune, his Buffalo journal is now also in the Turnbull Library collection.

It says nothing about his birdcollecting. As might be expected of the “Second Purveyor of Timber in New Zealand” as he was called by the Lords

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goingplaces

Kaikoura’s world heritage Stunning scenery and amazing marine diversity converge at Kaikoura creating a spectacle that is unique in the world. Michael Szabo marvels at the distances some marine species cover to get there.

Site description

I

F KAIKOURA seems a long way from where you live, spare a thought for the albatrosses and other ocean migrants that travel thousands of kilometres to get there. Some of the great albatrosses circumnavigate the globe between visits, while other seabirds commute from subantarctic islands or even Alaska. Some of the whales that visit migrate from the tropics to Antarctica and back each year.

So in this respect, Kaikoura qualifies as a true world heritage area.

The abundance of marine life off Kaikoura Peninsula makes it arguably the best place to see a wide range of the marine mammals and seabirds that occur around New Zealand’s mainland.

Kaikoura lies at a biological and geological crossroads where mountains meet the sea and the upwelling of southern currents meets the edge of the continental shelf close to shore. Kaikoura’s submarine Grand Canyon drops off 1000 metres a few kilometres off the peninsula.

The nutrient rich waters that rise to the surface here attract an amazing abundance of marine life. This is what first attracted human settlement, then commercial

3 8 F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

Dusky dolphins

whalers and fishers, and more recently ecotourists in search of a special encounter with nature.

Sperm whales, dusky dolphins, fur seals and wandering albatrosses are relatively easy to see out on the water. Dusky dolphins and fur seals occur here in large numbers during spring and summer which makes a trip rewarding even if you’ve seen these species elsewhere.

The exuberance of large pods of dusky dolphins jumping and leaping out of the water never fails to lift the spirits. And if you watch them from the bow of a boat you can often see them surfing on the bow wave, sometimes manoeuvring so they can look up at you through the water. Not content with such a view, some people jump in and swim with them.

It is possible to see up to five species of dolphin here. Kaikoura is at the northern end of the range of the Hector’s dolphins that live off the Banks Peninsula. Larger bottlenose dolphins and common dolphins are also present, often in good numbers.

The abundance of dolphins attracts the occasional passing pods of orca or killer whales that stop here as they swim along the coast in search of a kill.

If you’re very lucky you might see one

of the most distinctive dolphin species in the world, southern right whale dolphin, but they are only rarely sighted.

Off Jack’s Rock in South Bay adult New Zealand fur seals bob around on the swell, while playful pups frolic in rock pools in summer. In fact, fur seals are now so abundant here that Transit New Zealand issued a warning last summer urging motorists not to stop by the side of the coast road here to view the many animals hauled out on rocks.

The big charismatic creature everyone comes here to see is the sperm whale, a true leviathan of the deep. The one I saw during summer about ten kilometres off the peninsula was an impressive creature, the knobbly contours of its spine clearly visible as it basked at the surface, exhaling several times before its flukes upended and slipped into the depths of the canyon below to hunt giant squid.

During spring and late summer it is possible to see migrating humpback whales and pilot whales. Blue whales are rare but possible, as are southern right whales. In December 2006 a southern right whale and her calf spent several weeks in shallow water off the peninsula to the delight of whale watchers. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Where and when to go

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Dennis Burman

Dennis Burman

AIKOURA attracts the largest concentration and variety of seabirds around mainland New Zealand making it the prime location for birdwatchers in search of “mega” seabirds such as wandering albatrosses and the 11 other albatross species that can be seen here at different times of year.

The best time to see the widest variety of albatrosses is during winter. That said, albatrosses also occur during spring and summer, but fewer species are likely. For example, during a recent January trip I saw antipodean and Gibson’s wandering albatrosses, black-browed albatross, Salvin’s albatross and white-capped albatross on one boat trip.

These weren’t fleeting sightings of distant birds. Each one sat on the water a few metres off the stern of the boat. They were so close you could see the colour of their eyes and exquisite details such as the bright pink bills of the wandering albatrosses and the vivid orange-yellow bill of the black-browed albatross.

Taking an albatross trip with Ocean Encounter is an opportunity to get to know these incredible ocean wanderers close up and ponder the staggering scale of their movements across the Southern Ocean to South America and, in the case of some species, their circumnavigation of the globe.

If you do, you’re unlikely to forget the first time you see a wandering albatross glide past flanked by the view of the Seaward Kaikoura Range – the grandeur of the view seemingly equalled by the impressive size of the albatross’s threeand-a-half metre wingspan, which the poet Pablo Neruda described as “wings that steer the wind”.

Both species of giant petrel joined the albatrosses. They are quite bulky seabirds, equal in size to the smaller albatross species and with a fearsome reputation as the vultures of the sea. The northern species breeds at the Chatham Islands and some of the subantarctic

Orca chasing dusky dolphins

islands. In contrast, the southern species occurs further south where it ranges to the Antarctic itself where it scavenges emperor penguin chicks. Telling the dark juvenile birds of these two species apart can be tricky, so it was good that the boat’s skipper was able to help with their identification.

Buller’s shearwaters passed close by the boat, foraging well to the south of their Poor Knights Island breeding grounds. This is just a hop and a skip from Kaikoura, though, compared to their annual migration which takes them thousands of kilometres across the Pacific Ocean to seas off the west coast of California during the southern winter.

Dainty cape pigeons followed the boat most of the time. These are birds that are familiar to many New Zealanders because of their habit of following Cook Strait ferries. So it was interesting to see that one of the birds following us was of the southern Antarctic subspecies.

The boat also cruised past a 2000-strong flock of Hutton’s shearwaters feeding on the water and wheeling around with the

mountains behind them.

Seeing these elegant shearwaters enmasse is a uniquely New Zealand sight.

They are so localised in their distribution that they could be called the Kaikoura shearwater. The two remaining colonies in the Kaikoura mountains are in decline so the Department of Conservation has recently transferred 100 or so chicks to help establish a new colony on the peninsula.

Up in the mountains where Hutton’s shearwaters breed during spring and summer, kea patrol their burrows in search of chicks to dig out and eat towards the end of summer. Given the remoteness and relative inaccessibility of their breeding sites, the nearest most of us will ever get to them is out here off Kaikoura Peninsula during the breeding season. After breeding they migrate to Australian waters.

Aside from the impressive albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters Kaikoura is also an area where resident shags and gulls and migratory terns congregate. In summer white-fronted terns and Caspian terns are present, joined by rarer black-fronted terns towards the end of the season.

Kaikoura, Albatross capital of the world.

Enjoy close at hand an array of Albatross, Petrels, Shearwaters, Terns, Gulls and many more.

Trips 3 times daily.

Bookings essential. www.oceanwings.co.nz

96 Esplanade, Kaikoura Call Free 0800 733 365 Ph 03-319 6777 www.encounterkaikoura.co.nz

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Encounter Kaikoura is a Green Globe certified business

F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

39

Dennis Burman

Dennis Burman

Mother right whale with calves

rare birds reported on the peninsula coast included a grey-tailed tattler from Siberia and an erect-crested penguin from the subantarctic islands, so it pays to keep an eye out for the unusual.

The peninsula walkway itself offers stunning views of the sea and the mountains and access to the more remote parts of the rocky coast.

South Bay is also worth a visit. If you walk from the base of the peninsula up to the quay where the commercial tourist vessels operate from you will pass an area where it is possible to see banded dotterels and introduced songbirds such as redpolls and yellowhammers, and occasionally the relatively scarce introduced cirl bunting.

The small rocks offshore here serve as a resting place for terns, gulls and shags.

So it is worth checking this area. On my most recent visit I saw several blackfronted terns here and another Arctic migrant species, in this case, an Arctic skua harrying a white-fronted tern in an attempt to pirate its catch.

Fact file

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Dennis Burman

Hutton’s shearwater – a Kaikoura endemic

AIKOURA is located on the northeast coast of the South Island. It is a two-and-a-half hour drive from Christchurch by bus or car or a two hour drive from Picton, both one State Highway Two. Trains run in both directions and there is a small airfield at Kaikoura in South Bay. Information about nature tours and local accommodation is available from the Kaikoura i-site at www. kaikoura.co.nz or tel 03 319 5641.

Dolphin and Albatross Encounter are located at 96 Esplanade in Kaikoura and can be contacted via their website which is www. oceanwings.co.nz/albatross or freephone 0800 733 365.

Whale Watch is located at Railway Station Road in Kaikoura and can be contacted via their website which is www.whalewatch.co.nz or tel 03 319 6767.

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The resident red-billed gulls and blackbacked gulls were joined by a relatively high number of endangered black-billed gulls later on last summer. It is possible to see the resident shags and herons along this coast. Spotted shags nest close to the fur seal colony at Ohau Point. Reef herons and white-fronted herons inhabit the coastal zone and black and pied shags are relatively abundant.

It is only a short road trip to the end of Kaikoura Peninsula where there is a fur seal colony during summer. It pays to watch for them if you walk past the low shrubs by the car park because bull fur seals sometimes lurk in the shade here as I found out on my last visit when one almost bowled into me roaring with indignation.

The extensive rocky reef along the point also supports wading birds including banded dotterels, variable oystercatchers and a small flock of turnstone, northern migrants that fly to New Zealand from Alaska to escape the northern winter. Over the past summer

Southern royal albatross

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Kaikoura South Bay

Peketa

Kaikoura Peninsula

Goose Bay Oaro

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Rod Morris

2007

REPORT TO MEMBERS For the year ended 28 February 2007

inspired by nature Fantail/Piwakawaka – Bird of the Year 2006

H

OPE and inspiration are essential if we are to rise to the conservation challenges that face New Zealand. Returning home after the First World War, Captain Val Sanderson developed a vision of preserving and protecting our native flora and fauna and natural landscapes for future generations.

Over the eight decades since he established Forest & Bird, the Society has worked to realise that vision by securing the protection of over a third of New Zealand’s native forests and other terrestrial habitats in a national network of ten national parks and three World Heritage Areas, and over 30 marine reserves including the second largest in the world at the Kermadec Islands. It is these gains which enrich our lives today and which inspire us to meet the conservation challenges ahead.

As we move further into the twenty-first century, concerns about the health of our planet and its climate have never been greater. Whether working for the protection of threatened species and habitats at the local level or advocating for solutions to the threat of climate change at the national level, Forest & Bird’s mission is more important now than ever before. Like Val Sanderson before us, we need to inspire people to work to protect nature by joining the Society and becoming active conservationists.

Practical action is underway across New Zealand. Forest & Bird’s communitybased network of branches and volunteers, our 24 staff based in five offices around the country, and its tens of thousands of members work every day to realise Val Sanderson’s vision and inspire other New Zealanders to join the cause.

One of the best ways we can do this is to inspire by example. At the Ark in the Park joint project with Auckland Regional Council in the Waitakere Ranges, Forest & Bird is restoring the dawn chorus by reintroducing native species that were lost there generations ago.

Following the successful transfer of New Zealand robins and whiteheads to the park in 2005 and 2006, stitchbirds (hihi) were released there early in 2007.

Visitors to Cascade Kauri Park can now see all three species re-established in the wild, as well as the kereru, tui and kaka already present in the area.

In Wellington and Wanganui, two community-led conservation projects which Forest & Bird is closely involved with, celebrated anniversaries in 2006.

The Matiu/Somes Island restoration project that Lower Hutt Branch and the Department of Conservation are undertaking marked its 25th anniversary. The Society’s Bushy Park reserve near Wanganui marked its centenary.

During the year it became a kiwi creche thanks to the efforts of the Bushy Park Trust and local Forest & Bird members. Visitors can now marvel at native species including New Zealand robin, red-crowned parakeet (kakariki) and tuatara which have been transferred to Matiu/Somes Island and saddleback, New Zealand robin and kiwi which have been reintroduced at Bushy Park.

Inspiring the next generation of conservationists is another way we can realise the vision. In a thousand classrooms across the country Forest & Bird’s Kiwi Conservation Club magazines are helping to inspire and connect children with nature and to discover what they can do to help.

Campaigning is also a vital part of the mix. In 2006 Forest & Bird ran the Save our Sealions campaign, gathering over 20,000 signatures on the Save Our Sealions petition which was presented at Parliament in September. Since then Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has reduced the annual New Zealand sea lion “kill quota” and proposed reforms to the rules that govern fisheries which will hopefully result in more precautionary decisions being made in future.

A new marine reserve was established at Whangarei and the new Kupe/Kevin Smith Marine Reserve announced on Wellington’s south coast.

The Society has also campaigned for greater protection of the South Island high country. This helped persuade the Government to establish the Ruataniwha Conservation Park near Twizel and announce plans for Hakatere in the Ashburton Lakes area.

Another highlight was the involvement of new Governor-General Anand Satyanand in Forest & Bird’s November Council meeting. The Governor-General is the Patron of the Society and we are grateful to him for launching a new book about whio (blue duck) which recounts efforts to save this endangered icon of our wild rivers.

There was further cause for celebration when Napier Branch Chairwoman Isabel Morgan was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

All this and much more is only possible because of the support by you – the members. With your ongoing support, Forest & Bird will continue to build on the past 84 years of success, helping old friends and new to discover and connect with the wonders of nature, and to take action to save it. Like Val Sanderson all those years ago, we will keep striving to protect New Zealand’s native birds, animals and wild places for generations to come.

2007 Report to Members

Maungatautari in the Waikato, Bushy Park near Wanganui, Puketi Forest in Northland and Otanewainuku Forest in Bay of Plenty.

After a 125-year absence, stitchbirds (hihi) were returned to the Waitakere Ranges in February 2007. Thirty birds were transferred from Tiritiri Matangi Island to the Ark in the Park site in Cascades Kauri Park. This project is a partnership between Forest & Bird and Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and has received generous funding from the ASB Trusts.

The North-West Wildlink Accord was signed early in 2006 which is working to provide more habitat for native species and increase community involvement in conservation in the Auckland region.

As the scale and scope of our work expands, summarising a year gets ever more dificult. Forest & Bird sets itself ambitious targets and regularly meets or exceeds them. No less this past year.

Dawn Chorus Forest & Bird helped breathe new life into the dawn chorus through our involvement with restoration projects across the country. These include, Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges, Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington, w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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New Zealand robins, ornate skinks and green geckos have all been released at Matiu/Somes Island in Wellington Harbour during the past year. Red-crowned parakeets (kakariki) had another successful breeding season on Matiu/Somes Island over summer with so many chicks fledging that birds are thought be dispersing to the Rimutaka Forest Park. This has boosted the population to over 100 birds at a site which has been a major restoration project for Lower Hutt Branch in cooperation with the Department of Conservation (DOC). The Lower Hutt Branch helped celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Matiu/Somes Island project in November.

Through Forest & Bird’s membership of the Kokako Recovery Programme and the efforts of members in Auckland and Hawkes Bay, the Society has helped restore this threatened species at Tiritiri Matangi Island and Boundary Stream where more chicks fledged over the summer.

Forest & Bird also advocated for the protection of Stephen’s Island tuatara, submitting that DOC should not allow tourism on the island because of the risk of introducing invasive pest weeds and predators.

Marine and Coastal The new Whangarei Marine Reserve opened in September. Tapuae Marine Reserve, on the Taranaki coast, was given the green light at the same time and, in December, Forest & Bird welcomed the announcement of the new Kupe/Kevin Smith Marine Reserve on Wellington’s south coast, a reserve jointly proposed by the Society in 1992. The new reserve is named partly in memory of former Forest & Bird Conservation Director Kevin Smith who was a champion of marine conservation, and who died tragically in 2005.

He would also have welcomed news in November that the great white shark had been granted legal protection in New Zealand waters having been a determined advocate on behalf of the species for many years.

Early in 2007 the Government announced new rules that require all surface longline fishing vessels to set their lines at night when fewer seabirds get caught, and to use bird-scaring “tori lines” to deter seabirds from trying to snatch baits off their hooks. This move was welcomed, coming as it did shortly after Forest & Bird launched a campaign calling for the closure of the commercial swordfish longline fishery around the Kermadec Islands which was also catching and killing albatrosses.

Forest & Bird’s participation in the international Save the Albatross campaign continued to make a difference for this most threatened family of bird species in the world. Two important South American fishing nations – Chile and Argentina – ratified the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) and a three-year plan was agreed at the ACAP meeting of parties held in Christchurch in November.

The Society also ran campaigns to protect our most threatened “kiwi” marine mammals – the New Zealand sea lion and Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins – championing the creation of new marine mammal sanctuaries to better protect them and advocating for a national set net ban to protect Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins. The Save Our Sealions petition attracted over 20,000 signatures urging the Government to reduce the annual sea lion kill quota from 150 to close to zero.

Living Rivers Forest & Bird made a substantial submission seeking to protect the natural character of Marlborough’s globally important Wairau River from a hydroelectric scheme which would reduce flows in the river for 50 kilometres and threaten populations of the endangered black-fronted tern and black-billed gull.

The Society advocated for greater protection of the south branch of the Ashburton River which is a globally important habitat for braided river bird species including the endangered wrybill, and is also the subject of a proposed hydroelectric scheme.

And we gave active support to Fish & Game’s successful application for a Water Conservation Order on the Rangitata River and Oreti River in Southland. The Society gained approval from the Special Tribunal to hear it’s case to amend the Buller Water Conservation Order to include protection of the Matiri River and Lake Matiri.

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Resource Management Act Branches and society staff continued to make submissions and appeals on district and regional plans and resource consents to protect native species and habitats.

Kaipara Branch won an Environment Court appeal against a 30-hectare mussel farm proposed on Kaipara Harbour. Other notable RMA achievements elsewhere included pet-free subdivisions in Golden Bay, rules in plans to protect indigenous vegetation, wildlife habitats and riparian areas, new controls on aircraft landing in the coastal waters of Fiordland, and conditions on commercial consents in Fiordland to protect marine wilderness areas.

High Country Forest & Bird is pleased to see the Government progressing the establishment of new conservation parks in the high country such as the opening of the new Ruataniwha Conservation Park in 2006. The Government has since proposed the establishment two more conservation parks.

The Society once again played an active role in the tenure review process.

Some recent outcomes such as those for Richmond Pastoral Lease which freeholded 6000-ha of short tussock grasslands on the shores of Lake Tekapo and new research which reveals that tenure review is not yet adequately protecting lowlands, and is instead exacerbating threats to rare lowland habitats, prompted the Society and others to call for a moratorium on the tenure review process. This has since led to significant improvements in the tenure review process.

Membership and Promotions The passion and commitment of you, the members, makes a world of difference to the effectiveness of Forest & Bird. With this in mind we have increased communications with members and branches through Forest & Bird eNews and email alerts, and are constantly updating and improving the Society’s website. This is perhaps part of the reason that more new members now join via the website than in any other way.

I’m pleased to report to you that for the second year running, more new members joined Forest & Bird than in the previous year. This is yet another sign that the Society has entered a new phase with a stronger focus on attracting new members. Thanks to those members that have encouraged friends and family to join Forest & Bird, your efforts are very much appreciated.

The Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) – Forest & Bird’s club for children – continues to raise the awareness of the next generation of conservationists.

The work of KCC is an investment in the future and I’m also pleased to say that KCC magazine now goes out to some 18,000 children and 1000 schools across the land.

Our stalls and displays at Mystery Creek Fieldays, Pataka Art Gallery and Wellington Central Library during Conservation Week, and at Ellerslie Flower Show, were highly successful, communicating our key conservation messages to the public and helping to recruit more new members.

Finances The Society is funded in the main by subscriptions from members and the generosity of those who make donations and bequests. Over recent years we have relied on the many bequests made and this has enabled the Society to remain in a secure financial position. This year the level of bequests fell below that of previous years, while the proportion of income received via direct debit increased.

During the year the Society moved into its new Central Office building and created two new field staff positions. This has increased the Society’s costs in some areas and reduced them in others. On reflection, the new premises are undoubtedly better value for money and a more conducive workplace for staff. The Society does, however, face real challenges to increase its revenue to enable it to continue to maintain its effectiveness as the champion of our indigenous species and their habitat.

We are very grateful to our many donors, without whom much of our w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

conservation work could not be done. We are particularly appreciative of the generous sponsorship of our Top of the South Field Officer and Senior Fundraiser by two members, and our Canterbury Field Officer by another two members.

Special thanks are also due to those people that joined our new Sustain membership category. Thanks also to those who donated to the Save Our Sealions and Restore the Dawn Chorus appeals which have helped fund the Society’s highly successful conservation work.

who maintain a constant vigil on resource consents and planning issues. To the members, whose enthusiasm and financial contributions keep the Society – thank you, you can be proud of your Society. Thanks also to the General Manager and our dedicated staff who have achieved so much for the Society and Conservation over the year. Finally, thanks to the current Executive and to all the supportive families of Forest & Bird activists.

Appreciation

Dr

Peter Maddison

National President

Thank you all once again for your support. My heartfelt thanks go to the many volunteers who are at the “sharp end”, doing everything from cutting bait lines to planting trees and combating invasive weeds. Special thanks to the hard working branch committees – particularly the secretaries and treasurers – who spend hours taking on the essential jobs, and to the people

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION as at 28 February 2007

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE for the year ended 28 February 2007

2006-2007 2005-2006 $ $ 581,481 89,139 209,428 138,644 227,798 74,511 16,885 69,228 1,344,607 2,751,721

507,136 81,438 152,280 172,605 168,905 35,901 16,702 424,313 0 1,559,280

Expenditure

Terrestrial Biodiversity 458,361 458,267 High Country Campaign 0 99,722 Freshwater 148,463 Marine 213,311 274,092 Communications & Promotions 512,086 362,046 Membership & Fundraising 247,188 317,826 Branch Support 239,746 125,602 Governance 202,329 179,126 Education 138,522 107,332 Properties (note 11) (7,459) 6,395 Planning and Reporting 57,815 133,818 TOTAL EXPENDITURE 2,210,362 2,064,226 Surplus/(Deficit) for the year ended 28 February 2007

$541,359 (504,946)

2006-2007 2005-2006

Members Funds Opening Balance Surplus / (Deficit) Closing Balance Current Liabilities Accounts Payable (note 6) Bank Overdraft Deferred Income (note 7)

Other Liabilities Restricted Funds (note 10) Total Members Funds & Liabilities Current Assets Cash Deposits (On Call) Deposits (Fixed Term) Accounts Receivable (note 8) Inventory

Investments Shares and Other Securities Bushy Park Trust Loan

Fixed Assets (note 9)

Other Assets Restricted Funds (note 10) TOTAL ASSETS

$ 3,155,387 541,359 3,696,746

270,896 – 437,955 708,851

1,171,632 $5,577,228

$ 3,660,333 (504,946) 3,155,387 322,092 – 433,589 755,681 1,359,947 $5,271,015

71,904 2,071,986 1,831,487 53,210 24,591 4,053,178

26,478 158,834 2,332,244 53,337 32,442 2,603,335

24,775 4,975 0 0 9,975 9,975 327,642 1,302,758

1,171,632 1,359,947 $5,577,228 $5,271,015

Please note these financial statements have not been audited. Once they are available a full set of audited statements, including the auditor's opinion, will be made available by Forest & Bird.

Income Subscriptions

- Forest & Bird

- Kiwi Conservation Club General Donations (note 12) Appeals Interest Received Grants (note 13) Other Income Bequests (note 5) Sale of Assets TOTAL INCOME

Kia kaha

S McPhail, Treasurer For and on behalf of the Executive, 15 May 2007 Bequests received during 2006/2007 were as follows: L C Bell $2,538; H A Boyce $1,000; N Butress $1,406; M E Carter $500; Davis Trust $1,700; S M Hargreaves $2,000; I F Harrison $1,000; A Maddison $655; O Poole $5,000; B W Roberts $500; H Spar $10,000; B B Stoker $9,900; H Traynor $8,742; C L Turner $1,000; M Williams $20,800

Large Donations: Dr R W R Archibald $2,000; C Barnes $700; B Barrett $1,000; D & G Becroft $5,000; J Berks $500; J Bryant $1,000; C S Butcher $500; Cockburn Development Ltd $500; R F Cooper $2,000; The D P Winstone Trust $500; B Davidson $500; T H L Davies $500; P Dean $500; B Duffy $2,200; Central Auckland Branch, North Branch, Forest Forest and Bird $5,000; Dunedin Branch, Forest and Bird $10,000; Hastings - Havelock and Bird $1,000; Kapiti Mana Branch, Forest and Bird $5,500; Lower Hutt Branch, Forest and Bird $3,337; Manawatu Branch, Forest and Bird $5,000; Napier Branch, Forest and Bird $10,000; North Canterbury Branch, Forest and Bird $13,750; Upper Coromandel Branch, Forest and Bird $500; Upper Hutt Branch, Forest and Bird $3,000; Wairarapa Branch, Forest and Bird $1,000; Waitakere branch, Forest and Bird $3,500; Wanganui Branch, Forest and Bird $1,000; R W France $1,000; Free Beach Group Inc $500; P & V Friedlander $1,500; Gawith-Deans Family Trust $10,000; D Gordon $700; C S Grace $500; R M Greenwood $1,800; L Grocott & G Jacobsen $2,000; Heritage Expeditions $8,007; Heseltine Trust $500; M & C Jacobson $600; A S Johnston $500; M Jones $500; Jones Fee Barristers & Solicitors $500; D Kelly $500; M King $1,190; J & P Lammerink $1,000; J Leckie $1,000; P C Levin $1,000; C P Mason $6,000; R McCarthy $675; L N McFarlane $10,000; D Miller $500; Dr J L Miller $500; T Mindel $1,000; B F Morrissey $1,500; R Officer & V Kuhlmann $600; R Pugh $1,000; Ron Greenwood Environmental Trust $2,000; M M Scott $500; G Smyth $500; W Sproston $1,000; D Stanley & G L Purdie $600; T Tasman-Smith $500; H Trayes $500; Tenob Wholesale Marine Ltd $555; J A Williams $500; D J Wright $1,500 General donations include donations to the Kiwi Conservation Club of $5,557 ($4,691)

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

F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

43

branchingout Isabel Morgan NZOM

“I

FEEL that it is an award for all environmentalists,” Napier Forest & Bird Branch Chairwoman Isabel Morgan says of receiving the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to conservation.

Those who have worked with Isabel in the more than four decades in which she has been a Forest & Bird member say her response is typically modest, yet even Isabel could not deny that she has been a tireless supporter of the conservation cause.

She can’t pinpoint exactly when she first joined Forest & Bird, because the earliest minute books have been lost, but she knows it was some time in the late 1950s. She was inspired to join Forest & Bird during the debate over the establishment of national parks, for which Forest & Bird had been a strong advocate.

The local branch of Forest & Bird was in recess at the time, as its chairman had died and no one was willing to step in to replace him, but when the branch was revived Isabel joined its committee – where she has remained ever since, and became chairwoman in 1981.

She says a highlight of her long “career” as a conservationist was the Manapouri campaign in the late 1960s and early 70s, which opposed hydroelectric development plans that would have raised Lake Manapouri by 30 metres. The campaign has been heralded as the first to raise national consciousness on an environmental issue in New Zealand.

Watching positive changes in local attitudes towards environmental issues has also been greatly satisfying, Isabel says. In particular the attitude of landowners towards protecting natural heritage has undergone a huge change for the better – helped by the encouragement of

Stan Hunt with Fergus Cleveland

Lower Hutt Branch nursery

T organisations like Forest & Bird and the QEII National Trust.

While Hawkes Bay was “a green desert” when she arrived there in the mid-1950s, it is now home to a number of successful reforestation projects – such as the Napier branch’s reserve at Puketitiri – where the native vegetation is again flourishing. Isabel has long since lost count of how many weeds she would have pulled out or how many trees she would have planted over the years – “a lot!”

Isabel has also been a driving force in the mainland island project at Boundary Stream, where North Island robins (toutouwai), kiwi and kokako have been successfully reintroduced, and has been chairwoman of the Ahuriri Estuary Protection Society for more than 20 years.

She says she was surprised to learn she was being awarded the honour.

“I felt there were plenty more people who were far more deserving, but it is nice to have confirmation that what we are doing for the environment is the right thing to do.”

Helen Bain

Rotorua Branch wins award

T

HE Rotorua Forest & Bird Branch won the Heritage and Environment award in the TrustPower Spirit of Rotorua Awards. The award recognised the work the branch had done on the Tikitapu Scenic Reserve

restoration project, where pest control has led to regeneration of native forest and an increase in bird life. New signs and tracks are also planned for the site.

Helen Bain

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HE next generation of conservationists is in good hands at Forest & Bird’s education centre in the Wellington suburb of Eastbourne.

Forest & Bird Lower Hutt Branch member Stan Hunt says the centre is set up to give children hands-on experience of nature in a way that will make learning more enjoyable.

Activities like building nest boxes for little blue penguins (korora), making a turbine, potting up native plants at child-height work benches and watching the wriggly occupants of the centre’s worm farm make conservation interesting for the youngsters, he says.

As the classroom and nursery are located right on the beach, with a backdrop of native forest rich in native bird life, it is easy for the children to experience the natural environment first hand. A team of volunteers helps with the teaching.

Pupils from nearby San Antonio School come to the centre every fortnight, with lessons fitting into their science curriculum, and the centre is also used for Kiwi Conservation Club activities. Stan hopes to extend the programme to more schools, particularly those from areas where many children are less well-off financially.

Helen Bain

New communications materials for branches

T

HE Forest & Bird Communications Team has been busy putting together resources for branches to use when promoting membership at public venues or events.

The main items now available are Forest & Bird logo flags (2.7 metres with a 4 metre pole), a Forest & Bird pull-up logo banner (2.1 metres tall by 1 metre wide), a large Forest & Bird logo banner (1.9 metres by 2.4 metres), and a large Forest & Bird website address banner (60 cm by 4 metres).

We also have Forest & Bird Join Us poster artwork, Forest & Bird logo sandwich board signs, “Free native plant when you join Forest & Bird” t-shirts, membership brochures and magazines, and “how to” tips on writing

press releases, newsletters and preparing for media interviews.

If you would like to order any of these materials please contact Sue Yates at Central Office, Wellington, by email: s.yates@forestandbird.org.nz

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branchingout

New Ashburton Birds and reserve windows

E

Auckland Central Chairwoman Anne Fenn presents the award to Otahuhu Intermediate pupils.

Otahuhu Intermediate wins Auckland Green Schools award

O

TAHUHU Intermediate School won Auckland Central Branch’s 2006 Green Schools Award in December for its outstanding efforts in planting thousands of native trees and cleaning up the estuary next to the school.

Forest & Bird Auckland Central Branch Chairwoman Anne Fenn says Otahuhu Intermediate’s Room 12 (Year 7) entry stood out for the sheer scope of the effort that had gone into the project and the wider benefits to the whole community.

The students are planting 7000 native plants around the school and cleaning up the estuary alongside the school, and have set up their own nursery to grow their own

native plants.

“It was fantastic to see the level of commitment and enthusiasm involved from the next generation of conservationists, and the result was a great asset for the community that will be enjoyed by generations to come,” Anne Fenn says.

The students plan to use the $1000 prize money to buy more native plants and identification labels so that visitors can recognise the trees planted.

Auckland Central Branch is seeking entries for next year. You can find out how to enter at www.forestandbird. org.nz/centralauckland or by contacting the Auckland office on 09 631 7142.

Helen Bain

Coromandel stall success

T

HE small holiday town of Coromandel is busy throughout the summer, but the Keltic Fair, held on 2 January each year has the place buzzing.

The Upper Coromandel Forest & Bird Branch again took the opportunity to promote membership of the Society to the thousands who attend the fair.

A stall was set up between the main street and the site of the major activities, where passing foot traffic was heaviest.

A small local school, which is a KCC member, provided art work, stories and a beautiful hand made quilt with conservation themes, made by the students, to decorate the stall. The Department of Conservation loaned us some stuffed animals, and central office sent posters, magazines, stickers and membership brochures.

With this colourful and interesting display, and an enthusiastic team of local members, the handouts were soon being given to passers by.

Children were fascinated by the stuffed animals, and often encouraged their parents to stop and have a look. We were delighted to see one young girl leave with her newly acquired KCC magazine, find a seat on the nearby swings, and spend half an hour reading it from cover to cover and doing all the puzzles, oblivious to the crowds around her.

One of the team donned the tui costume, which caused a little amusement and some amazement to the public. By mid-afternoon our table was bare. So the day was a great success and we had our day in the sun!

Tina Morgan

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

FFORTS by Forest & Bird’s Ashburton Branch have resulted in Ashburton District Council setting aside 10-hectares for a reserve to protect plants indigenous to the Canterbury Plains.

Branch Chairwoman Edith Smith says an area of two hectares was previously covenanted by the farmer who owned it, so the addition of the adjacent council land will create a larger reserve with public access from the road.

The as-yet unnamed reserve near Ashburton contains many plants that are not always thought of as special – such as kanuka, matagouri, coprosmas, tussocks, muehlenbeckia and native broom – yet are becoming increasingly rare on the east coast plains, especially as more land is being cleared and irrigated for dairy farming.

Edith Smith says the branch hopes to set up a trust, with involvement from local schools, the scientific community and local government, with the aim of protecting existing vegetation in the reserve and gradually developing new areas of plantings.

Helen Bain

Art for Conservation Forest & Bird is organisaing an Art for Conservation auction in October to raise funds for the Hector’s and Maui’s dolphin campaign and conservation of the South Island high country.

The event will be held on Thursday 4 October at Government House, Wellington, and is being hosted by the GovernorGeneral of New Zealand, His Excellency the Honourable Anand Satyanand PCNZM. If you would like to donate an original artwork for sale in the auction please contact Senior Fundraiser Kerin Welford at Central Office in Wellington on 04 385 7374 or email: k.welford@ forestandbird.org.nz

A

NECDOTAL evidence suggests that birds may be more frequently crashing into the larger, more reflective windows common in new homes.

Large expanses of glass often reflect nearby trees and shrubs, causing birds to fly into what they perceive to be an area of vegetation. Larger glass surfaces, double glazing and ultra-violet reflective glass frequently fitted in new homes appear to make the problem worse.

Forest & Bird Top of the South Island Field Officer Debs Martin says reports of birds – particularly kereru – being injured by hitting windows suggest the problem is increasing in the area.

Hanging bright or moving objects that break up the reflective surface of windows appears to help – placing old CDs, mobiles, hanging baskets, reflective eyes and netting in front of windows can be effective.

Rob Harris

Notice of 84th Annual General Meeting The 84th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Council Meeting of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc. will be held on 22, 23 and 24 June 2007 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.

Any queries about the forthcoming AGM and Council Meeting should be directed to Sam Partridge at Central Office, Wellington.

Her email address is: s.partridge@forestandbird. org.nz

F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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branchingout

Helen Bain

Kiwi Encounter – Rainbow Springs

One of the two North Island brown kiwi released.

Laura Richards at the display

Kiwi released at Otanewainuku

T

WO captive-bred North Island brown kiwi were released into the wild at Otanewainuku Forest near Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty in April.

The two kiwi released were from Rainbow Springs captive breeding facility in Rotorua.

Another two brown kiwi were released in the same area in March, transferred from Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch.

It is hoped the newly released birds will breed and boost the small remnant population of brown kiwi already resident in the area.

The release came after four years of preparatory work by the Otanewainuku Kiwi Trust and attracted over 100 Trust volunteers and supporters, as well as staff from the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Environment Bay of Plenty (EBOP).

“This is the realization of a

World Wetlands Day 2007

dream,” said Trust Chairman Mark Dean. “After four years of hard work clearing lines, trapping pests and doing surveys, we have created a safe haven for these precious birds”.

He also acknowledged the contribution of EBOP, which had made the pest control operation possible through the provision of advice, support and $70,000 of Environmental Enhancement Fund grants since 2003.

The kiwi will be monitored closely by DOC staff and trust volunteers using small radio tracking devices attached to the kiwi’s legs.

Otanewainuku Kiwi Trust was set up in 2002 by Te Puke Forest & Bird Branch and works in partnership with DOC to manage 1200-hectares of unmodified native forest in the hills behind Te Puke.

F

OREST & Bird marked World Wetlands Day 2007 by putting on a display at Waitangi Park on Wellington’s waterfront, where wetland habitat has been recreated in the heart of the city.

The display took the message to the public that wetlands are some of our most valuable ecosystems and need protection because they provide important habitat for native birds and fish.

However, wetlands are under threat from development, draining for farmland and pollution with about 90% of New Zealand’s wetlands already destroyed.

World Wetlands Day marks the signing of the International Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971, and aims to promote awareness of the global

For more information see www.kiwitrust.org

W

Helen Bain

F

art auction fundraiser at Government House in October.

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Helen Bain

Cat-proof fencing

Kerin Welford OREST & Bird has appointed Kerin Welford as its inaugural Senior Fundraiser.

Before joining Forest & Bird she was Fundraising/Marketing Executive at Wellington SPCA and Fundraising Manager at Presbyterian Support. Her new role includes implementing the Society’s fundraising applications and bequest programmes. She is already organising Forest & Bird’s

importance of wetlands.

More than 1400 wetlands worldwide, covering more than 125 million hectares, are recognised under the Ramsar Convention as internationally important.

New Zealand is one of 145 signatories to the Ramsar Convention and has six wetlands with Ramsar status, but this number would be much higher if all our important wetlands were properly recognised.

Forest & Bird is seeking Ramsar status for a further five wetlands: the Wairau River and lagoons, Kaipara Harbour, Ohiwa Harbour in Bay of Plenty, Lake Wairarapa, and Mangarakau Swamp near Farewell Spit.

ITH nearly half of all New Zealand households owning cats, predation of native birds by pet cats is a serious threat. Now a United States company has come up with the world’s first backyard cat-proof fencing system, Purr…fect Fence.

At 2.3 metres high, with an inward curving top section, the polypropylene fence is claimed by manufacturers to keep even the most Houdini-like felines contained in their own

backyard, limiting predation of bird life. However, maximum security for a backyard moggy doesn’t come cheap: the basic system costs about $1200.

For those on more limited budgets Forest & Bird recommends that you keep your cat inside at night, spay or neuter it, keep it well-fed and provide it with toys, and put animal guards up around trees where birds are nesting.

Helen Bain

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Helen Bain

branchingout

(L-R) Allan Anderson, Stan Butcher, Jim Howard

Bushy Park thanks Stan Butcher

S

TAN Butcher calculates he must have clocked up more than 100,000-kilometres driving between his home in Wellington and Bushy Park near Wanganui over the years.

Fellow Bushy Park stalwart and former caretaker Alan Johnston reckons Stan never made the normally two-anda-half-hour trip in anything less than six hours – because he was always stopping to pull out invasive weeds along the roadside on the way.

Alan’s anecdote was one of many shared by Bushy Park supporters at a retirement dinner for Stan at Bushy Park to recognise many decades of hard work at the reserve by Stan and his late wife Gloria.

Bushy Park Executive

Committee member Jim Howard said Stan had made an enormous contribution to Bushy Park, working on everything from education centre displays, to building tracks and battling weeds, and fighting to stop Bushy Park being sold by Forest & Bird.

“You are the grand old man of Bushy Park – second only to [Bushy Park’s original owner] Frank Moore.”

Stan said Bushy Park had been “very much a part of my life” and his biggest joy in many years of involvement was convincing Forest & Bird to retain ownership of the reserve, ensuring its continued protection.

Helen Bain

Conservation scholarship winner announced

T

HE 2006 winner of the annual Stocker scholarship presented by North Canterbury Forest & Bird Branch is Canterbury University student Wiebke Muller.

The Stocker Scholarship, made possible through the bequest made in 1975 by Mrs IM Stocker, supports research that aids in the protection of New Zealand’s endemic biodiversity, especially that of the South Island.

The $2210 scholarship will assist Wiebke Muller’s research into the problem of species hybridisation in conservation.

Forest & Bird North Canterbury Chair Lois Griffiths says that while most people are aware of the threats posed

to New Zealand native species by introduced predators, pests and habitat destruction, little work has been done on the potential for native species to become extinct by extensive interbreeding with introduced species.

Wiebke Muller’s initial studies indicate that interbreeding of the introduced mallard duck with the native grey duck may have already led to an irreversible decline of the grey duck. She hopes that her work may help in the management of other species facing the threat of extinction through hybridisation. For example, the endemic black stilt is at risk from hybridisation with the pied stilt.

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

Nelson garden tour

A

TOUR of Nelson gardens in March demonstrated how home gardeners can provide valuable habitat and food sources for native birds, lizards and insects.

The tour of five gardens and the Brook Sanctuary was organised and guided by Forest & Bird Top of the South Field Officer Debs Martin, volunteer Liz Coulter, Department of Conservation bird conservation expert Peter Gaze, Rob Harris from the Nelson Environment Centre and Edith Shaw of Nikau Nurseries.

Participants explored a range of stunning gardens where native plants were used to attract wildlife, sometimes in

Edith Shaw

difficult situations, such as on steep slopes and poor clay soils, and areas previously infested with introduced plants such as blackberry and gorse.

It also showed that gardeners don’t necessarily have to be “purists” and grow only native plants to benefit native animal species.

“New Zealand’s native creatures aren’t as fussy as we think, and sometimes having nearby exotics can provide a natural feeding sequence that is difficult to duplicate where large areas of mature native cover aren’t available,” Rob Harris says.

Helen Bain

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

This Trust is administered by Forest & Bird.

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: JS Watson Conservation Trust Forest & Bird PO Box 631 Wellington Preliminary applications close Wednesday 6 June 2007

F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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Waikava Harbour View

bedroomRats luxury lodge For the control of Possums 4and

Peaceful native setting Waipohatu bush walk

For Stewart Island Accommodation in the Bush Rakiura Retreat Motels overlooking Braggs Bay/ Halfmoon Bay • Access to beach • Complimentary cars/bikes • Warm & comfortable • Transfers & Professional guides available • Sleeps up to 24 Individuals & Groups welcome. www.rakiuraretreat.co.nz info@rakiuraretreat.co.nz • 03 2191096

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

Website: www.southcatlins.co.nz

PINDONE PELLE TS LS PM 35

BIORESEARCHES

For the control of Possums and Rats 2kg, 10kg and 25kg bags avaliable 2kg, 10kg and 25kg “Ask bags available at your local Farm Store” “Ask at your local Farm Store”

The first pellet registered for theand control The first pellet bait registered for thebait control of Possums Rats of Possums and Rats • Cinnamon lured, highly palatable • No pre-feed required • Cinnamon lured, highly palatable

• No pre-feed required

• Reduced risk of secondary poisoning

• Vitamin K1, antidote

• Reduced risk of secondary poisoning

• Vitamin K1, antidote

• No licence required to• purchase or use,tobut mustorbeuseused in bait stations No license required purchase but must be used in bait Rat stations • Kilmore Possum & Protecta bait stations readily available • Kilmore Possum & Protecta Rat bait stations readily available

DEADLY SERIOUS ABOUT PESTS www.nopests.co.nz 0800 111 466 Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997 No: V4110

4 8 F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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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.

Special Offer Everyone that takes out a Sustain membership between 1 June and 1 July 2007 will be included in a special prize draw for a free pair of Leica 10 x 25 Trinovid binoculars worrth $750. The winner will be announced in the August issue of Forest & Bird magazine.

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F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

49

Join, renew or make a regular monthly donation by Direct Debit Please fill out this form and the one opposite. Once completed please detach this form, fold it in four and post inside the self- assembled Freepost envelope opposite.

Direct Debit: Membership/Gift Membership/KCC Form/Sustain Programme Please complete the relevant boxes below

Please debit my account Monthly $_______(Sustain Programme $20 min)

$

Your annual membership/Sustain Programme

Annually (January)

$

Gift membership for___________________________

Twice a year (January and July)

Member number (if known) ____________________

If you already pay your membership by Direct Debit and $ want to become a Sustain Member, please fill in the $ amount you will give, your name, address, daytime telephone number and member number, and sign and date the form.

Please return the form to us in the Freepost device opposite.

Donation (annual amount) Total annual amount (membership and donation)

If you are an existing member this authority will operate from the next date your membership becomes due for renewal.

If you join part way through the year a partial payment by direct debit may be required. Should the membership fee be increased Forest and Bird are authorised to automatically increase this amount.

Direct Debit: Bank Authority Form Bank Instructions Authority to Accept Direct Debits (Not to operate as an assignment or agreement)

NAME: (of Bank Account) Bank account from which payments are to be made:

Authorisation Code

Bank Branch Account number Suffix (Please attach an encoded deposit slip to ensure your number is loaded correctly) To: The Bank Manager

Bank:_______________________________ Branch:__________________________ Town/City:___________________________ Full name (block capitals) Address Membership no.

Daytime telephone number

I/We authorise you, until further notice, to debit my/our account with all amounts which ROYAL FOREST AND BIRD PROTECTION SOCIETY OF NEW ZEALAND INC. (hereinafter refered to as the Initiator) the registered Initiator of the above Authorisation Code, may initiate by Direct Debit.

I/We acknowledge and accept that the bank accepts this authority only upon the conditions listed below.

Information to appear on my/our bank statement Payer Particulars Payer Code Payer Reference Your Signature/s

Approved 1035

Date

/

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For bank use only Original – Retain at Branch Date received:

Recorded by:

Checked by:

Bank Stamp

02 1999 Conditions of this authority The Initiator: (a) Has agreed to give written advance notice of the net amount of each direct debit and the due date of debiting at least four business days before the date when the direct debit will be initiated.

The advance notice will include the following message:- “The amount of $...... will be direct debited to your bank account on (initiating date)”. (b) May, upon the relationship which gave rise to this Authority being terminated, give notice to the bank that no further Direct Debits are to be initiated under the Authority. Upon receipt of such notice the Bank may terminate this Authority as to future payments by notice in writing to me/us.

(b) In any event this Authority is subject to any arrangement now or hereafter existing between me/us and the Bank in relation to my/our account. (c) Any dispute as to the correctness or validity of an amount debited to my/our account shall not be the concern of the Bank except in so far as the direct debit has not been paid in accordance with this Authority. Any other disputes lie between me/us and the Initiator. (d) Where the Bank has used reasonable care and skill in acting in accordance with this authority, the Bank accepts no responsibility or liability in respect of:

- The accuracy of information about Direct Debits on bank statements.

- Any variations between notices given by the Initiator and the amounts of Direct Debits.

The Customer may: (a) At any time, terminate this Authority as to future payments by giving written notice of termination to the Bank and to the Initiator.

(e) The Bank is not responsible for, or under any liability in respect of the Initiator’s failure to give written notice correctly nor for the non-receipt or late receipt of notice by me/us for any reason whatsoever. In any such situation the dispute lies between me/us and the Initiator.

(b) Stop payment of any direct debit to be initiated under this authority by the Initiator by giving written notice to the Bank prior to the direct debit being paid by the Bank.

The Bank may: (a) In its absolute discretion conclusively determine the order of priority of payment by it of any monies pursuant to this or any other authority, cheque or draft properly executed by me/us and given to or drawn on the Bank.

The Customer acknowledges that: (a) This Authority will remain in full force and effect in respect of all direct debits made from my/our account in good faith notwithstanding my/our death, bankruptcy or other revocation of this Authority until actual notice of such event is received by the bank.

(b) At any time terminate this authority as to future payments by notice in writing to me/us. (c) Charge its current fees for this service in force from time-to-time.

FOREST BIRD

FOREST BIRD Forest & Bird Membership

Join Forest & Bird and you will receive Forest & Bird magazine, including Conservation News, and our email newletter, e-News, four times a year. You will have free entry to more than 30 Forest & Bird reserves around the country and discounted entry to the Society’s seven lodges at Ruapehu, Piha and other scenic locations. You can also take part in conservation projects and enjoy talks and field trips through our 55 branches around the country.

Sustain Programme Join Forest & Bird’s new monthly giving programme and you will receive all of the membership benefits above, our regular Sustain email update, and invitations to attend special events.

Gift Membership To give a gift membership simply fill out the form below and send it in with your payment.

Kiwi Conservation Club (KCC) Membership Join KCC, our award-winning club for children, and you will receive five copies of KCC magazine a year, a membership certificate, KCC stickers and notice of activities closest to you from one of our volunteer coordinators.

Join online: www.forestandbird.org.nz • Freephone 0800 200 064

Join online at: www.forestandbird.org.nz Freephone: 0800 200 064 Membership Single or

Fold here

Forest & Bird Memberships (Prices include GST). Please print clearly.

Family (# in family ____) $52

Senior single or

Senior family (# in family____) $39

Student/School $35

KCC single $12

KCC family (# of children ____) $20

Overseas NZ$95

Sustain Programme ($20+ per month)

KCC Overseas NZ$28

First name _______________________________________ Last name________________________________________________ Address___________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Telephone_____________________________________Email________________________________________________________ Gift Membership

Please select from the categories above. If you wish to continue paying for this gift membership each year please use the Direct Debit payment option described below. (Gift donor details over page.)

Gift recipient's first name________________________________ Last name___________________________________________ Address___________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Telephone_____________________________________Email________________________________________________________ Fold

here

Payment Options Yes, I would like to join Forest & Bird’s Sustain Programme and give $________ per month ($20 minimum).

Full name (block capitals) Address Membership no.

Daytime telephone number Please charge my credit card (please fill out your credit card details below).

Yes, I would like to pay my Membership / Gift Membership / KCC Membership / Sustain Programme by Direct Debit.

(Please fill out all of the Direct Debit authorisation form on the opposite page. Tear out using the perforation, fold in four and post it inside this tear-off freepost envelope. To assemble, moisten the gummed edges and fold in three before posting).

I enclose a cheque payable to Forest & Bird Please charge my credit card:

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Expiry date______________________ Cardholder's signature__________________________________________________________ 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

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Forest & Bird is New Zealand's leading independent conservation organisation This gift membership is from: First name:______________________________________ Last name_______________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone:_________________________________ Email: ____________________________________________________ Please send the first gift pack to me for personal presentation.

Please write your gift membership message here______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Join online: www.forestandbird.org.nz • Freephone 0800 200 064

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.

Rotorua: Chair, Chris Ecroyd; Secretary, Nicola Dooley, PO Box 1489, Rotorua. Tel: (07) 345 8687.

South Waikato: Chair, Anne Groos; Secretary, Jack Groos, 37 Waianiwa Place, Tokoroa. Tel: (07) 886-7456.

Taupo: Chair, Anne Gallagher; Secretary, Bett Davies, PO Box 1105 Taupo, Tel: (07) 378 7064.

Tauranga: Chair, Vacant; Secretary, Cynthia Carter, PO Box 487, Tauranga. Tel:(07) 552 0220 .

Te Puke: Chair, Neale Blaymires; Secretary, Colin Horn, PO Box 237, Te Puke. Tel : (07) 573 7345 Waihi: Chair, Ian Bradshaw; Secretary, Krishna Buckman, 17 Reservoir Road, Waihi. Tel: (07) 863-8455.

Waikato: Chair, Dr Philip Hart; Secretary, Jim MacDiarmid, PO Box 11-092, Hillcrest, Hamilton, Tel: (07) 838-6644 extn 8344.

Wairoa: Chair, Stanley Richardson; Secretary, Glenys Single, 72 Kopu Rd, Wairoa 4192. Tel: (06) 838-8232.

South Taranaki: Chair, Rex Hartley; Secretary, Lynda Sutherland, 39 High St, Eltham 4657. Tel: (06) 764-7479.

Upper Hutt: Chair, Dr Barry Wards; Secretary, Vacant; PO Box 40-875, Upper Hutt. Tel: (04) 970 4266.

Wairarapa: Chair, Geoff Doring; Secretary, Vacant,10 Waiohine Gorge Rd, RD 1. Tel: 021 619 599.

Wanganui: Chair, Stephen Sammons; Secretary, Ray Hutchison, PO Box 4229, Wanganui. Tel: (06) 345-2651.

Wellington: Chair, Merrin Pearse; Secretary, Louise Taylor, PO Box 4183, Wellington. Tel: (04) 971-1770.

South Island Ashburton: Chair, 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.

Lower North Island Kaikoura: Chair, Sue Jarvie; Secretary, Barry Dunnett, Central Hawke's Bay: Chair, Phil Enticott; Secretary, Pooles Rd RD1, Kaikoura. Tel: (03) 319-5086.

Max Chatfield, PO Box 189, Waipukurau.

Marlborough: Chair, Andrew John; Secretary, Michael Tel: (06) 858-9298.

Harvey, PO Box 896, Blenheim. Tel: (03) 577-6086.

Hastings/Havelock North: Nelson/Tasman: Chair, Dr Peter Ballance; Secretary, Chair, Ian Noble; Secretary, Doreen Hall, Flat 1, 805 Tony Bryant, 49 Motueka Quay, Motueka, 7120.

Kennedy Rd, Hastings. Tel: (06) 876-5978.

Tel: (07) 528 5212.

Horowhenua: Chair, Robert Hirschberg; Secretary, North Canterbury: Secretary, David Ellison-Smith, Joan Leckie, Makahika Rd, RD 1, Levin 5500. Tel: (06) PO Box 2389, Christchurch. Tel: (03) 981 7037.

368-1277.

South Canterbury: Chair, Marijke Bakker-Gelsin; Kapiti Mana: Chair, David Gregorie; Secretary, Margaret McPherson, 29 Mountain View Secretary, John McLachlan, 78 Langdale Ave, Road, Timaru. Tel: (03) 686 1494.

Paraparaumu. Tel: (04) 904-0027.

Southland: Chair, Craig Carson; Secretary: vacant, Lower Hutt: Chair, Stan Butcher; Secretary, Bill Watters, PO Box 1155, Invercargill. Tel: (03) 213-0732.

PO Box 31194, Lower Hutt. Tel: (04) 565-0638.

South Otago: Chair, Carol Botting; Secretary, Verna Manawatu: Chair, Brent Barrett, PO Box 961, Gardner, Romahapa Rd, Balclutha. Tel: (03) 418-1819.

Palmerston Nth 5301. Tel: (06) 357-6962; Secretary, Upper Clutha: Chair, Mark Ayre; Joanna McVeagh, PO Box 961, Palmerston North Secretary, Angela Brown, PO Box 38, Lake Hawea, 5301. Tel: (06) 356 6054.

Central Otago 9192. Tel: (03) 433 7020.

Napier: Chair, Isabel Morgan; Waitaki: Chair, Ross Babington; Secretary, Annette Secretary, Margaret Gwynn, 23 Clyde Rd, Napier. Tel: Officer, 21 Arrow Crescent, Oamaru. Tel: (03) 434-6107.

Central North Island (06) 835 2122.

West Coast: Secretary/Treasurer, Carolyn Cox, 168 Eastern Bay of Plenty: Chair, Rosemary Tully; North Taranaki: Chair, Ian Barry; Secretary, Murray Romilly St, Westport 7601. Tel: (03) 789-5334.

Secretary, Sue Greenwood, c/o Ezebiz Tax, PO Box 582, Duke, PO Box 1029, New Plymouth 4340. Tel: (06) 751 Whakatane, 3158. Tel: (07) 308 5576.

2759.

Rangitikei: Chair, Tony Simpson; Secretary, Betty Gisborne: Chair, Dick McMurray; Secretary, Grant Vincent, 1 Dominey Street, Gisborne, Tel: (06) 868-8236. Graham, 41-Tutaenui Rd, Marton. Tel: (06) 327-7008.

lodgeaccommodation Arethusa Cottage An ideal place from which to explore the Far North.

Near Pukenui in wet-land reserve. 6 bunks, fully equipped kitchen, separate bathroom outside. For information and bookings, contact: John Dawn, Doves Bay Road, RD1, Kerikeri. Tel: (09) 407-8658, Fax: (09) 407-1401.

Tai Haruru Lodge, Piha, West Auckland A seaside haven set in a large sheltered garden on the rugged West Coast, 38km on sealed roads from central Auckland. Close to store, bush reserves and tracks in the beautiful Waitakere Ranges. Double bedroom and 3 singles, plus large lounge with wood burner, dining area and kitchen. The self-contained unit has 4 single beds. Bring food, linen and fuel for fire and BBQ. Booking officer: Patricia Thompson, 78 Neil Avenue, Te Atatu Peninsula, Waitakere City 0610.

Tel: (09) 834-7745 after 9am. Off peak rates apply.

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, well-equipped 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. w w w. f o r e s t a n d b i r d . o r g . n z

Ruapehu Lodge, Tongariro National Park Situated 600 m from Whakapapa Village, at the foot of Mount Ruapehu, this lodge is available for members and their friends. It may also be hired out to other compatible groups by special arrangement.

It is an ideal base for tramping, skiing, botanising or visiting the hotpools at Tokaanu. The lodge holds 32 people in four bunkrooms and provides all facilities except food and bedding. Bookings and inquiries to Forest and Bird, PO Box 631, Wellington.

Tel: (04) 385-7374, Fax: (04) 385-7373.

Email: office@forestandbird.org.nz

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: Fred Allen, PO Box 31-194, Lower Hutt.

Tel: (04) 934-0559.

Mangarakau Swamp Field Centre, North West Nelson Borders Kahurangi National Park and Te Tai Tapu Marine Reserve. New, 10 bed lodge with two William Hartree Memorial Lodge, Hawkes Bay bathrooms, fully equipped kitchen. Sleeping bags, Situated 48km from Napier, 8km past Patoka on the towels and food required. Contact Jo-Anne Vaughan Puketitiri Rd (sealed). The lodge is set amid a 14ha – Golden Bay Branch Secretary for details: javn@xtra.co.nz or phone (03) 5248072. scenic reserve and close to many walks, eg: Kaweka Range, Balls Clearing, hot springs and museum. The Tautuku Lodge, Otago lodge accommodates up to 15 people. It has a fully State Highway 92, Southeast Otago. Situated on equipped kitchen including stove, refrigerator and Forest and Bird's 550ha Lenz Reserve 32km south microwave plus tile fire, hot showers. Supply your of Owaka. A bush setting, and many lovely beaches own linen, sleeping bags etc. For information and nearby provide a wonderful base for exploring bookings please send a stamped addressed envelope the Catlins. The lodge, the Coutts cabin and an Ato Pam and John Wuts, 15 Durham Ave, Tamatea, frame sleep 10, 4 and 2 respectively. No Animals.

Napier. Tel: (06) 844-4751, Email: wutsie@xtra.co.nz For information and rates please send a stamped addressed envelope to the caretaker: Matiu/Somes Island, Wellington Harbour Diana Noonan, Mirren St, Papatowai, Owaka, RD2.

Joint venture accommodation by Lower Hutt Tel: (03) 415-8024, fax (03) 415-8244.

Forest and Bird with DOC. A modern family Email: diana.n@clear.net.nz home with kitchen, 3 bedrooms, large lounge and dining room, just 20 mins sailing by ferry from the F O R E S T & B I R D • M AY 2 0 0 7

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