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Thursday August 4, 2022
readers have their say... Find out the WORD on the Street.
Q: How have you tried to combat the rising cost of living?
Karla Higham
Henry Hadfield
Bill Busfield
Jim Lloyd
Jan Williams
Brenda Hadfield
Very little takeaways – home cooking instead, pre-plan car trips to save petrol, and checking the price when buying groceries.
By keeping my gardens growing, especially growing more vegetables.
By getting cheap cuts of meat and slow cooking.
I have a pension and it’s enough to survive on.
I do more walking rather than taking a taxi.
By spending wisely, because nothing grows on trees any more.
Bird numbers soar to new heights The latest Miramar Peninsula bird count results reveal a 51% increase in native birds on the Miramar Peninsula. The increase in native birds has been driven by a 550% increase in pƯwakawaka (NZ fantails), a 275% increase in riroriro (grey warblers) and a 49% increase in WnjL James Willcocks, Project Director for Predator Free Wellington, said the explosion of wildlife on the Miramar Peninsula is an acknowledgment of everyone’s efforts to eradicate rats and mustelids from the peninsula. “It’s a real credit to the hard work that’s being done, not just from us, but from volunteer groups, such as Predator Free Miramar, Te Motu Kairangi Ecological Restoration group, Forest and Bird - Places for Penguins, as well as all the volunteer trapping groups throughout the wider Wellington city. “Everyone is pitching in and it’s so satisfying to see more and more native birds on the peninsula and in our city.” “This is a real demonstration of
what can be achieved when people commit to delivering a collective vision,” said James. James said birds tell us about the health of a place, so they are a type of messenger in this regard. To see the bird numbers increase as they are, tells us Wellington is alive, we are living in a nature city, and Wellingtonians can only expect to see more native birds in their neighbourhood. Along with the formal bird count results, Predator Free Wellington has 300 monitoring cameras set up to detect rat activity on the peninsula. “We used to have thousands of rat photographs to scan through weekly, now instead of rats we are picking up NƗNƗULki on our cameras, and we are seeing more images of koroUƗ (little blue penguins) than rats on the peninsula which is epic,” said James. Dan Henry, Predator Free Miramar says the formal results are hugely gratifying and reflect what those in the community are seeing. “We hear lots of reports from delighted locals of WnjL feeding in
backyards, or SƯwakawaka following volunteers along their traplines in the bush, but it’s awesome to have these anecdotes confirmed with the data. And NƗNƗ sightings are becoming more and more frequent too, so we’re looking forward to having them settle properly soon,” said Dan. Predator Free Wellington is a partnership between Wellington City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Predator Free 2050 Limited and the NEXT Foundation. Predator Free Wellington is a world first project attempting to remove introduced species from the capital city and its surrounds so that native species and communities can thrive. Stage one of this project is an attempt to eradicate two species of rats, stoats and weasels from Miramar Peninsula before moving further into the city. Miramar Peninsula is home to thousands of Wellingtonians, making this eradication one of the first large-scale multi species pest eradications to be carried out in urban and suburban habitat anywhere in the world.
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The increase in native birds has been driven by a 550% increase in pīwakawaka (NZ fantails), a 275% increase in riroriro (grey warblers) and a 49% increase in tūī. Photo: Emma Rowell.
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