Nelson Weekly
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Wednesday 6 March 2019
Winning boat has explosive past
Page 4
Gagings set sights on White Ferns
Page 26
Natureland boss resigns Staff reporter
Five years after entering a lastminute bid to save Natureland from extiction, Meg Rutledge is moving on from the Tahunanui zoo. The Natureland director tendered her resignation to the trust behind the zoo in January after
PAGE 16-17
stepping down from the board herself the month before. She says the time was right for someone else to come in and help take it to the next level. “I’m incredably proud of the work we’ve done here and the team who have made it what it is today.” The timing comes as the zoo
fights – once again – for its survival. A funding request of $248,000 a year to Nelson Meg Rutledge. City Council was knocked back to $170,000 a year.
That led to Natureland Wildlife Trust chair Alan Hinton writing to council warning them that the zoo would have to close as it could not operate on that amount of funding. He has tabled four possible options, including closing down or finding new owners if the request for $248,000 a year isn’t
granted. Meg’s partner Mike, a Nelson City councillor, stepped down from the board last April after a heated council meeting surrounding the council funding of the zoo. The meeting led to an investigation into his conduct.
SEE PAGE 4
Residents take action to save water Sara Hollyman After the driest January and February on record, Nelsonians are coming up with inventive ways to conserve water. Just 14mm of water was recorded at Nelson Airport since the beginning of the year pushing Nelson to stage 3 water rationing, meaning households can only use water for general household consumption with a total ban on hosing and sprinklers. In Tasman, water rationing is at stage 4, meaning households should be saving 25 per cent of water and businesses up to 40 per cent. Metservice meteorologist Tui McInnes says that the dry spell will continue this week, but a glimmer of hope exists in the form of a front moving onto the country over the weekend. “The front could get more active so we could see some rain but it’s hard to say where or how much, we won’t really know till later in the week, but it could be the case that it misses Nelson altogether.”
SEE PAGE 2 Chris and Juanita Donnelly with their 7-year-old daughter Levani soaking their plants in water saved from their laundry. Photo: Sara Hollyman
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