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Jobs at DOC: Becs Gibson, Aotea/Great Barrier Island Ranger

Department of Conservation — 23/05/2014

Come behind the scenes and into the jobs, the challenges, the highlights, and the personalities of the people who work at the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Today we profile Becs Gibson, Partnerships Ranger on Aotea/Great Barrier Island…

Becs with rockhopper penguins on Campbell Island.

Becs Gibson with rockhopper penguins on Campbell Island

At work

Some things I do in my job include:

I work with conservation trusts to support the projects and initiatives they have; run events; develop meaningful education opportunities; and help the biodiversity team out when needed. I also handle permissions and statutory work, as well as being a fire recruit.

This helps achieve DOC’s vision by:

Forming meaningful partnerships that achieve more conservation, and making sure there is another generation to develop conservation into the future.

The best bit about my job is:

The variety. One day I will be meeting with the Local Board; next running a local event on the beach; next off to help the biodiversity guys monitor rats on the Mokohinau Islands—and that was just last week!

The funniest DOC moment I’ve had so far is:

Picking up Director-General Lou Sanson from the southern end of Mason Bay after he had spent the night away from our camp at Doughboy Bay, waving his arms wildly as the plane landed—priceless.

The DOC (or previous DOC) employee that inspires or enthuses me most is:

There are so many, and I by no means want to exclude any of the wonderful people I have worked with—you are all inspiring and have enthused me in all sorts of ways. But, without Lindsay Wilson’s guidance, I might have given up this gig a long time ago. He embraced the lighter side of the job and was a man of action, who definitely walked the talk.

Becs at the Penguin Bay Hilton hut/shelter on Campbell Island.

5 star accommodation on Campbell Island

On a personal note…

My best ever holiday was:

To another lot of remote islands, New Zealand’s subantarctics: Campbell Island, the Auckland Islands and the Snares/Tini Heke.

It’s amazing to see how Campbell has flourished after the removal of sheep and then rats, and the beautiful bountiful Snares with biota galore, the biggest Stilbocarpa I will probably ever see in my life!

I actually got there on an Enderby Trust Scholarship, which still operates. A dream come true trip, so it was hard to beat!

In my spare time:

I spend as much of it as I can adventuring with my son: swimming, fishing, walking (can’t really call it tramping with a 5 year old) and then the stuff that sustains our life here: gardening, looking after chooks, killing the odd ruminator for meat and butchering it.

If I could be any New Zealand native species I’d be:

A takapu, Australasian gannet. You would get to reside on some amazing coastlines, soar across the ocean and live a pretty egalitarian life.

Australasian gannet colony on Mahuki Island.

Takapu colony at Mahuki Island with Hauturu in the background

My secret indulgence is:

A hot bath with a glass of wine and a magazine—bliss!

If I wasn’t working at DOC, I’d like to:

Be back at university studying towards a master’s in freshwater ecology, and carrying out a thesis project in our beautiful awa/rivers.

Another beautiful South Island river!

Deep and meaningful…

My favourite quote is:

“If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for 10 years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.” – Confucius

The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is:

“They’re not making more land—look after it.” My father said to me at a young age.

Left, Fanal Island with Aotea (Great Barrier) behind, and Hauturu (Little Barrier) to the right. From Pokohinu in the Mokohinau group.

View from Burgess Island

In work and life I am motivated by:

People who stick up for what they believe in and walk the talk.

My conservation advice to New Zealanders is:

Reduce what you consume. Living on an island makes you very aware of the consumer based world when you go back to the mainland.

Question what you really need and ask if there are alternatives. Become better informed… live simply, laugh and love.

Becs holding her son on the deck of Mt Heale Hut.

On the fantastic Mt Heale Hut deck

Question of the week…

What words of wisdom would you give city folk moving to Great Barrier Island?

Be prepared for anything and everything—it’s a physical and emotional test!

And don’t bring your hair dryers, curling wands, electric blankets etc, they ain’t going to work—but then again you won’t actually need them.

In Islands, Jobs at DOC Aotea, Biodiversity, Great Barrier Island, jobs, Staff, subantarctic

Biodiversity work on the Chatham Islands

Department of Conservation — 22/05/2014

Island Biodiversity is the theme for today’s International Day for Biological Diversity.

To celebrate, DOC ranger Tansy Bliss writes about her job protecting the biodiversity on New Zealand’s Chatham Islands…

It’s May and the busy season of species protection work on the islands of Mangere and Rangatira in the Chatham Islands is coming to a close.

Rangatira Island, the third largest island in the Chatham Islands archipelago

It is often hard to find time for quiet reflection, but our final day on Rangatira sums up what is has all been about.

Naomi Muhlbacher, Islands hold a Chatham Petrel chick.

Naomi Muhlbacher holds a Chatham petrel chick

Trainee Ranger, Naomi Muhlbacher, holds a Chatham petrel chick. It lives in an artificial burrow installed in the nineties to help protect one of the rarest seabirds in the world and reduce burrow invasion by broad-billed prions.

With an estimated 300,000 prion pairs on Rangatira, and only 150 known Chatham Petrel pairs, competition for burrows is high.

I am fitting the chick with a metal band, so when it returns to breed in 3-5 years time, its identity can be verified.

This island was farmed up until the late fifties and most of the burrowing seabirds lost their home to heavy footed cattle and wandering sheep. Now the ground is so pitted with burrows, we wear wooden boards on our feet to prevent us damaging them further.

A black robin comes in to take advantage of the loosened soil and insects I have scooped out of the plastic tunnel entrance to ensure the chick has free passage to come in and out when exercising its wings ready for departure over the next few weeks.

Black robin

Chatham Island red-crowned parakeets chatter above us in competition with the Chatham Island tūī, fluttering from tree to tree, with constant vocalisations.

A Chatham Island snipe snuffles through the leaf litter, totally unperturbed by our presence and a male Chatham Island tomtit, sounds his alarm as he wards off the black robin from the fresh feeding ground.

Chatham Island red-crowned parakeet

Last month a team of highly skilled volunteers and I scoured the island searching for black robin—completing the annual banding and post-breeding census.

On an island with almost 200 hectares of potential robin habitat, it is quite a job.

Currently there are 229 known colour-banded adult black robins and 70 juveniles on Rangatira. The nearby island of Mangere is smaller and with less than 10 hectares of mature forest, and holds a population of 45 adults and 9 juveniles. With this being the entire population of black robin in the world, protecting them is high on our priority list.

Trying to catch black robin in a drop trap.

A young black robin inspects the drop trap looking for a meal worm

Before leaving Rangatira, we recheck all the coastal bait stations for sign of nibbling rodents and ensure all bait is fresh and ready for any unwanted arrivals. The rough seas around the islands and the rat free status of the nearest neighbour, Pitt Island, has probably helped keep the islands pest free. However bio-security is still the most important job I do and the responsibility of getting it right every time feels enormous.

Today, we pause to relax in the sun on the lichen covered rocks with the skinks and shore plover, all of us enjoying some unexpected late autumn warmth. Chatham Island warblers pick insects from the lichen and bull kelp thrown high on the coast during the recent storms. A Chatham Island fantail displays in the fringing Olearia trees and a pair of Chatham Island oystercatchers stand proud in the spray zone separated from the frolicking fur seals by a rolling ocean of breaking blue.

For us in the Chatham Islands, every day is an ‘Island Biodiversity Day’.

In Chatham Islands, Islands, Native animals Biodiversity, black robin, Chatham Islands, island, petrel, ranger

Kapiti Island takahē fly the nest

Department of Conservation — 08/05/2014

This week’s post is the first in a series to look at some Kapiti Island takahē who have flown the nest. Well, not really, they’re too fat to fly, but Air New Zealand helps out with that.

Secrets and scandals

Some real characters have set forth from Kapiti Island. One handsome takahē called Te Mingi caused quite a stir when he arrived at Tiritiri Matangi Island in 2010. He was meant to pair up with a hot chick called Ella, but instead her mother, Cheesecake, took a fancy to him.

Takahē chick with mum

Greg, Cheesecake’s husband, duelled with Te Mingi for his honour, but in the end Greg got a thrashing and Cheesecake and Te Mingi moved in together.

The happy couple have gone on to have three surviving babies – Wal, Westie, and a chick born in December who has yet to be named.

Breeding success of takahē in the wild is quite low so intervention methods, such as removal of infertile eggs from nests, and fostering out ‘extra’ eggs, have been used to manage takahē populations.

This work is done as part of the Takahē Recovery Programme supported by Mitre 10 Takahē Rescue in partnership with DOC. In particular, Vince Indo and his team at Mitre 10 Mega Paraparaumu have been awesome with their support of Kapiti Island and its takahē inhabitants.

Although takahē were never originally on Kapiti Island, a population was established there in case anything happened to the wild birds in the Murchison Mountains.

Kapiti, Tiritiri Matangi, Maud, Mana and Motutapu Islands, along with valuable protected mainland sites like the Burwood Takahē Rearing Unit, Cape Sanctuary and Maungatautari Ecological Island, all help secure the stability of takahē numbers.

Because there are so few takahē (about 260), the birds are moved between different breeding sites to increase genetic diversity and decrease the chance of inbreeding.

When takahē are translocated they’re put in a special Mitre 10 Takahe Rescue transfer box and get their very own seat on an Air New Zealand flight

When takahē are translocated they’re put in a special Mitre 10 Takahe Rescue transfer box and get their very own seat on an Air New Zealand flight.

The human passengers can take a peek and there might be an announcement about the special traveller – this is celebrity status, New Zealand-style.

Kapiti Island retains three breeding pairs and any chicks born there go on to be takahē superstars elsewhere in the country; it can be hard to say goodbye but Kapiti Coasters should be proud.

Takahē couples begin breeding in spring; the female usually lays two speckled eggs and takes turns with her mate to keep them warm.

Super-cute takahē chicks covered in black fuzz hatch after 30 days incubation but they can’t look after themselves yet.

After about three months of copying their parents they gradually learn skills for independence, then finally leave home when they’re one or two years old.

Te Mingi and Cheesecake’s territory is the lighthouse/Visitor Centre area of Tiritiri Matangi Open Sanctuary, north of Auckland.

Te Mingi is very comfortable with people so perhaps is the most famous takahē on that island these days – sounds like destiny for a takahe from Kapiti.

In Auckland, Islands, Native animals, Partnerships, Takahē, Wellington/Kapiti kapiti island, Takahe Rescue

Orange-fronted parakeets on Maud Island

Department of Conservation — 06/05/2014

By Megan Farley, Ranger (Biodiversity Services) in Rangiora.

The orange-fronted parakeet (kākāriki karaka) is arguably New Zealand’s most threatened endemic forest bird species.

During a recent stint in the field, the orange-fronted parakeet team spent four days monitoring the population of parakeets that have been released on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds

Young orange-fronted parakeet on Maud Island

Maud Island has had a few issues for the parakeet population, due to a pair of falcon (kārearea) attacking fledging chicks, a lack of nesting sites, and a lack of water and food sources.

Maud Island

Despite these setbacks a flock of eight orange fronted parakeets were found during this trip, all feeding together on olearia flowers (tree daisies) and bathing in the nearby stream.

Mature male orange-fronted parakeet. Photo Andrew Legault.

Mature male orange-fronted parakeet from one of the first releases onto Maud Island in 2007

Of the individual parakeets that were found, three were original birds released onto the island over six years ago, while five were birds that had hatched on the island.

Find more information on the orange-fronted parakeet on the DOC website or by liking Team OFP on Facebook.

In Islands, Native animals Kakariki karaka, marlborough sounds, Maud Island, Orange-fronted Parakeet

It’s a Good Friday to celebrate World Heritage

Elizabeth Marenzi — 18/04/2014

You probably don’t need me to tell you that today is Good Friday, but you could be forgiven for not knowing that today—18 April 2014—is also World Heritage Day.

To celebrate, we’re showing off New Zealand’s 3 stunning World Heritage sites.

Representing the best of the world’s natural (and, in some cases, cultural) heritage—and rated alongside places such as the Grand Canyon, the Serengeti, and Mount Everest—these are places that we should be immensely proud of…

Tongariro National Park

Tongariro National Park was the first national park to be established in New Zealand, and the fourth in the world. It is a dual World Heritage area, a status which recognises the park’s important Maori cultural and spiritual associations as well as its outstanding volcanic features.

Mt. Ngauruhoe. Photo: Matti | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Mt. Ngauruhoe, Tongariro National Park

Emerald Lakes. Photo: Matti | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Emerald Lakes, Tongariro National Park

Te Wāhipounamu – South West New Zealand

Te Wāhipounamu covers 10% of New Zealand’s landmass (2.6 million hectares) and contains many of the natural features which contribute to our international reputation for superlative landscapes: our highest mountains, longest glaciers, tallest forests, wildest rivers and gorges, most rugged coastlines and deepest fiords and lakes…

Lake Matheson

Milford Sound. Photo: CameliaTWU | flickr | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Milford Sound/Piopiotahi

New Zealand’s subantarctic islands

New Zealand’s wild and beautiful subantarctic islands have not only been honoured with World Heritage status, but they are also National Nature Reserves—the highest possible conservation status.

Home to some of the most abundant and unique wildlife on earth: many birds, plants and invertebrates are found nowhere else in the world.

Enderby Island

Subantarctic plant life

I hope this glimpse into our World Heritage has made your Good Friday even better.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

World Heritage Day is officially known as the International Day for Monuments and Sites.

Learn more about World Heritage on the DOC website.

In Central North Island, Fiordland, Islands Heritage, Subantarctic Island, Te Wahipounamu, Tongariro

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