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Archives For 30/11/1999

Raoul Island Diaries: Hammered by Cyclone Bune

DOC on Raoul Island — 27/06/2011

Raoul Island is one of the Kermadec Islands, about 1000km north-east of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. DOC have a small team of staff and volunteers who live on the island in relative solitude. Their main focus is controlling weeds on the island, maintaining infrastructure such as buildings, roads and tracks, and carrying out work for Met Service and GNS.

Since the island is so remote, we get these diary entries from the team and post them up on their behalf. Today’s diary is by Raoul Island Ranger – Threats (Weeds) & Biodiversity, Toby Shanley.

The tail end of cyclone season

By late March life here on Raoul Island had settled into a familiar routine made up of weeding four days a week, maintaining tracks, roads, grounds and infrastructure one day a week and for the most part exploring our beautiful surroundings on the weekend.

The Raoul Island hostel on a calm day!

The end of March is usually seen as the end of cyclone season and it appeared the island was going to survive the summer unscathed by any major weather systems. But this was all about to change! On 26 March we woke to tremendous surf pounding the north side of the island, and although the weather was calm and fine this was a sure sign that trouble was brewing to our north.

Cyclone Bune is on its way…

A quick check of the weather map confirmed our suspicions as we saw a large storm brewing just south of Fiji. A Google search informed us that we were looking at tropical cyclone Bune (pronounced mm-boo-nay), which had just been upgraded to a category three cyclone. We also received a sat phone call from Metservice ensuring that we were aware of the cyclones proximity and they informed us that it was forecast to pass very near us as it travelled south.

The cyclone travelled very slowly towards us for the next two days and the swell grew until the whole island seemed to rumble under the force of the pounding waves. Then on the afternoon of Monday 28 March the winds began to rapidly increase as the cyclone approached us.

Fishing rock being pounded by surf whipped up by Cyclone Bune

By this time all the necessary precautions had been taken so that light objects would not blow away and the hostel was as secure as possible.

…and Bune arrives!

By early evening the wind was screaming through the trees that line the edge of the cliff out in front of the hostel and leaves and small branches were being tossed high into the air. The winds continued to increase until around 8pm when all of a sudden they dropped completely leaving a very eerie silence.

We all went out on to the lawn and marvelled at how still and quiet it was compared to the chaos of a few minutes prior. This was the eye of the cyclone and we were unsure how long the stillness would last. We all went to bed expecting that any second the wind would return as strong as ever.

The trailing edge of the eye finally passed us at around midnight and the wind returned with renewed ferocity. The wind was now coming from the south west as opposed to the afternoon when it had been blowing from the north east.

Our accommodation is well sheltered from the north east but not so much from the south west and so we all had a very sleepless night. The wind seemed to build up in the hills behind the hostel and then coming roaring and screaming down towards us in regular violent gusts. But by morning the worst of it was past us.

The damaged foxway shed

Surveying the damage

The task for the following few days was obvious, to survey the damage and to prepare for the cleanup. The first two priorities were to check our water supply and the road to our landing point which is 3 km away from the hostel. On checking the buildings around base we discovered that two had suffered substantial damage with one missing half of its roof.

The news back about the water supply and road was not good either. It looked as if the spring that we take most of our water from had been submerged by a giant slip and the road to the landing was covered in huge fallen trees. It was obvious that the cleanup would need to be started as soon as possible.

To add to the urgency of it we were due for a visit from the Heritage Expeditions cruise ship the Spirit of Enderby within two weeks. Over those two weeks the team put in a huge effort to clear enough of the roads and tracks so that we could show the passengers on the expedition some of this beautiful island we call home.

Forest flattened by Cyclone Bune

The cyclone put the weeding on hold but we should be back into it by mid May when a team of people come up with the Navy to help clear the rest of the roads and tracks. The Navy will also bring us food and supplies for the next six months and four new volunteers who will live and work with us until we leave the island in late October.

Farewells

To the vollies who are leaving us Nicki, Maree, Terry, and Nigel a huge thank you for devoting a part of your lives to help restore this amazing island.

In Auckland, Islands, Raoul Island, Volunteers, Weeds Kermadec Islands, Raoul Island

Lasting impressions of the Kermadec Islands

Lizzy Sutcliffe — 07/06/2011

Warren Chinn, our invertebrate ecologist in Canterbury Conservancy, was lucky enough to be invited on a trip to the Kermadec Islands last month. The 20-day expedition, led by Dr Tom Trnski, marine curator at Auckland Museum, aimed to explore the remote islands for new species. Warren filed this report on his return…

…We tend to form mental pictures of new places based on prior knowledge, other people’s comments, pictures, maps and to a large extent, imagination of ‘how it should be’.

My mental image of the Kermadecs was a scene of romantically isolated semi-tropical lost worlds, the stuff of Joseph Banks and La Peruse. Sea sickness immediately erased such nonsense within hours of leaving Tauranga.

Our vessel: The Braveheart at Tauranga.

Our first sighting of the Kermadec group was L’Esperance Rock, a mutilated knuckle of basalt erupting from the heaving ocean. It was better than my imagination – a good start.

L’Esperance Rock comes into view, after two days.

We steamed past as it was too rough to land and over the following days three more islands in the chain slowly came into view, these were; Cheeseman, Curtis and Macauley.

Each island seemed to me like a massive billboard in the ocean, with an explicit natural history message: “HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” Followed by two smaller messages: “when did this happen?”, and “what lives here and from where?”

Petrels fill the air above South Meyer Island.

We anchored near Raoul Island, where I landed on the Meyer Island group with (the very erstwhile) Peter de Lange.

The Meyer islands are steep-sided, clad in a dry, friable soil that is shot through with Petrel burrows. An equal number of birds fill the sky, forming a constant blizzard of flapping and diving.

Here was another ecological message: This is what mainland coastal New Zealand would have been like prior to our arrival and the introduction of mammalian predators. These Islands are a nature reserve of the highest value and this is clearly why – they are well-insulated.

Petrel burrows on North Meyer Island.

The insect fauna on the small islands comprised big headed ants, flies, crickets, leaf hoppers and small moths. Spiders were common and small in size, which probably reflects their arrival on the islands by ballooning, that is, travelling through the air on filaments of silk. Centipedes and millipedes were also present, along with mites and silverfish.

The next week I spent four days on Raoul Island, a proper volcano with a crater lake. After a lovely evening with the DOC staff and volunteers, I tramped over to Denham Bay to collect invertebrates there. Here I set up a malaise trap and collected numerous moths, flies and even spiders.

The most interesting find was a large wolf spider, Geolycosa tongatabuensis, a species that occurs from Tonga to Northland. These spiders represent the invertebrate situation on the Kermadecs, the fauna is composed of a mixture of pacific island and northern New Zealand elements, which makes sense biogeographically.

It is clear that cyclones, drift wood, ocean currents and air systems all carry invertebrates within and between land masses in this part of the globe.

A wolf spider found between Northland New Zealand and Tonga.

We left Raoul Island and anchored at Macauley Island. Here Peter and I spent two nights. The foot travel was difficult as moving through the chest-high Kermadec fern and Cyperus grass was like step-plugging in deep snow.

However, I collected more crickets, moths, beetles and spiders. I even saw a yellow admiral butterfly but was unable to catch it. Butterflies no doubt get blown to these islands frequently so there will always be some present.

Landing on Cheeseman Island.

We then steamed to Cheeseman and Curtis Islands. These two are active hotspots on the earth’s surface and this was obvious by the smoke coming from Curtis Island.

We landed on Cheeseman; a strange, almost lunar landscape. The most exciting find was Senecio kermadecensis – a plant endemic to the island – which had Peter very excited. I collected spiders, flies, beetles and crickets.

A Solomona cricket on Esperance Rock.

Our last landing was L’Esperance Rock which was a little hair-raising. A steep pile of volcanic rubble best describes this Island.

However I found two species of pseudoscorpion, numerous crickets and another wolf spider species on the rock. The pseudoscorpions probably got onto the rock via birds, as they are flightless and wouldn’t survive on flotsam. L’Esperance Rock was the very last place I expected to find pseudoscorpions, so there it is; reality was more creative than my imagination.

Peter on the summit of Esperance Rock.

You can find out more by visiting the expedition pages on the Auckland Museum website.

In Auckland, Islands, Native animals, Native plants, Raoul Island Birds, Bugs, insects, kermadecs, species, spiders

Ulva Island Eradication Update: 21 April 2011

Brent Beaven — 21/04/2011

The DOC website has the latest updates on the Ulva Island rat eradication.
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The work on Ulva Island continues to progress, with the work focussed on planning for an eradication option and obtaining the resource consent for this work.

Operational planning

Planning work is progressing well, key decisions have been made about bait storage, loading site, re-fuelling site etc and organisation of these and other aspects of the operation is well on track.

Documentation such as contracts (bait supply, aerial bait spread), operational plan etc are either completed or in final draft phase.

The operational plan has been sent to the Islands Eradication Advisory Group for feedback, (including questions raised by the community such as merits of pre-feeding and best practice for sowing the coast).

IEAG is a team of DOC experts who provide worldwide technical support for island eradication operations. New Zealand leads the world in this field and the meeting was attended by people from far flung places such as French Polynesia, California and the UK, all seeking advice on how to go about eradicating rats from islands.
Calibration of the helicopter buckets has been organised for the last week of April (April 27th). Bucket Calibration is an important step in the eradication process and is carried out in a flat mowed paddock where all bait can be seen and counted. Non-toxic bait is sown through the bucket that is to be used in the operation and the machinery is tweaked to ensure that bait is sown to the correct swath width (i.e. width of strip sown with bait on each pass) and that the correct number of pellets per hectare are sown. Once the correct bait application spread and rate has been achieved the bucket settings are noted so that the toxic bait can be spread correctly on the day.

Biosecurity meeting

As mentioned in the last update, a public meeting will be held at 7.30pm on 28th of April in the Stewart Island Community Centre. This meeting will discuss any and all ideas about possible ways to improve the biosecurity on Ulva Island to further reduce the chances of rats establishing in the future. If you have any ideas, or are simply interested to hear what might be proposed, please come along.

Monitoring

The University of Otago’s bird research group (who monitor robins on Ulva Island every summer) have offered to monitor the effects of the baiting operation and the effects that the rats have had on the birds on Ulva Island. It will be great to have this independent monitoring of the operation.

Trapping stopped

Some confusion seems to have arisen around the reasons as to why we have stopped trapping on Ulva Island.

The long term exisiting biosecurity measures on the island are aimed at preventing a rat population becoming established. In this case, they have failed and a rat population has established. Continuing to run these traps and bait stations will not even now slow the rat population expansion and is therefore considered to be a waste of time. Servicing them has stopped so we can focus efforts on a proper eradication attempt. This has been misinterpreted by some as DOC giving up. The fact is that we are well down the planning track for an aerial eradication attempt.

Regards

Brent

In Animal pests, Southland, Ulva Island eradication, pests, Ulva Island

Raoul Island Diaries: A black-winged petrel named Laughing Jack becomes a favourite on Raoul Island

DOC on Raoul Island — 14/04/2011

Raoul Island is one of the Kermadec Islands, about 1,000km north-east of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. DOC has a small team of rangers and volunteers who live on the island in relative solitude. Their main focus is controlling weeds on the island, maintaining infrastructure such as buildings, roads and tracks, and carrying out work for Met Service and GNS.

Since the island is so remote, we get these diary entries from the team and post them up on their behalf. Today’s diary is by volunteer, Maree Roberts.

Is Laughing Jack our favourite bird…?

Baby Jack, a Black-winged petrel chick, on the nest

It is not surprising that in being surrounded by birds, one or two would become favourites, or at least well-known to us. This is so of Laughing Jack, a Black-winged petrel that has built its nest on a nearby track.

This track, the Orange Grove Track, is an access route to the main track across the island and to many of our weeding plots. We therefore walk past Laughing Jack’s nest on a nearly daily basis.

Now Laughing Jack is not one for spending a lot of time on a fancy nest; this nest is more like a hollowed out groove in the edge of the track. So once the egg was laid and Laughing Jack was sitting on it, he was perched on the edge of his nest fully visible to us.

One of the coolest things that I have learnt on Raoul is that you can literally call black-winged petrels to you through a very strange and funny way. Basically you make a “wo wo wo” sound by patting your mouth with your hand. This has them swooping down all around you and often landing beside you, or if you are lucky, even on you.

So each time we would walk past Laughing Jack’s nest we would make this sound and Laughing Jack being a friendly kind of bird would answer back loud and clear. Laughing Jack became so used to us that just walking by and making the noise set him off. And it seemed to us that Laughing Jack sounded just like he was laughing his head off at how silly we sounded – hence the name ‘Laughing Jack’.

Red-tailed tropicbird on a nest

We have had many a laugh with Laughing Jack over the last month as he sat on the nest. And then, as these things go, baby Jack appeared. Black-winged petrel chicks are the cutest balls of fluff you ever saw and we were lucky to be able to see this one clearly due to the meagre nature of Laughing Jack’s nest.

Of course the first thing we did was try out the call and in response, in the squeakiest pitch, was the familiar laughing call. So now we get to not only watch baby Jack grow and grow, but also to say hello every time we pass and hear him laughing his fluffy head off about how silly we all sound!

… or is it the Red-tailed tropicbird?

It is quite a competition around here for which birds are our favourite and for me it has always been the beautiful Red-tailed tropicbird. When the sun is shining and you look up and see one, you can almost see right through their white wings and as for the long red tail feathers well, they are just fantastic.

Red-tailed tropicbird chick on nest

We recently got to go over to the Meyer Islands, another bonus of being on Raoul Island. These islands are literally coated in beautiful, and sometimes quite rare, seabirds.

On this trip I was privileged to get to see up close not only several tropicbirds, but their fluffy white chicks as well. This was a real highlight of my trip to Raoul and made me realise just how lucky I am to have come to stay in this bird paradise.

In Auckland, Islands, Native animals, Raoul Island, Volunteers Black-Winged Petrel, Kermadec Islands, petrel, Raoul Island

Ulva Island eradication update: 25 March 2011

Brent Beaven — 30/03/2011

The DOC website has the latest updates on the Ulva Island rat eradication.
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FAQs

A list of Frequently Asked Questions about the situation on Ulva Island has been compiled and placed on the Department of Conservation website.

This list of questions covers what is happening with the rats on Ulva Island as well as information about the proposed eradication operation. If you have another question that isn’t covered by this list, please let me know and I’ll see if I can add it in so that the information is available for everyone.

Biosecurity

A date has been set for the meeting to discuss biosecurity. The meeting is planned for the 7.30pm, Thursday 28th April at the Community Centre.

Biosecurity is the term that we give to all of the actions that we take to keep an island pest free. On Ulva Island it consisted of traps and bait stations on the island, traps on people’s boats, quarantine procedures for gear going to Ulva, signage and regular publicity. While the biosecurity network on the island was effective at preventing a rat population establishing for 15 years, it has failed this time round. This has prompted lots of people to have ideas on how it could be improved to further reduce the chances of this situation occurring again. We would like to capture all of these ideas, so please bring them along to the meeting.

Fundraising

Kamahi and ferns, Ulva Island, Stewart Island

The eradication operation isn’t going to be cheap and DOC doesn’t have the funding to pay the full cost of the operation. The Department has reprioritised its work and has found about 50% of the costs.

Thankfully we are starting to get some good community support behind what needs to be done on Ulva Island. This started with The Birdlife International Community Conservation Fund pledging $5000 toward the costs. The Les Hutchins Conservation Foundation has also shown strong support with a promised substantial donation toward the operation. On top of this, the University of Otago has offered to monitor the impact of the rats and the eradication operation on the saddleback and robin populations.

If you think you can help, the Ulva Island Trust is co-ordinating donations. Further details of how to give can be found on their website www.ulvaisland.org.

Resource consent lodged

The Department has lodged a resource consent application with Environment Southland. Environment Southland has notified this consent allowing anyone to make a submission. This notification was in this past Saturday’s newspaper as well as the ES website.

Environment Southland run a good process and we think they will be a good independent evaluator of our proposed methods and controls. We encourage you to make a submission (in support or expressing your concerns), so that ES can fully evaluate this application.

In Animal pests, Ulva Island