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Archives For 30/11/1999

Kea conundrums – one sign does not fit all!

Sarah Mankelow —  02/04/2012

Which sign do you like best? We asked this question – and you answered! Within three days of putting an online questionnaire on the DOC website, 150 of you had filled it out! And more are coming in every day, which tells me kiwis do care for kea and want to help this loveable clown of the mountains.

Cheeky kea.

Look at those eyes - how can you say no?

DOC and others have struggled for years with the issue of people feeding kea. We’ve put up signs and posters in every mountain town where people and kea meet. We’ve produced pamphlets and written articles for magazines and papers, highlighting the plight of kea. We’ve given talks and worked with schools. 

And yet people still feed them. I mean, it’s hard not to when they ask so nicely! They hop up towards you, with their head tilted to the side, their intelligent eyes flicking between your face and your sandwich… they are so engaging you want to take their photo but they stay just out of reach… until you break off a small scrap and hold it out towards them… click a great shot! 

There’s been research done about visitor behaviour around wild animals (seals and dingoes are two examples) that says that signs don’t really work. We thought we’d try our own experiment with kea.

Which kea poster.

Which message works for you?

We challenged University of Otago design students to test some of the common elements that appear in these sorts of signs. Photos, symbols or cartoons? Polite plea or funny consequences? Words or no words? 

And then we asked you what you thought worked best … and this is what you said. 

Kea poster 2.

Kea poster 2 was the clear favourite

Kea poster two was the clear favourite; 67% of you said it was the most clear; 53% voted it the most likely to catch your eye; and 65% said it was the one you were most likely to obey. 

The reasons given were all pretty similar: “it’s simple”, “it looks official”, “it’s a universally understand symbol”, “It’s a clear DO NOT sign”. 

And my personal favourite answer: “something about a big red mark staying NO that makes you feel like someone is watching you being naughty.” 

OK that all seems pretty sensible. But it’s not the full picture.

Kea poster one.

Kea poster one scored high for aesthetic values!

A lot of you also really like poster one; in fact on the most likely to catch your eye question, poster one captured 37% of the vote. 

“It shows a real kea”, “the beauty of bird and mountain makes you want to find out more – read sign”, “striking pose by the kea, draws your attention”, “beautiful photo”, “because it is clearly a kea”. 

Many of you gave a mixed response to the signs – you liked some elements but not others; and there’s the conundrum – if we can’t make a sign that hits all the right buttons for one person, how can we make one that suits many! 

Here’s a good example: “I LOVE the photos of the KEA. Aesthetically, this is my preferred one – BUT I think that as a sign to communicate across cultures – the circle with red line across it does that most effectively.” 

There were heaps more really great comments which I can’t include in one short blog. But they were all really helpful to build up a better picture of why signs are actually really hard to get right! The questionnaire is still online and will be until the end of April so if you’d like to add your two cents worth go to it! The results will be formally written up after that – feel free to contact me if you’d like a copy!

In Canterbury, Native animals, Nelson/Marlborough, Otago, Southland, West Coast , ,
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Animal Health Board staff help save kakapo

Department of Conservation —  11/08/2011
For lucky Animal Health Board (AHB) staff members, District Disease Control Manager Jane Sinclair and Finance Manager Joy Tracey, the adventure of travelling to a secluded island surrounded by native birds became a reality when they won a trip to Whenua Hou/Codfish Island.

The purpose of the two week excursion to Codfish Island was to volunteer with the Kakapo Recovery programme.

Joy Tracey bravely places her finger in the mouth of adult kakapo, Rooster. While he does bite, he's known to be gentle

Jane’s experience

My adventure began when I first put my hand up at the AHB’s Christmas function auction. A few nervous minutes later and I was the proud winner of a two week stint on the kakapo sanctuary at Codfish Island. To prepare, I spent the next few Sunday mornings carrying my pack up Kakepuku—a 400-metre volcanic cone near Te Awamutu—and eating my breakfast at the top. It was hot, sticky work which ultimately proved to be worthwhile.

I arrived at the Department of Conservation quarantine office in Invercargill, where all my possessions were carefully inspected for seeds, dirt and mice. We were then put in an impossibly small plane (with just one pilot and three passengers) on our way to Codfish Island. We touched down at the landing on the beach at Sealers Bay.

As you might expect, Codfish Island has no roads and can only be reached by light plane or helicopter. The island is a specially protected nature reserve and no unauthorised landing is permitted. Flights in and out of the island are carefully managed to avoid any unwanted pests that could stowaway and cause untold destruction on the kakapo community

On our arrival, there was a mad scramble to off-load our gear as another group was ready to disembark the island. We were given an induction on what our roles would entail and the following day we each headed out with a map to tackle the feed-out run. Here’s where my Sunday morning training sessions came into effect. Carrying a 13 kilogram pack, it took me seven hours to complete that first day and I was seriously wondering how I would cope for a full two weeks.

After a great cup of tea and a good night’s sleep however, I was up and away the next day. I was finished in just under five hours and felt completely elated. The island’s vegetation is incredibly varied, spanning large forests to knee high scrub at the 500 metre summit. Peat also makes the underfoot conditions soft and, in some places, muddy. Everywhere on the island there were tomtits, tui, kaka, bellbirds, wood pigeons, rifleman and kakariki. Feed-out runs were divided into four different routes, looking after 28 birds in total. We had every third day off.

This feed station can only be activated by the kakapo with the correct radio frequency tag

On my first day off, I was asked to help with locating and catching a 2009 born kakapo named Hillary. We headed up to the summit and used telemetry to locate a signal off the North West Hut track.

Once we thought the bird was close, it was a case of quietly manoeuvring through head high vegetation until we were on top of it. Once caught, Hillary was weighed, given a thorough health check and released. It was a magical experience to be so close to one of these magnificent birds.

I was then asked if I would like to do some nest minding and spent the next four nights in a two man tent, high up on the island, looking after Flossie’s chick. When the chicks weigh less than 500 grams, they are given extra heat at night when the mother leaves the nest. A beam-activated door bell lets you know when the mother kakapo leaves her nest.

We were privileged to see a number of little kakapo chicks, one just hours old. Most of the chicks weigh-in at various sizes and look like little balls of white fluff with a huge beak. But, it goes without saying, they are incredibly cute

A small battery powered duvet is then placed over the chick and lifted every 10 minutes to ensure it is okay. Telemetry is used to indicate when the mother is returning and infra-red recordings of the nest are made and reviewed every 24 hours.

The dedication of the rangers was truly inspiring. When they’re on the island it is a 24-hour commitment over the entire month. They would literally run up the hill at any time of the night to check on a chick’s wellbeing. I must say, my two weeks on Codfish Island came to an end all too quickly.

I left feeling the fittest I‘ve ever been and encouraged that the kakapo are in such excellent hands. The work being carried out is achieving wonderful results, with 11 chicks that wouldn’t have survived without intervention this year. I have every confidence in the long-term future of this remarkable bird.

Written by Jane Sinclair for TB Matters.

One kakapo manages to slip in some dinner

In Native animals, Southland, Volunteers , ,
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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 , ,
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Mini miracles as kakapo chicks pull through

Sirocco the Spokesbird —  21/03/2011

Skraaaark! Exciting news coming up from Codfish Island via Skype-apo. The chick season is well and truly underway and so far all my little cousins are doing brilliantly. Nothing’s certain in kakapo-land, but wings crossed, they’re doing well!

Chatting with ranger Jo (I used to like sitting on her left foot), there’s been a couple of great stories so far:

DIY Egg

The lovely Suzanne has been doing a great job looking after Solstice’s eggs…but unfortunately she had a slight mishap and stood on one of them. (Too much rimu juice eh, Su?) The shell cracked – but luckily the rangers came to the rescue. They took the egg back to base and set to work with glue and masking tape…I’m not sure if that technique is in any medical manual but it worked. The chick inside stabilised, and a while later hatched and is doing grand – well done guys!

A Good Feed

Most of the chicks are now being looked after in nests, either by their mum or foster mum, with the others being hand reared. The fact that this is possible is due to another major breakthrough by the lovely Kakapo Recovery guys.

In the past, pretty much all the eggs had to be hand-reared, because the mums couldn’t do it themselves. This was partly due to the fact that they wouldn’t eat the supplementary food the rangers were giving them to feed them up (why would anyone ever turn down food??). That meant they weren’t strong enough to look after the chicks, so the rangers had to do it.

A Kakapo chick being hand fed, Codfish Island, 2008

But last breeding season, a few of the mums worked out that they could raise chicks on a combination of supplementary food pellets and rimu fruit. This year four mums are managing to raise chicks this way, despite the poor rimu crop. A chick raised in the nest is going to be heavier and healthier than one raised by hand, so this is fantastic news for the future.

Ripe Rimu fruit, responsible for triggering and sustaining Kakapo breeding

So some fab stuff going on down there. Thanks as ever to the whole kakapo team – DOC rangers and boffins, vollies, Rio Tinto Alcan and Forest & Bird…your work is much appreciated, and if you ever come and visit me on Maud Island, I’ll show my gratitude in time-honoured tradition – with a quick run up your leg and a beak in your ear…! Skraaark!

A baby picture of me – only two weeks old

In Native animals, Nelson/Marlborough, Sirocco the kakapo, Southland
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Ulva Island eradication update: 7 March 2011

Brent Beaven —  08/03/2011

 
The DOC website has the latest updates on the Ulva Island rat eradication.
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A few days ago I promised an update as soon as I had the figures from the last trap check and I indicated that we were close to a decision on which method we would choose to pursue. I’ll cover both of these topics in this update.

Latest trap check

Staff were out checking the traps on Friday and caught another 26 rats. This brings the total caught since Christmas to 96. As discussed in the last update, the rat traps have gone past the point of preventing population growth. The rat population has reached a point where its growth will no longer be influenced by any efforts that we put into trapping – even if we were checking traps daily. Therefore, the rat traps have now been closed so that the three days of effort per check can be used elsewhere. The traps will stay in location and will form part of our biosecurity network on the island when we have removed the rats.

Rat eating Fantail chicks at nest

Biosecurity

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 are planning a public meeting in the next few months to get your input into how to keep rats off Ulva Island. We don’t yet have a set date, but will let you know as soon as we do.

Aerial view of Ulva Island

Method of eradication

After considering the advice of the world experts and the feedback from the local community, the Department has made a decision on which method it will pursue in our attempt to eradicate rats off Ulva Island. It has become apparent in the last few weeks that the only method that gives us any hope of achieving eradication is an aerial spread of bait containing rat poison (brodifacoum). The decision was made as an aerial spread will be the quickest to achieve the result and has the highest chance of succeeding. It is the best tool for the job and we would be complicit if we attempted anything else. This was re-inforced in recent days when we read up about the Fregate Island eradication failure being blamed on the use of bait stations.

Aerial bait spread has been extensively used so we have a lot of information about its effect. It is the method that has resulted in most of New Zealand’s key wildlife sanctuaries (e.g. Codfish Isl/ Whenua Hou, Kapati, Karori, Campbell Island, Taukehepa, Maungatautiri, Orokonui, Little Barrier Isl.).

The Department, in partnership with the Hunter Family, will be lodging a resource consent application with Environment Southland in the next few weeks. Environment Southland will notify this consent allowing anyone to make a submission. 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Why an aerial drop? Surely the ground based approach is the safer option?
R. We have now completed many island eradications using aerial spread of bait that has resulted in some of our most unique and valuable pest free sites, including Codfish Island / Whenua Hou and Campbell Island. Ulva Island is at threat from rats. We only have a limited range of tools to deal with this. We need to use the best tool for the job that will save Ulva from rat-induced devastation. The Department’s preference is for an aerial operation as this has a greater chance of success than a bait station operation and can be completed much more quickly – effectively restoring Ulva Island to a rat free state before too much damage is done by the rats on the wildlife or the businesses that rely on this wildlife. Unfortunately a ground based eradication is far from a “safe option”, with bait available in the environment for a whole year and a much higher chance of failure. It is also a much more expensive option. With an aerial operation, bait will be taken to where the rats are so that they don’t have to move any distance to find some bait to eat. A bait station operation would require rats to travel some distance, through areas of high natural food abundance, to obtain a meal of rat bait – increasing the risk that they simply won’t encounter bait.

Aerial drop on Campbell Island (2001)

Q. Has this been done before?
R. While there have been many eradications worldwide, almost all of these have been with established rat populations that have reached peak numbers and exhausted the food supply. The situation on Ulva is very different where rats are newly invaded and have unlimited food supplies. This situation has only been encountered once before, on Fregate Island in the Seychelles where rats invaded in 1995 and they attempted to eradicate them using bait stations. This failed and the recommendations from this attempt were that the rats weren’t using the bait stations and if the situation was encountered again then bait should be presented to the rats in a way that didn’t use bait stations (e.g via an aerial application). Rats were eventually eradicated from the island 5 years later by an aerial baiting operation after the rat population had peaked.

Q. Will this work? What are the chances of success?
R. This is new ground and, even though we are using the best tool in the box, we may still fail to eradicate these rats. The rats have unlimited food available and may not have any interest in eating the bait. Even though there is a very real risk of failure, there is also a good chance of success and this, coupled with the current value of Ulva Island, make us think that an attempt is worth it. The alternative is to wait until rats have reached peak numbers and exhausted the food supply.

Q. When would an aerial drop occur and how long would it take?
R. An aerial drop would occur sometime between May and September. The exact timing depends on obtaining a resource consent and then having a four day fine weather forecast. Four days of fine weather will keep the bait in good condition for enough time for rats to find and eat it. The best practice for eradications is for two bait drops to occur about a week apart. The bait drops will only take a few hours on each of the two days.

Q. Will the island be closed? When? How long until Ulva could be used as normal again?
R. It is likely that we would close Ulva Island on each of the days of the two bait drops. Bait will be cleared from tracks and beaches early the following morning and the island will again be able to be visited. Signs warning that bait may be present will be present and visible until such time as we are sure there is no further risk of bait being present. As long as people don’t let children go unsupervised and avoid eating or handling any baits they encounter, then the island could be used as normal from the day immediately following each bait drop.

Q. What is the effect in the coastal marine area. Will you poison people who fish in the area?
R. In reality the risk of this is very low. Some bait will indeed enter the marine environment. This will be in the order two pellets per metre of coast, or less than half a kilogram of bait in a 100m stretch. The well monitored Kaikoura bait spill dropped 18 tonne in a 100m stretch and effects were limited to that 100m stretch. While the marine reserve is obviously not the local food basket, we will be discussing concerns about bait entering the marine environment with the Mataitai committee. One option that has been raised has been for a Rahui to be placed around Ulva Island to completely eliminate any possibility of eating fish that may have had contact with bait. Exploring potential solutions such as these may pave a way forward. We are also seeking advice from national marine and fisheries experts.

In Animal pests, Southland, Ulva Island , , ,
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