Rare terns cling to survival in shadow of ocean tragedy

By Brittany Keogh

As rescuers scoured the Kaipara Harbour for survivors of November’s fishing charter tragedy, conservationists were performing a rescue operation of their own nearby.

A fairy tern — one of the world’s rarest birds — had laid two eggs in a shelly spot on the Papakanui Spit, close to the area being searched after the fishing boat Francie flipped crossing the Kaipara bar with the loss of eight lives.

Fearing the eggs would be crushed by search and rescue workers DoC staff moved the eggs to a safer place — an incubator at Auckland Zoo.

Zookeepers kept a close eye on the eggs for a few days until DoC staff could relocate them to another nest, New Zealand Fairy Tern Charitable Trust spokeswoman Heather Rogan said.

“They turned them slowly every day just to make sure and keep a check on them, keep them at a constant temperature.

“[The rescuers] then needed to make sure that they were under sitting birds when they hatched, because the birds only eat very small, live fish.”

They placed the eggs under two infertile fairy tern eggs in nests at the mouth of Te Arai stream and Mangawhai.

One of the rescued chicks hatched just before Christmas and was tended to by its “foster parents”. The other chick died while still in its shell.

The pair were among only six fairy tern chicks to hatch this summer. Three more had hatched at Mangawhai and another at Waipu. “That’s probably . . . it for the year,” Rogan said. Native to New Zealand, the species is endangered, with a population of between 35 and 40 birds, including just 11 or 12 breeding pairs.

Fairy terns are found at a few protected areas at Waipu, Papakanui and Mangawhai spits, Te Arai stream mouth and Pakiri.

About three weeks on, the surviving hatchling rescued from Papakanui is now learning to fly.

“Once they start flying [the adult birds] will take them off and teach them how to fish for themselves,” Rogan said.

The chicks’ grey feathers help them blend into their shelly habitat, protecting them from predators above. But land-based mammalian predators — including rats, cats, stoats and even hedgehogs — still posed a danger, Rogan said.

Another threat facing the species was habitat loss because of “people settlement”.

“They used to be at Ruakaka, they used to be at Omaha beach. There are no longer fairy terns nesting there.”