‘Minder’ loves keeping rare gull colony safe 2018 ‘dinosaur’ delivery nears
Bernie Kelly is overjoyed a rare breeding colony of tara¯puka, or black-billed gulls, has taken up residence near his home in Hawke’s Bay.
Every day Kelly checks on the colony of more than 300 nests, first found at the Tukituki River mouth last October.
He was recruited by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council to mind the site, believed to be one of the largest in the North Island.
The Birds New Zealand Hawke’s Bay representative, has recently been setting extra traps around the area to find a feral cat and other predators threatening the population.
‘‘It’s incredible how much damage just one feral cat can do,’’ he said.
Alongside council staff and the Department of Conservation, he ended up catching the offending cat after about one week.
Tara¯puka are the most threatened gull species in the world, and New Zealand’s only endemic gull.
Populations have declined by as much as 80 per cent in recent years, resulting in its threat status being upgraded to critical in 2013.
The colony’s success has been put down to its location, being about 700 metres away from public access, at the water’s edge and on a shingle beach.
‘‘Most people aren’t aware how endangered the black-billed gull is. We’re lucky to have them breeding here,’’ Kelly said.
Tara¯puka, distinguished by their long, thin black beaks, are mainly found in braided rivers across the South Island, however they are also scattered around coastal North Island areas and Lake Rotorua.
Regional council terrestrial ecologist Keiko Hashiba was also thrilled the population had colonised there.
‘‘I suspect they all chose this spot because it’s basically a great habitat and they all benefit from the predator control.
‘‘Plus a local champion like Bernie who checks on traps and the colony just about every day makes a huge difference.’’
Kelly said intense storms had hampered conservation efforts, with one last week causing strong winds to push chicks inland.
Luckily, the chicks were caught in marshy areas, and parents looked after them until the weather improved. The chicks were herded back to a stony outcrop. More than 100 survived out of the original 170, which was a ‘‘really good’’ number.
On Thursday, the council was tallying the results of a dronecount of the birds to get a more exact figure.
Main threats to the survival of tara¯ puka include habitant disturbance and predation.
Under the Wildlife Act 1953, the disturbance of protected birds, or destroying nests, can result in imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $100,000. Regarded by most as antiquated relics of a bygone era, phone directories are about to land in some Kiwis’ letterboxes, where many face a future as doorstops.
A consolidated regional phone directory, the Auckland Yellow Business Book, is set for delivery in Auckland in March, with Rodney and Franklin, where the books are still well used, getting local directories.
Marlborough, Gisborne, Rotorua and Tauranga residents will also receive their phone books in March, with deliveries for other areas staggered throughout the year.
With a January 16 deadline looming for Auckland, only 14,222 households and businesses have opted out of receiving Yellow’s directory, or 2.5 per cent of deliveries. Many people put this down to a lack of awareness of the online optout option, Neighbourly.co.nz users said.
When 154 Neighbourly voters learned they could opt out, 82.5 per cent said they intended to do so, while 17.5 per cent still wished to receive the phone book.
‘‘Antiquated medium, considering the various devices that can be utilised for searching names, addresses or company numbers. Can honestly say I have not looked at a White or Yellow Pages for over 10 years,’’ Mitchell Fox from Forrest Hill said.
A handful of residents said the phone book was still used by baby boomers who may not have access to the internet.
‘‘It still has its uses for older people who aren’t into digital, and when the internet/power goes down,’’ Rob Wightman from Rothesay Bay said.
Lawyer and Takapuna resident Rose Carlyle said people were concerned about the environmental impact of the ‘‘pre-internet dinosaur’’.
‘‘It seems that a lot of people feel strongly about the waste of ink, paper, and all the time and energy that goes into printing and distributing the phone book.’’
Yellow said its phone directories were PEFC Certified and 100 per cent recyclable, down to the water-based gloss on the covers.
The company’s decision to consolidate its local books with its regional books had resulted in a reduction of 200 tonnes of paper, and it had reduced the number of pages through removing unnecessary content.
‘‘In areas where digital search is higher (largely in metro areas such as Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch), there is a lower reliance on printed directory pages, so the books will be smaller in size.
‘‘Businesses in provincial New Zealand, (take Timaru for example) still have a high reliance on print (40 per cent of people in the Timaru and Oamaru region used the Yellow book in the past month, making more than 276,000 look-ups (Nielsen CMI YE March 2017),’’ Yellow said in a statement.