Ex-tourism workers help protect kea
West Coast workers who lost their jobs when Covid-19 put paid to international tourism are now helping in the effort to remove lead from kea habitat.
The curious birds are known to chew on lead from a range of human-made objects, including lead-head nails, lead flashing on houses and even car wheelweights.
In South Westland, the Department of Conservation (DOC) has identified 26 huts built with the sort of lead-based products kea are partial to, and has been running a work programme to replace them, according to DOC wild animals manager James Holbrow.
‘‘Builders have been employed through DOC’s Jobs for Nature programme to undertake this work, and we’ve removed lead from Butler Junction, Smyth and Whymper huts to date,’’ he said.
Questions about DOC’s efforts to rid the environment of lead came up at a recent West Coast Conservation Board meeting in Reefton.
Board member Jonathan Clearwater asked DOC Western South Island operations director Mark Davies for an update on the lead programme, including plans to switch out lead shot for tungsten ammunition in the annual tahr cull in national parks.
Earlier experimentation with the tungsten shot had resulted in a couple of near misses, when it appeared to ricochet and hit helicopter rotor blades, Davies said.
‘‘A lot of ballistics work has been done since then, but we have to be very careful, for health and safety reasons.’’
Holbrow confirmed that since phasing in non-lead buckshot ammunition in tahr control operations, there had been three incidents where small marks were found on helicopter blades.
‘‘Each incident was thoroughly independently investigated, and no safety concerns were identified [but] DOC reverted to using lead buckshot as a temporary measure . . . while investigations were resolved,’’ Holbrow said.
The ammunition had not ricocheted off a rock or other surface.
‘‘The results of ammunition tests showed non-lead buckshot shell cases are sometimes ejected further than lead ammunition cases.’’
The non-lead buckshot cases that were ejected further had an increased chance of drifting into the helicopter blades, he said.