Call for ban to stop people feeding kea
Arthur’s Pass woman Arieta Jackson’s fondest memory of Chickpea the kea was the young bird hanging upside down, watching her make date scones through the window.
But Chickpea was one of three kea she had discovered dead on the main road since early June, always in around the same spot.
‘‘It was really sad . . . I love kea, [so] it’s not a good feeling.’’
Juvenile kea Chickpea, Kuschla and Dillon were all found dead in Arthur’s Pass village. It was believed they were hit by cars.
In the past two years, 12 of the nationally endangered parrots have been killed by cars in the area, including eight in the village itself.
Locals say motorists speeding through the town is a big issue, but there is another factor environmentalists and Department of Conservation (DOC) staff fear is contributing to birds dying on the road – a local man who insists on feeding them.
While conservation workers have been asking him to stop since 2016, feeding protected wildlife did not fall under the Wildlife Act and there was ‘‘no effective legal avenue’’ to stop him.
Arieta Jackson works at the Arthur’s Pass Cafe and Store, and usually found the birds on her way to work.
She spent a large chunk of summer chasing down kea which had snuck into the store to swipe cookies or chocolate bars, or rushing out to tell tourists not to feed them.
‘‘We have to tell them over and over again, it’s crazy . . . We can’t really stop them [sometimes].’’
Jackson said they tried ‘‘so hard’’ to stop kea scrounging for food around the store. She supported some kind of legal ban to stop people feeding them – and encouraging them back onto the road. It was a sentiment echoed by many Arthur’s Pass locals in a recent public meeting on what the village could do to better protect the birds.
Forest & Bird’s Canterbury-West Coast conservation manager Nicky Snoyink spoke at the meeting about how the upcoming Wildlife Act review could be used to help.
‘‘It’s really great the Arthur’s Pass community is looking at this issue. It is quite a tricky conversation, but the most important thing is the welfare of the kea.’’
New Zealand needed legislation which put the welfare of wildlife ‘‘front and centre’’, she said, and the current act – introduced in 1953 – was no longer fit for purpose.
The Government is in the process of overhauling a lot of its conservation law, as part of Te Mana o te Taiao – the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy.
A complex web of nine main pieces of legislation and 15 Acts, developed largely on an ad-hoc basis over a span of 70 years, would be looked at.
They included reviewing the Wildlife Act, increasing protection of Hauraki Gulf, simplifying the permit and concessions processes, addressing issues with outdated national park rules, reclassifying land stewardship, and amending the Trade in Endangered Species Act.
While some had timelines set out in DOC’s roadmap, the process for reviewing the Wildlife Act was still to be determined.
Snoyink said it was important the review established different rules to better manage interactions between humans and wildlife – particularly interactions which could change their behaviour and put them at risk.
Feeding kea not only risked drawing them closer to roads and cars, but made them more likely to interact with 1080 baits, and some human foods – like chocolate – could even kill them.
North Americans living near bear habitats had adopted the principle ‘‘a fed bear is a dead bear’’, Snoyink said, and it was a good approach for Kiwis to take towards kea.
‘‘It takes them away from their natural feeding and behaviour patterns. This is a species that is critical to our alpine ecosystems, we need them up there.’’
The recent road deaths in Arthur’s Pass were a ‘‘tragedy’’, she said.
‘‘We need some better tools in the toolbox to deal with this sort of situation.’’