Helping our Feathered Friends /
Bird Rehabilitator Susan Shannon is on a mission to help save the dwindling population of endangered native birds in Banks Peninsula.
Rehabilitating endangered native birds in Banks Peninsula
Five years ago veterinarian surgeon Susan Shannon was sitting in her favourite café at the Banks Peninsula Little River Gallery, enjoying a hot chocolate when she spotted a leaflet on the Canterbury Tui Reintroduction Project. Thumbing through the pamphlet got her thinking back on her childhood dreams of working with wildlife. ‘I thought, that sounds like me, so I attended their next meeting, put my hand up and said I wanted to help,’ she laughs. With son Oliver at high school it was time to ease back into part-time hours at the vet surgery and follow through on her ambitions.
Susan’s background as a vet with diagnostic and animal handling skills was enthusiastically welcomed by the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust who invited her to help relocate a number of tui from Maud Island, a predator-free native reserve in the Marlborough Sounds, to Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula. Shortly afterwards, Department of Conservation (DOC) ranger Wayne Begg enlisted Susan to help with the monitoring of native yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) in its dwindling Banks Peninsula population. Hoiho are a critically endangered bird with an estimated 1,700 breeding pairs remaining in the wild. Should their declining population trend continue on its current trajectory, this rare penguin is facing extinction within 20 to 40 years’ time.
Breeding time is especially busy for those involved in restoring hoiho populations as their nesting sites need to be quickly located to enable effective pest control management. Protecting vulnerable chicks from predators such as stoats, weasels, ferrets, dogs and cats entails setting and monitoring bait/trap stations, fencing and restoration of habitat through native replanting. All penguin chicks are microchipped for identification purposes.
In situations where chicks are failing to thrive, the penguin family is taken into rehabilitation. Here they come under the care of ‘bird rehabbers’, like Susan, who have specialised veterinarian training, knowledge and capabilities to rehabilitate sick birds. Once approved, bird rehabbers are issued with a designated permit from the Department of Conservation. Susan is also a registered bird rehabber with Wildlife Rehabilitators Network of New Zealand (WReNNZ) and works solely with native bird species.
Her greenhouse located in the backyard of her home on Diamond Harbour’s bush-clad northern slope of Lyttelton Harbour is repurposed to accommodate her wards. The harbour’s briny smell and her backyard vista of its azure waters provide solace for any recuperating bird.
Owing to the types of trauma suffered by rescued birds, mortality rates are high. Seabirds like hoiho often arrive suffering from starvation or injuries from shark, barracuda and dog bites. Whereas native land birds such as kereru typically suffer concussion from window strike or cat bites, and sociable keas tend to be found with road traffic injuries or lead poisoning. Climatic warming patterns causing unusually
prolonged high temperatures has resulted in Susan tending to tui chicks injured as a result of ‘doing wacky things like throwing themselves out of their nests’. On arrival all birds are placed on a diet to regain their ideal body weight. It’s a delicate process. Like humans who have suffered starvation, they too are prone to ‘re-feeding syndrome’ which can be fatal.
Generally Susan names each bird with a number, but one recent hoiho arrival proved such a character that the name Bonzo came to mind and stuck. He was found by an off-duty DOC ranger in a distressed state, limping along the Le Bons Bay shoreline. Bonzo had a serious foot injury that Susan suspects was the result of either a shark or barracuda bite.
The hoiho, like all penguins, are loved for their captivating ‘allure’ and comic walk, but looks can be deceptive. Susan is very cautious handling hoiho, not least because she knows ‘they are strong, wild creatures who have a hard bite and can easily dislocate one’s fingers with their wings’. If the public find an injured bird in the wild, the best course of action is to immediately report it to DOC or WReNNZ , who will organise their rescue and rehabilitation treatment.
Susan admits Bonzo causes her a few sleepless nights. The responsibilities weigh deep. ‘I lose sleep thinking about what I am doing. I’ve got a sick endangered wild bird in my backyard and I’m wondering what else I can do to help. You feel like their mother.’
Bonzo has a healthy appetite, eating his way through 600 grams of salmon and sardines daily. As with any sick creature, extra ministrations of care are necessary, often at unsociable hours. ‘After a full day at the surgery I’m sitting outside in the dark nebulising this poor bird. I’ve got this machine which
I’m using to make him inhale his medicine,’ says Susan, describing the regular interventions involved. Unfortunately antibiotic treatment fails to halt the infection in Bonzo’s wound, requiring Susan to bring him back to the veterinary surgery and operate to remove his toe.
Like in any caring profession, compassion fatigue is one of the hazards of the job. One needs to find ways of dealing with the high mortality rates suffered by underfed or injured birds. ‘It’s demanding being a wildlife rehabber because you put a lot of effort in. This work doesn’t always have a happy ending. I find it sometimes quite hard, beating myself up for losing
‘It’s a lovely thing to release a bird, but it’s also scary. You worry if they’ll be able to find food. Will they be alright?’
a bird due to things like anaesthetic complications. It’s these moments,’ she says, ‘I feel like giving up and think I’m not doing this any more.’
Susan’s commitment to wildlife rehabilitation work is due in part to her support networks of family and workmates which she stresses is vital in this field. ‘It’s their hugs and care that help me deal with feelings of loss and disappointment that surface after losing a bird during surgery.’ It’s also the realisation, she says, ‘that you’re giving them a second chance to go out there to thrive and breed. They need to heal to 110 per cent to have this chance. Rehabbers are often trying to fix what humans break. I feel it’s our responsibility to help them out’.
In order to prove that they can cope with the tough conditions back out in the wild, the penguins must pass a respiratory test, demonstrate they are eating well, preening their feathers and are waterproofed and capable of swimming strongly again. Once all the criteria are met, it’s time to organise their release back into the wild. Susan admits this causes her pre-release anxiety jitters. ‘It’s a lovely thing to release a bird, but it’s also scary. You worry if they’ll be able to find food. Will they be alright?’
While bird rehabbers are able to help in very specific ways, changes in public awareness and understanding of the many ways our behaviours impact on birds is also critical for their recovery. Susan points out how the adorable looking hoiho’s magnetic appeal for tourists, who come in droves to see them, has a flipside. The problem being, it’s not mutual love! ‘Tourists seriously stress these birds in their efforts to get photos of them. Instances of tourists getting too close when parents are feeding their chicks or blocking the birds’ route back to their nests are all too common and particularly distressing for the penguins,’ she explains.
Fishing practices are equally concerning. ‘We know they are getting caught as fisheries by-catch, we know their food sources are being impacted on,’ she warns. Additional to the risk from fisheries, hoiho face a range of threats from loss of breeding habitat on land, introduced predators and pest birds to invasive plants. The scourge of avian malaria due in part to our warming climate is taking its toll on hoiho numbers too. Worringly, not one chick has survived from the Banks Peninsula colony this last breeding season.
The continuing hard work being put in by so many different conservation groups and individuals to help our native bird life encourages Susan and keeps her optimistic about their future. ‘It’s great to know how much people care, they really do,’ she says. Her involvement is best described more as an ongoing affair of the heart than work or duty. It is, she says, ‘because these birds continue to amaze me – they’re part of New Zealand’s rich heritage’.