Famous gannet may have been poisoned
Nigel the gannet may not have died from a broken heart after all.
Following a well-documented love affair with a concrete decoy, the lonely bird made international headlines when he died in February, beside his partner, among a colony of fake gannets on Mana Island.
Now it has been revealed that the Department of Conservation (DOC) was so worried that its ‘‘routine spraying of glyphosate near the gannet colony’’ may have contributed to his death, it sent his body to be necropsied.
Despite a finding of kidney damage, the pathologist’s report could not rule out the spraying as a cause of Nigel’s death. DOC concluded that he died of natural causes.
Nigel, so named because he had no mates, arrived on the pestfree island off Porirua in 2014.
It was the first time in 40 years a gannet had flown in to roost but, instead of bringing a partner, Nigel quickly became infatuated with one of the 80 decoys designed to lure real birds to the fake colony.
He was often seen ‘‘courting’’ his stone-hearted love, and built it a nest of sticks and seaweed.
Documents released under the Official Information Act show that Nigel died about three weeks after the site was sprayed.
DOC spokesman Reg Kemper said the necropsy diagnosis was renal gout – or kidney damage – but the pathologist could not rule glyphosate in or out as a contributor to the damage.
The department’s expert seabird scientists believed it was ‘‘extremely unlikely’’ the spraying had anything to do with Nigel’s death, because he would have had to breathe in or ingest the spray, Kemper said. ‘‘Nigel was not present at the time of spraying.’’
A memorial to Nigel may be built near the gannet colony.