WHANGAREI HARBOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1940, Page 8

WHANGAREI HARBOUR

A NEEDED BIRD SANCTUARY. The Whangarei Harbour Board is making a strong effort to have the beautiful harbour proclaimed a bird sanctuary. The list of birds which find favourable conditions in the harbour includes Banded Dotterel, Bittern, Black-backed Gull, Black Petrel, Black Oyster Catcher, Black Shag, Black Teal,, Blue Heron, Blue Penguin, Caspian Tern, Dabchick, Gannet, Godwit, Grey Duck, Kingfisher, Mackerel Gull, Muttonbird, Marsh Rail, Pied Oyster Catcher, Pied Shag, Pied Stilt, Swamp Crake or Rail, White-fronted Tern, White-throated Shag.

In reply to a request of support for the proposal, the Council of the Whangarei Acclimatisation Society stated: — "Whilst the Society is in full sympathy with your suggestion to close the Whangarei Harbour, it recommends that this be declared a ‘closed area,’ excluding the tidal creeks, rather than a sanctuary.”

In congratulating the Harbour Board on its action, Captain Sanderson, president of the Forest and Bird Protection Society, remarks that the tidal creeks or estuaries form important feeding grounds to many of the shoreinhabiting birds. The Bittern, Grey Duck, Kingfisher, Marsh Rail, Oyster Catcher, Dabchick, Pied Stilt, Swamp Rail, and various species of shags would be vitally affected, if the creeks cr estuaries were excluded from the protected area, as their nesting grounds would also be subject to damage.