Who will save the dotteres?

Forest and Bird, Issue 266, 1 November 1992, Page 10

Who will save the

dotteres?

JOHN DOWDING

ANDREW

PETER JENKINS

JOHN HAY

ANOTHER ENDEMIC IN TROUBLE

In the past few years, public awareness of the plight of the New Zealand dotterel has grown considerably. Many protection programmes now operate each season at important breeding sites in the North Island and these are resulting in more chicks fledging. But there are two distinct populations facing

different problems.

reports his alarming findings about

the dramatic decline of the Stewart Island dotterels while

AND

describe their recent

research on the northern population. _

ECORDS from the mid19th century show us that New Zealand dotterels (Charadrius obscurus) were widespread through out the country; in particular they seem to have been common in the South Island, breeding on the braided river beds and in the Southern Alps, then forming winter flocks on the east coast. Maori knew the birds as tuturiwhatu pukunui, referring to their plump bellies and sedate habits, although there is little evidence in middens of extensive hunt-

ing. In the last hundred years the species . has declined steadily in range and numbers and there are now two populations, . apparently isolated from one another and separated by more than 1,000 km. The total population is currently less than 1,500 individuals. About 95 percent of these are found on the coast of the North Island but a few still survive-on Stewart Island. The exact reasons for their disappearance from the South Island are hard to determine now, but it seems likely that introduced predators played a significant part. Early miners, sealers and whalers preferred larger birds such as kaka, kakapo, pigeon and ducks, although dotterels were considered a delicacy by early settlers in Canterbury and Otago.

i aha Me OG Possibly because of Stewart Island’s isolation, there has been very little work on the species there and few clues are available to the size of the island’s dotterel population in the past. In 1955 Ross McKenzie of the Ornithological Society, who was studying the species in the North Island, paid a brief visit to Stewart Island. He counted a single flock of more than 218 birds and for over 30 years the few population estimates published were based on that figure. The size of the flock, far larger than any remaining in the

North Island today, suggested a healthy population and there was no reason to suspect that it faced any major problems. During the past 20 years, however, numbers of New Zealand dotterels in Southland each winter have been monitored — by Maida Barlow and others — and have shown a steady downward trend. This decline, and the fact that a complete census of the Stewart Island population had never been undertaken, suggested that a study of the southern New Zealand dotterels was overdue. continued page 14