Summer Holiday Victims

Forest and Bird, Issue 294, 1 November 1999, Unnumbered Page

Summer Holiday

Victims

GORDON ELL.

Birds which nest at Christmas-time are often victims of unwitting holidaymakers, reports

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEOFF MOON

are and endangered New Zealand are among the victims of the traditional New Zealand love for the seaside. The birds nest about the tideline just when most New Zealanders flock to the beach around Christmas. Consequently, populations of birds such as the New Zealand dotterel and the variable oystercatcher — classified respectively as ‘threatened’ and ‘rare’ — are diminishing with each successive summer. Some of this population collapse is due to the depredations of wild animals — hedgehogs are the worst predators, along with black-backed gulls, feral cats, stoats and_ ferrets.

Increasingly, however, it is the pressure of people on beaches which is destroying nesting areas and habitat. Burgeoning settlement of coastal areas has brought increased beach traffic to many parts of our coast, particularly in the north where the mainland population of New Zealand dotterel lives. The variable oystercatcher, (usually black, in contrast with its pied cousin), occurs more widely around New Zealand but nests in almost exactly the same weeks when New Zealanders traditionally take their annual holiday. Careless feet, pet dogs, and vehicles on the beach, all take a toll of nests. Like the New Zealand or red-breasted dotterel, variable oystercatchers nest in a scoop of sand just above the high tideline, where most human traffic is concentrated. Fiercely territorial, each pair generally holds its own stretch of beach, often a small bay. Anyone with a keen eye or a pair of

binoculars can soon locate the nesting site of these birds by watching their behaviour. They may feign injury to lead intruders away. Nests are not obvious, however, to the unthinking passerby, particularly if driving a 4WD or quad-bike along the beach to a favoured fishing site. Even the careful footsteps of the curious observer may mark a way across the sand for some predator. The chicks of both species of bird can run about the beach, like balls of animated fluff, from shortly after hatching but at holiday time they are very vulnerable. For a decade or more, volunteers and people hired on work schemes have devoted time to protecting some of the most threatened breeding grounds at Christmas.

The direct result where this has happened is more breeding success, but such costly guardianship is limited to a handful of places. At Opoutere on the eastern Coromandel, a sandspit is a productive breeding ground both for dotterel and variable oystercatcher. In 1990 Waikato Forest and Bird fenced above the tideline and funded a student to guard the spit, stopping vehicles from using it as an illegal road, and asking holidaymakers not to take their dogs there for exercise. Chicks then suffered because they could not use the low tide area where people walked. Now the fence guards the body of the narrow spit and its inner shore as well. With some 15 breeding pairs within a comparatively small area, the Opoutere project has now been adopted by the Department of Conservation as one of its own special sites, with predator control extending through the pine forests at the base of the spit. More often, however, it is local Forest and Bird people who put up signs and ribbon fences to protect smaller nesting sites. ‘The signs go up at the beginning of October and stay in place through the breeding season, says Ann Graeme, national coordinator of the Kiwi Conservation Clubs. She lives in Tauranga and has been active in dotterel conservation work in the region. ‘Forest and Bird branches, such as Eastern Bay of Plenty, Te Puke, Upper Coromandel and Thames-Hauraki, are active all along their coasts protecting these "little sites’ — perhaps a nest or two — while DoC increasingly has adopted the most productive places as part of its Dotterel Recovery Programme, she says. ‘Prior to the Christmas holidays the system works well, with local Forest and Bird folk persuading other locals to keep out of nesting areas and to control their dogs, Ann Graeme says. "The birds need to breed early and successfully, however, or their second brood would run into the Christmas

break. Unfortunately, when the holidaying hordes arrive at the beach, local care for the birds tends to be swamped by the visitors.’ For more than 10 years, Forest and Bird members have been trying to protect a breeding area with up to a dozen New Zealand dotterel at Omaha on the Rodney coast. The job has been made harder by a growing subdivision with expensive homes encroaching along the sandspit where the birds breed. Predators, and cats and dogs from the adjacent village, raided the nests. Now fences surround the nesting areas along the last remaining dunes and predator control is carried out with the cooperation of residents. The chicks which fledged in 1997 were the first to reach that stage in eight years. Futher up the coast, the giant dunes of Mangawhai South Head are easily approached across the river from a popular seaside resort. For decades one of the last known populations of fairy tern in New Zealand bred on the beachfront of this once remote spot. In 1984 the national population fell as low as three pairs. Dogs

accompanying ‘boaties’ from across the river chased the Mangawhai birds from their nests. A similar fate befell a nesting colony of Caspian tern which in New Zealand now has ‘rare bird’ status. The Wildlife Service, followed by the Department of Conservation, moved to protect the nesting sites with a fence and resident guardians. Fairy tern also breed on sandspits at Waipu and South Kaipara Head but the New Zealand sub-species of the fairy tern is ‘critically endangered’ with a total population recently fallen again, to an estimated 21 birds. Two pairs of fairy tern have recently bred on a sand island off Papakanui Spit at South Kaipara Head, on the west coast north of Auckland. During the 1980s, motor vehicles on the sandspit were one of the factors blamed for chasing away many nesting birds, including a colony of some 350 Caspian terns. Gwenda Pulham who watches the site with other members of the Ornithological Society recalls that in the summer of 1992-93 there were no successful nests of any birds on the huge sandspit because of vehicle traffic. In the past three years, however, the sea has broken through the sandspit protecting a large area as an island, and many birds have returned. This natural protection from people has been strengthened during the breeding season by the Department of Conservation with fences on the spit, wardens, and predator control. For the first time in years, a fairy tern chick fledged in the summer of 1997-98. oC has its hands full in the north [ ) vin summer and students are hired to protect some eight sites regarded as ‘breeding hotspots’ for the

Vehicle tracks demonstrate the reason why no birds bred successfully on the huge Papakanui Sandspit at South Kaipara Head in 1992-93. Now, with fencing, wardens and pest control, the area has partly recovered. At the end of last summer, 30 New Zealand dotterel were seen roosting on the spit at high tide and there were 10 nesting territories on an adjacent sand island. Among other birds recorded, an Ornithological Society team counted two fairy terns, five pairs of variable oystercatcher, 30 banded dotterel, and a colony of 2200 white-fronted terns with 900 chicks. Note the nest of a banded dotterel between the vehicle tracks, bottom left.

New Zealand dotterel. Each conservancy generally has a couple of major ‘hotspots’ where predator control and protection are carried out by employees. On Matakana Island last summer they protected 26 pairs of New Zealand dotterel and more than 28 chicks fledged. Responsibility for protecting the ‘little sites’ elsewhere — one or two pairs — still falls on local enthusiasts such as Forest and Bird members. Even common coastal birds may suffer from disturbance with the influx of holidaymakers in summer. While using other habitat as well, the white-fronted tern and all three species of New Zealand’s gulls often nest on the ground, on sandspits and beaches. Loose dogs, riders, pedestrians and motorised traffic in summer can disturb their nesting colonies. Vulnerable young birds are still being fed by their parents at that time. Using beaches as roads has had an increasing impact on bird populations in the Auckland region. (It is still possible to make the 50-kilometre run up Muriwai

Beach to the South Kaipara Head because the strand is a legal road.) The same use of beaches as highways can be observed, however, in many places around the coast in the nesting season. There is not only the impact of the now ubiquitous 4WD wagon or utility taken on the beach for an off-road adventure. There are also burgeoning numbers of farm bikes, ‘quads’, and all-terrain vehicles, often used illegally on beaches to get access to fishing spots.

nless our countryside is to be bound U up in a mass of rules — no dogs, no powerboats, no vehicles, for example — the only practical way through this unfortunate holiday traffic jam will be better public understanding and sympathy for the birds. This is where the advocacy of Forest and Bird volunteers, guarding the nesting areas, is making a difference. People who understand the reasons for rules are far more likely to view them sympathetically, than those who feel they are being harassed in their pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, neither rules nor reasoning works with summer hoons. So there is a continuing need for law enforcement too. Ultimately only a growing appreciation of our tenuous and threatened wilderness can change people’s attitudes, encouraging them to respect the needs of wildlife at midsummer, and to share our shores. GORDON ELL is the author of Seashore Birds of New Zealand, with pictures by GEOFF MOON who illustrated this article.

On Lakeshores Too he situation at the beach is ; often repeated on inland lakeshores, where a sudden influx of visitors and their pets can disturb shy birds nesting in the reed beds. The careless use of motorboats is understood to be a major factor in the decline in numbers of Australasian crested grebe, regarded as a ‘threatened native’ bird, on South Island lakes. The growing numbers of jet-skis amplifies the problem. The large grebes (like their smaller threatened cousins, New Zealand dabchick) nest at water level on a platform of reeds or weed. They are sensitive to noise disturbance, as water skiers and others power past their nesting and feeding areas. Alarmed, a nesting grebe may leave its nest without covering its eggs with protective weed, leaving them exposed to extremes of weather. The wash of speeding boats may even swamp them. Family dogs enjoying a romp on the lakeshore may chase or scare off nesting birds. Disoriented pet cats may disappear from the holiday camp and go wild, living off birds and lizards along the lakeshore. Again it is the unfortunate conjunction of the nesting season with the annual waterside holiday which puts extra, unwonted pressure on the breeding birds. In places, boating restrictions have been put in place to protect the breeding grebes, but these come late in the noticeable decline in wild populations. Places which 10 years ago had a few of these grebes, now have none.