Arthur’s Pass To Have Chathams Buff Wekas

Press, Volume C, Issue 29487, 13 April 1961, Page 14

Arthur’s Pass To Have Chathams Buff Wekas

Important passengers on the Holmburn, which is delayed on its voyage from the Chatham Islands to Lyttelton, are five or six buff wekas which are being transferred for release in Arthurs Pass National Park. Officers of the Department of Island Territories. the Internal Affairs Department, the Park Board, and the Canterbury Museum are all deeply interested in their welfare.

The Minister of Transport (Mr McAlpine), who is a member of the Park Board as Member of Parliament for the district, first suggested that the buff weka might be reintroduced to the area from the Chatham Islands. He recalled that they were common in the Poulter river area when he was a boy, and that they would be an undoubted attraction.

Park rangers were enthusiastic about the idea. They said they patrolled the area frequently enough to keep useful records and that, as kiwis were still found there, other ground birds should survive.

The Department of Internal Affairs approved the scheme and arranged with the Resident Commissioner in the Chathams for sufficient buff wekas to be captured. The acting-Director of the Canterbury Museum (Mr E. G- Turbott), a noted ornithologist, was asked to assist with the care and liberation of the birds on arrival Five Pairs

“It is possible to capture and ship only small consignments of birds at one time and it is not intended to release them until a stock of at least five males and five females is obtained,” said Mr Turbott “There are about half a dozen in the first batch, and they will be banded and sexed and then kept in a suitable enclosure on a North Canterbury farm until the required number of pairs is built up. Incidentally, this break will help the birds (to become acclimatised”

The wekas were of a type

once common in Canterbury and other eastern districts of the South Island, Mr Turbott said. They were paler in colour than wekas elsewhere in New Zealand. They were commonly known as the buff, or eastern, weka. The Park Board intended to release them in Uie eastern part of the park in the Poulter river area.

Mr Turbott said that the reintroduction of these birds would add much to the ornithological interest of the park. Although wekas of the western variety were common in West Coast districts, the Canterbury part of the park would originally have been inhabited by the buff weka, and it was fortunate that their presence on the Chatham Islands allowed repopulation. The introduction of the buff weka to the Chatham Islands took place in 1905, said Mr Turbott At that time they were still abundant in Canterbury, but according to records kept by the late Edgar Stead, they began to decrease from about 1917 and the last record known to Stead was in 1924. Weka History “The weka has been noted from the earliest days of settlement as one of New Zealand’s distinctive birds, a flightless member of the rail family,” Mr Turbott said. “It inhabits'the forest floor and open country, thus differing from most rails, which are found in swampy areas. Wekas remained fairly common in most parts of New Zealand other than Canterbury until about 30 years ago, but they then died out over most of the North Island and in the South Island, except in Fiordland. Recently there has been a remarkable increase in the population of North Island wekas in the Gisborne district, and a somewhat similar increase on the West Coast and in western Nelson.

“The reason for these population changes is not yet clear,” said Mr Turbott