FAREWELL SPIT-SANCTUARY BY LAW BUT NOT IN FACT

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30396, 21 March 1964, Page 19

FAREWELL SPIT-SANCTUARY BY LAW BUT NOT IN FACT

Concern at the failure to enforce Farewell Spit as a bird sanctuary is expressed in a recent issue of “Forest and Bird;” the journal of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand,

. -An article in the journal says that Farewell Spit has been a sanctuary by law since 1938, but unfortunately it has not been a sanctuary in fact. Farm and stock and some noxious animals have been allowed to graze the arsa for years. The area is now undet the control of the Abel Tasman National Park Board, members of- which recently paid it a * visit. At a subsequent meeting of the board, if was decided to recommend to the Minister that the act making

it a Sanctuary be allowed, to stand, that the area be made a bird sanctuary jfi tprffis of the act, and the removal of stock from the area talje place within two years, while the Crown bear the full cost of fencing off the area. Ih the same report it was

stated that formal notice to remove the stock had been served on the stock owner in years gone by, and that notices had been erected—all without any result; the animals went on grazing and the-matter was dropped.

Although.it has been said that the animals are not doing any harm to the birds the society does-not support the statement.

In 1962, a team of ornithologists visited the spit, and reported. The report concluded with • the following: “A list of 79 species and sub-species from so small an area is in itself remarkable, and it is more than probable that considerable additions may be made to this list by future expeditions. • ‘‘The spit, remote, undisturbed, and in a most auspi; clous geographical situation, could prove to be not: only a feeding ground for great congregations of waders but a favourable landfall for stragglers and occasional visitors of many other species. ...”

• The spit is not only a bird sanctuary; it is also a botanical sanctuary. By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that grazing animals are beneficial to a botanical sanctuary, more especially this particular one. Farewell Spit, an 18 milelong sandspit at the northwest end of the South Island, consists mainly of long lines of moving: sandbanks, consolidated dunes, and tidal flats—built up by the sea. It was an act of wisdom to make it into > botanical sanctuary, because in the absence of animals it would be a very valuable area for the study of plant life as it evolves, states “Forest and Bird;”

It is probable that the importance of the area has not been fully understood in the past; but it is hoped that the Government- will be firm in ending as qujckly as possible the damage which must be resulting from grazing animals in a botanical and bird saneSuary of $o unique a charicer, the article says.