Muttonbirds flourish against odds

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 17

Muttonbirds flourish against odds

Till Heritage: The Story of the Mutton1' bird Islands. By Eva Wilson. Craig *• Printing Company, Invercargill. 182 < pp. 90 black and white illustraN tions. $17.95. ’* (Reviewed by Hugh Wilson)

-Sooty shearwaters are oceanic petrels that range the Pacific Ocean, tath year returning to breed on n&nds in the southern hemisphere. Apart from litle-known nesting areas in* South America, New Zealand has the largest breeding concentrations in the world. Around Stewart Island peculations are extremely dense. For centuries southern Maoris have taken str annual harvest of young birds, an atjivity which has formed the economic base for the lives of a •substantial number of people right up to the present.

The number of birds taken over the centuries is mind-boggling. Eva Wilson reports that in the 1897 season the Riverton and Colac Bay Maoris of 17 families (about 50 birders) obtained 75,000 birds. In the 1909 season 206,000 birds were taken. An estimated 30,000 birds were taken from the small island of Poutama alone by the five families permitted to work there in the 1969 season. • Parent muttonbirds return to the same burrow year after year, lay a tingle egg and raise one chick, if all goes well. Heavy tolls are exacted on the species, not Only by human beings by the natural hazards: storm-killed

birds sometimes wash up on beaches in great numbers. There are natural predators such as skuas, without the additional effects of introduced rats and cats on some breeding grounds.

Against all these odds sooty shearwaters continue to range the vast Pacific, and huge seasonal flocks continue to be a feature of the Stewart Island seas. We lack sufficient knowledge to know whether their numbers really are as high as ever, or whether, as some Observers believe, they are declining. So interesting is the species and the human activity dependent on it, it would seem that here is material for an engrossing account. Regrettably “Titi Heritage” falls short of such promise. The first half of the book traces the traditional customs of the muttonbirders, the sale of Stewart Island to the Europeans, and the subsequent arrangements to safeguard the muttonbirding rights of the southern Maoris. A lot of information is offered, but it needs much scholarly checking, editing and organising to make it into a reliable, ordered and readable story. Inconsistencies, inaccuracies arid repetitions abound. Among the worst of these is the statement that “the fluttering shearwater, Puffinus gavia, is the mutton bird of the South Island.” In fact the sooty shearwater, Puffinus griseus, is the southern muttonbird. The illustration captioned “a muttonbird on its nest” is another species of petrel, perhaps a Kermadec

petrel, but definitely not a sooty shearwater. Two pages further on photographs of sooty shearwaters are correctly captioned. Many of the old photographs are interesting, but inadequately labelled. Substantial appendices fill the last quarter of the book. This brings some of the relevant information together in undigested form, and much will be of interest, including letters and documents relating to the sale of Stewart Island to the Crown. Government regulations are printed, and lists of people with muttonbirding rights. But the book lacks an index, further reducing its reference value. Perhaps Mrs Wilson should not have tried to write a history. In fact she has succeeded in giving readers some good glimpses of a unique way of life, including first hand accounts of life on the muttonbird islands. A short chapter on the system of barter used until quite recent times is very interesting. She is forthright in her view that muttonbirding is changing for the worse, and that traditional customs and safeguards, perhaps' the •muttonbirds themselves, are succumbing to commercial greed. Certainly the homes of the modern birders (with carpet and television), the use of helicopters, the commercialism, and the squabbles over birding rights, contrast with the simple foodgathering, the unsophisticated boats, shelters and kelp bags, the co-operation and aroha, of earlier times.