BIRD SANCTUARY

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 25, 30 January 1923, Page 8

BIRD SANCTUARY

POSITION AT KAPITI

MANY BIBDS TO BE SEEN,

■ The rjport of a committee appointed to visit Kapiti Island was submitted to the New Zealand Institute this morning. It stated.inter alia:

"After a fairly comprehensive inspection of the island it was evident that sheep were fairly numerous in all the open portions, and to some extent were present in some of the bush-clad portions. At the northern end, whore the Crown lands abut on the Native-owned portion of the island, and along the eastern coast and around Rangatiiaj the sheep were nearly all shorn ones; but in the Taepiro clearing and from there to the southern end they were mostly wild. In all, some 45 goats were seen, 20 of which wefe on the eastern coast of the island between the Maraetakaroro Stream and Wharekohu Bay, where there is practically no bush and where tauhiriu and manuka scrub is now growing on what was formerly open land in Danthonia grass. A few were seen in the bush. It is not possible to make any useful estimate of the numbers on the island from the observations of so short a visit, nor does thai greatly matter, seeing that all are to be killed. On the damage done by goats and sheep, there is no need that we should enlarge. The most ominous indication of this is that, except in the denser bush, there is never more than partial regeneration, and often there is degeneration that is obviously progressive. • Many dead trees were seen, especially ratas; but in nearly all cases these trees were of greater height than the surrounding bush, and it is probable that their death is due to the very wind-swept condition of the island but it may be due to the bacterial or fungoid disease. It is certainly not due to the presence of stock. .

•'■3n suitable places, birds were numerous, and the volume of song great and varied. Makomako, tuis, and parakeets were abundant; very many whiteheadg were seen; fantails, wrens, robins, and tits were fairly numerous; wekas were seen and heard everywhere. Few pigeons were seen. This h not strange, eeeing that the pigeon, like" the kaka, is rather a visitor to the island than a permanent resident. Even 50 years ago, although pigeons might be very numerous on the island for a month or two in each year, they passed most of their time on the mainland. Among the parakeets were several of the large Antipodes Islands species, liberated on Kapiti some years ago. ■••■...

"The committee is satisfied that the caretaker is doing his work well, and that when the fence is erected and sheep are removed, the island will become a bird sanctuary in the proper sense of the term. The completion of the work of exterminating ' goats cannot be achieved in a few weeks, seeing how many places are only with great difficulty, but we think that within a year- goats should be very hard to find, even if the last has not by then been killed." „