WELFARE OF PROTECTED BIRDS

Forest and Bird, Issue 150, 1 November 1963, Page 16

WELFARE OF PROTECTED BIRDS

Conservation and research work to assist the survival of protected birds is outlined in the annual report of the Department of Internal Affairs.

The kakapo remaining in captivity at Mount Bruce is satisfactorily established in its new aviary and appears quite healthy. To learn more about this strange and rare bird, detailed records of its food habits are being kept. A field officer is undertaking a long-term field study of kakapo in their natural habitat in the Tutoko Valley. Short-term surveys seeking signs of this bird are also being carried out in other likely areas of Fiordland. The appointment of two additional biologists has made it possible for one to be engaged primarily on the kakapo research programme. A basic life study of the bird will be attempted, with emphasis on its conservation.

The breeding of takahe in captivity at Mount Bruce was again unsuccessful, five eggs laid by the older female being infertile. The younger female made many nests but did not lay. In the annual inspection of breeding grounds in and around Takahe Valley seven well grown chicks were banded and one other was sighted. A similar number was seen last year. Two yearling immature birds and a chick of this season were seen, with one pair of adults. This confirms an earlier supposition that non-breeding young are tolerated in breeding territories for more than one year, and has bearing on the establishment of the breeding age of the species.

Departmental officers destroyed 182 deer in the autumn of 1962 in the Takahe and Pointburn valleys, while at the request of the department New Zealand Forest Service hunters have since destroyed 1,500 throughout the Murchison Range. In 1948, when the takahe was rediscovered, deer were only beginning to spread into the Murchison Range, but the survival of takahe in the wild could now well depend on rigid deer control.

Two royal albatross chicks were reared at the Taiaroa Head colony last season and banded before they left. Six pairs nested during the current season, four chicks being hatched. Increasing numbers of birds, banded in the colony as chicks, are returning as they approach breeding age.

The colony of white herons and royal spoonbill at Okarito is steadily increasing. Their different habits make competition between the two species unlikely. A population study of the Fiordland crested penguin is continuing at a colony in South Westland and a survey of the rare brown teal in Northland is to be undertaken.

Farewell Spit was surveyed twice, first to undertake, with the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, a census of wading birds, and secondly to determine the possible effect of grazing on vegetation and bird life.

A survey and census was made of birds using the Waitaki River basin, which will be affected by Benmore and other hydro-electric projects. More than 75 per cent, of the waterways from Lakes Ohau, Pukaki, and Tekapo to Lake Waitaki will be radically changed. Particular attention was paid to the black stilt, which, so far as is known, breeds only within the Waitaki catchment and could be seriously affected by changes there.

Wildlife surveys on off-shore islands were continued. The Mercury Islands were found to contain tuatara and several rare species of petrel, including Pycroft’s petrel. The Chickens (Hen and Chickens Group) were examined to determine their suitability as sites for a further release of North Island saddlebacks from Hen Island, the only place where the species survives.

King shag colonies on Cook Strait islands remain satisfactorily populated. Further plantings of taupata seedlings were made on Stephens Island. A favourable wet season had benefited the previous year’s plantings, of which nearly 100 per cent, survived. On the Chetwode Islands the Forest Service has succeeded in reducing but not eliminating pigs.

One member of the department’s survey team took part in the Auckland Islands expedition to observe bird life and the effects of introduced animals. Several endemic bird species were seen, including the flightless teal, snipe, and shag.

Banding of protected birds was continued, 2,118 birds from more than 20 species being banded, including, for the first time in New Zealand, the white-chinned petrel, white-

headed petrel, subantarctic diving petrel, pied shag, and antarctic tern. Although there were no reports of recoveries in distant places of birds banded locally during the current or previous years, some significant recoveries were made at banding sites. Diving petrel originally banded in 1958 and recovered in 1960 at the banding site on the Trio Islands were again recovered at the same site.