Clarity sought over sea lion conservation
Sam Henderson outlines highlights from the Otago Peninsula Community Board.Tools for tackling weeds
The Otago Peninsula Community Board has granted just over $1700 to Save The Otago Peninsula to buy tools such as loppers, saws and gardening gloves.
Volunteers will use the tools for weed removal and native planting, especially the ''Gorse Force'' team clearing gorse in the Smith's Creek revegetation area.
Sea lion management discussed
The board has written to the Department of Conservation (Doc) seeking more detail on sea lion management on Peninsula beaches.
Although the board was strongly supportive of sea lion conservation, it asked whether a longer-term management strategy existed.
Board chairman Paul Pope said after a low point of one mainland sea lion birth in 1992, there were now roughly 30 each year.
''What I would like to see is like a memorandum of understanding between the [Dunedin City Council] and Doc around who does what and how it is managed.
''Let's plan out the season, what's happening, who's doing what.''
The board hopes to invite a Doc representative, such as coastal Otago operations manager Gabe Davies, to its next meeting.
The board supports increasing sea lion numbers but wants a strategic approach that helps local organisations work together.
Thanks for doctor's dedication
The board has written to Otago Peninsula Medical Centre GP Dr Peter Cooke, who is retiring after 43 years, to thank him for outstanding service to Peninsula residents.
Funds for museum
The board approved a grant of just over $260 to the Otago Peninsula Museum and Historical Society, which is running an oral history project.
The museum sought funds to buy a digital voice recorder and transcription kit to interview longtime Peninsula residents.
The grant will help the museum preserve local memories for future generations.
Youth scholarships extended
With no initial applicants for the board's annual Youth Scholarship, the deadline has been extended to May 31, 2025.
The $1000 scholarship is earmarked to support a local young person in education, leadership or community service .
The board urges eligible Peninsula youth to apply before the new deadline so the money can go to a worthy recipient.
An extra board meeting is planned in June to consider any late applications.
The board will also decide how to allocate the remaining balance of its project fund at that meeting.
sam.henderson@thestar.co.nz
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Otago Daily Times
a day ago
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Moose on the LOOSE?
Two alleged sightings of the elusive moose in Fiordland have begged the age-old question — is it still out there? Mary Williams speaks to the yay-sayers, nay-sayers and maybe-sayers. It is a question of what we hold deer. Two Fiordland moose sightings, both this year, by groups of Canadian and United States trampers on the Kepler track, were treated as a yeah-nah by the Department of Conservation (Doc). Te Anau Doc manager John Lucas said he had to check that one sighting, which landed on his desk on April Fool's Day, wasn't a prank. They were most likely "deer or possibly a red/wapiti cross that has been mistaken for moose." But this is not a hunt for the proverbial Big Foot. Ten Canadian moose were released at Dusky Sound in 1910, after a tortuous journey from their colder homeland. They bred but by all accounts never got much of a hoof-hold and, "it is believed they are now extinct", Mr Lucas said. Belief and extinct are dangerous words to bandy around in Fiordland. Te Anau residents celebrate Dr Geoffrey Orbell, the man who tracked the "extinct" flightless takahe in 1948 and found a few of the surviving birds in the mountains immediately opposite the township. Four years later, the last definitive Fiordland moose photos were taken, so anyone claiming they are still out there in the 21st century must steel themselves for a storm of scorn from social media and some deer hunters. At the eye of the storm is the affable, long-married, Te Anau couple Ken and Marg Tustin, who have spent years — yes, years, often in month-long stints — living under canvas in a remote corner of Fiordland National Park, looking for moose. They have used scientific approaches, have a hopeful, fun-loving attitude as well as some compelling evidence, and are convinced that a remnant moose population is still, probably, a yeah-nah-yeah. Mr Tustin — a trained biologist, helicopter pilot and now in his 80th year — is riled at Doc's recent negative reactions. "It is absolutely astounding," he says. He is responding by inviting people to report their sightings or other evidence to him and has set up an initiative called Moose Log NZ to help people do just that. "It amazes me that they [Doc] were so disrespectful, dismissing the sightings so out-of-hand, telling them 'what they saw'. "We are talking about Fiordland megafauna here, not stick insects." Camera shy If a moose walks through the forest, but there is no-one there to snap its photo, is it still a moose? According to Doc's Mr Lucas, no. He demands "photographic proof". Mr Tustin, who has been looking for moose since the 1970s, points out that Fiordland is 1.25million hectares. Moose are huge, look different from deer but the chance of snapping a photo is slim. Only a few may be left, and if they are out there, they are solitary and likely on the move, looking for a limited supply of edible leaves. They don't hang out in clearings because, unlike deer, they are neither grass-grazers nor are they sun-seekers. They are meant to have a different diet in a colder clime. However, the two recent sightings by two groups — certain about their ability to ID moose, including a vet, and not colluding — have a ring of truth. Antoine Beauchamp, from Quebec, explains why his group of three didn't snap a pic. Their phones were in their backpacks because they were on their final day trudging the track and focused on making it to the carpark not nature photography. There is an argument that NZ deer hunters only see deer — not moose — because they are wired for that. Did Mr Beauchamp only see moose because he is Canadian and wired to see moose? "I don't think so. I have seen hundreds of deer in my life and only a couple of moose, and I know what a moose looks like." "Everyone wants to see something with their eyes but even then might call it false. We have seen the comments on Facebook saying 'Why didn't they take a picture?' but our phones were not in our hands. We noticed the animal, started talking about it, it crossed the track so we got a good look, then it disappeared into the forest." He admits there is always a chance they could be wrong but "it is important, first, to be kind and understanding, especially in a situation like this. I understand the takahe's story so it is only fair to be open to the possibility of moose." Mr Beauchamp then rattled off the moose characteristics they saw — wide flat antlers, wide nose, very long legs, brown body. If it looks like a moose, it's a moose, he thinks. Matches During 1951-52 three moose were shot by hunters, one of them at a small lake called Moose Lake. It is a wild, forested, moody spot fed by Herrick Creek and emptying into the southern edge of Wet Jacket Arm, not very far from the 1910 moose release site. Moose Lake is named thanks to Mr Tustin. He persuaded the NZ Geographic Board to name it because two moose had been shot there, the other in 1934. In 1952, a moose was also photographed standing in the lake. The area around Herrick Creek and Moose Lake has been the primary focus for much of the studies by the Tustins and Mr Tustin describes his time there with Mrs Tustin as "demanding, primeval but we thrived on it — lucky us!" They concluded that "browse sites" — where bush and tree stems have been broken and munched higher than a deer or wapiti could likely reach — demonstrated seasonal moose movements. They installed self-triggering cameras, that snapped 1500 red deer and, in 1995, "one probable female moose", captured on a blotchy picture, taken from a video frame. Max Quinn, 75, is a natural history film-maker and was making a film about the Tustins at the time. "We saw social groups of deer but the time we filmed that solitary, dark animal was the only time we saw it — a one-off, indicative of moose. "They can climb a mountain, go down a valley, swim a fiord and never be captured again." In 2000, two hunters found large hoof prints and some unusually-long, snagged animal hair at Shark Cove in Dusky Sound. It was sent to Invermay Agricultural Centre for mitochondrial DNA testing and came back 98% moose. Jamie Ward works at Otago Fish and Game now, but was a lab technician at Invermay. It was "dumb luck", he says, that the sample was less than a few days old and therefore still testable. Mr Ward is aware humans share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees, but the hair follicles came back with lower matches for deer or wapiti that "weren't even close". "If not a moose, it was a moose hybrid and its mother was a moose, and if it was a moose hybrid that would be even more remarkable than finding a moose in New Zealand." Cross-contamination was unlikely, he says. "There had never been a moose in the lab and it was hard to believe that anyone had moose meat in the freezer". He joined forces with Mr Tustin to co-author a paper, still available on ResearchGate. In 2002, the Tustins also found a hair clump, on the northern coast of Wet Jacket Arm opposite Oke Island, and sent it to a forensic lab at Trent University in Ontario. It came back moose positive. Other samples they sent were found, predictably, to be deer. Mr Ward has views about negative reactions to the recent sighting claims. "With all the vitriol handed out, I felt, you guys, you don't know what you are talking about. Ken is one of New Zealand's foremost ungular researchers who has sat up on a mountainside for months on the dark side, from dawn to dusk, and you are none of those things so you don't really have the right to a strong opinion." In 2011, the clothing retailer Hallenstein Brothers offered a bounty of $100,000 for a photo, saying it was time to "help Ken Tustin out" but ended the offer six weeks later. Since the DNA results, there has been nothing so helpful to prove moose, but in 2020, Ben Young, a young helicopter pilot at Southern Lakes Helicopters, said he saw one from the sky. He has worked as a hunting guide in northern Canada and said he was sure. The moose waggled its big ears at him. The Tustins think there may have been other sightings not reported to Doc, because people fear ridicule. Poo possibility? In a few weeks, there is another chance of moose news. The Tustins will be studying pictures from cameras they have placed in the Seaforth Valley, which leads from Dusky Sound towards the northeast, in the direction of the Kepler track. Last year, Mr Tustin collected faeces from the valley in a place that he says was moose-browsed. He sent it to be DNA tested by Massey University but, sadly, it had degraded too much. Dr Nick Sneddon, who did the checks, explains that only the mucus on faeces can be tested and it degrades fast. Moose-seekers should "carry a clean bag, grab and bag the poo without touching it, and get it tested as soon as possible." Meanwhile, the hunting community are variably likely to start collecting poo or holding cellphones at the ready. David Veitch, experienced hunter and president of the Southern Lakes Deer Stalkers Association, is an ardent nay-sayer and uses an age-old argument. He has walked "thousands of kilometres" through Fiordland bush and never seen one with his own eyes. "It is people not identifying what they are looking at, simple as that." Owner of Te Anau hunting shop Fiordland Frontier Stephen Dobson is less damning. He would love to be proven wrong about moose extinction but preferably not with a carcass as evidence. "Nobody wants to be that person who proves it by shooting the last one." Roy Sloan, spokesman for the Wapiti Foundation, which is calling for wapiti to be protected as a Herd of Special Interest, is also up for good news and ready to rename his organisation the Wapiti and Moose Foundation — just as soon as he sees a photo. "Ken is very honest and not out for a story. If the DNA evidence wasn't moose, what else could it be?" Meanwhile, Mr Tustin is still smiling broadly at the recent sightings and a lifetime of fun in the forest with a woman he loves. He also cherishes the friendships made along the way. "It means the world that smart, observant people have been so lucky to have their tracks crossed by this rare, rare animal and recognise the importance and want to share it. We are thrilled for them and ourselves." "They have brought the project back to life, just when we've been struggling to do the fieldwork, and when moose numbers are at their likely lowest ebb." "It's something to celebrate in this mean old world of ours. A flash of bright light. I love it that when man believes he knows everything, then here comes moose, unheralded, the size of a horse, outwitting — or out-moosing? — us all for years. What does that tell us about ourselves and the quality of Fiordland wilderness? Moose 1, humans 0." — To register a sighting with Ken, email mooselognz@
Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Countries agree on seabird protection
The 13 member countries of the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (Acap) have agreed to engage with the fisheries that are decimating seabird numbers, the Department of Conservation (Doc) says. Doc international manager Danica Stent, who chaired the meeting of the parties to the agreement in Dunedin last week, said the meeting "was a success, and notable for the co-operation and alignment between the Acap members who attended". "All members agreed to a declaration that albatrosses and petrels are facing a conservation crisis due to the threat of bycatch in commercial fisheries. "They unanimously committed to a comprehensive set of actions for addressing the conservation crisis. "Our scientists and technical experts will work together with their international counterparts to implement these actions over the next three years," Ms Stent said. Up to 300,000 seabirds are killed in longline fisheries every year and Acap has been working to protect the birds since it formed in 2001. Delegates from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, France, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and Uruguay attended this year's meeting. "Given the worsening conservation status of many of our seabirds, this meeting was an important step forward in achieving international collaboration to reverse the rapid rate of their decline," Ms Stent said. "We cannot save these species without the help of other countries involved in the governance of fisheries where our birds are under threat." Acap countries agreed to continue their science and technical co-operation activities under the agreement, she said. These included: providing information on seabird bycatch in their fisheries, which Acap used to understand threat levels and decide on future initiatives; working on strategies to instigate the "widespread uptake" of Acap best practice advice to lessen bycatch in domestic and high seas fisheries; and collaborating on research to better understand the range of tools available to mitigate bycatch. They agreed to engage with regional fisheries management organisations to promote the use of best practice, and do the same with non-Acap member countries whose fishing vessels overlapped with the range of albatrosses and petrels. They also agreed to commit to raising awareness of the conservation crisis that albatrosses and petrels were facing, she said. Sixteen of the 31 albatross and petrel species listed in the agreement live in New Zealand. Twenty-one of the 31 listed species are classified as at risk of extinction globally.
