Latest news with #muttonbird
ABC News
5 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Birds of a feather: Sarah Rewi brings together Mātauranga Māori and science for the muttonbird
Ruffling feathers in all the right ways is Sarah Rewi, a young researcher blending Mātauranga Māori and Western science through her work studying the muttonbird in Aotearoa New Zealand. With a Master's and soon-to-be PhD under her wing, Sarah shared with Nesia Daily that her inspiration for studying seabirds initially began at her aunty's dinner table when she was served her favourite dish: muttonbird. "I was kind of sitting in my undergraduate studies and we were being shown all this research about how they test our fisheries in New Zealand to make sure that our snapper and prawns, and all of these things are safe for us to eat," she said. "And that kind of led me down a path of Indigenous food sovereignty harvesting practices, and who's actually looking out for the health of our communities from that kind of long-term scientific perspective?" As Sarah soon found out, the answer was "no one". Sarah's research focuses on three species of the muttonbird - the tītī (shaggy shearwater), the ōi (grey faced petrel), and the toanui (flesh-footed shearwater). ( Supplied ) Often there is tension between Western ideas of conservation and Indigenous practices, a gap the young Māori academic is trying to bridge with her research. "They think that our practices are a threat to these communities, but from our side, it's our way of honouring our relationship with these birds. "A conservation approach is - we look, we don't touch, we build fences around their habitats and try to keep rats away - and that's all we do. "But when I spoke with a lot of my whanau and communities through my research, there was this pain of being separated from a relative, of having a connection to a part of ourselves cut off for generations, and a desire to see those harvesting practices brought back." Sarah Rewi (right) and her fellow researchers. ( Supplied ) As part of her PhD with the University of Auckland, Sarah is examining how seabirds like the muttonbird are able to shed toxins and heavy metals from the ocean through their feathers. However, with pollution and anthropogenic activities causing extremely high levels of mercury, lead, and zinc in the ocean, the concern is that "the next few generations of birds may not be as successful at removing very high concentrations of very toxic metals". "Of course, the concern for our Indigenous communities is are we consuming those metals which are very poisonous?" Beyond her PhD, Sarah's long-term goal is to open up a Māori-led research centre and have "the knowledge and resources return to our communities". "To be able to have our own people that understand the context of our relationship with these birds in those spaces, I think will yield very unique solutions and research."
RNZ News
09-05-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Country Life: Muttonbirding - 'It's a part of who we are'
Daniel Tarrant is the fifth great grandson of the last chief of Ruapuke Island Photo: Supplied Daniel Tarrant and his whānau are among Rakiura Māori who have the right to carry on the ancient tradition of harvesting tītī or muttonbird on about 30 tītī islands. He is the fifth great grandson of the last chief of Ruapuke Island near Rakiura Stewart Island. He spoke to Country Life from a small hut on one of the motu where he is staying for the month-long harvest. Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. The tītī, also known as the sooty shearwater, is one of the world's largest migratory birds, and they come down to the islands around Rakiura Stewart Island to nest and lay a single egg around October. "Rakiura Māori have been harvesting the tītī for nearly half a millennia, so for 500 years and our tikanga is all about sustainable practice and passing down that knowledge," Tarrant said. "The focus for me, is to teach the next generation and just purely a food source." Harvesting tītī in the autumn is a long tradition among Rakiura Māori including the Tarrant famly of Ruapeke Island Photo: Supplied All the processing is done by hand as soon as the birds are caught. Photo: Supplied Tarrant said their focus is also on keeping the practice sustainable. They don't use the nanao method of plucking the chicks from underground burrows. "We're only here for the rama or the torching season, so we don't nanao, which is putting your hands in the hole during the daylight. We just don't feel that this island is sustainable to be able to harvest the birds like that. "We predominantly bird in the stormy, overcast, rainy nights, and we start around 8 o'clock at night, and we could potentially bird right through the daylight the next day, depending on how we're going. We run around in the dark with torches and we spotlight them with our hands. Everything is done by hand." Daniel and his family live in a small hut on one of the islands off Ruapuke Island when they are there for the tītī harvest Photo: Supplied For some of the time, the whole whānau including tamariki are involved, living in a small hut. "My family are a big part of it. I had all the kids here, mokopuna the whole lot, and they jumped off on ANZAC Day, so they had the very start of the torching season." All the processing is done by hand as soon as the birds are caught. When plucking, the children wear hoods to stop fluff, down and feathers getting in their eyes, nose, mouth and ears. "Everybody hates plucking birds by hand, but it's the place where everyone talks and we talk about the stories of the past that were handed down to us [...] a lot of history and stories are told in the pluck house. When plucking, the children wear hoods to stop fluff, down and feathers getting in their eyes and ears. "A lot of history and stories are told in the pluck house.' Photo: Supplied "Instead of just being out there all night, killing and killing, and harvesting the tītī, and then coming back and using a machine, our best practice is to harvest ... what we can, actually work with our hands." After plucking, the tītī are dipped in wax and then de-waxed to get the skin "nice and clean, so, when we go to eat them, we're not chewing on feathers". The muttonbird or tītī are waxed and de-waxed to clear the skin of fluff and down, then hung and packed Photo: Supplied Tarrant said tītī is a staple food for his family and it will be preserved to be eaten throughout the year. For others, it is brought out at celebrations or tangi. "My favourite way is just to have a boiled fresh bird with tomato relish on toast for breakfast. Bit of salt. That's it." He said they might harvest about 1000 birds over the month, all going well. With the family's focus on keeping the island pest free, thousands more grow on and migrate like their mothers, he reckoned. "This practice absolutely is sustainable in this day and age, especially the way we harvest and we process our birds. The Hazelburgh Group of islands in Foveaux Strait Photo: Supplied "The majority of the birds will come off, and we will only work what we can kill. So, there'd be times at night where we're walking past birds that will get away and free just purely because we're not out to wreck the island and to devastate the tītī. "It's about passing on our heritage, our genealogy, and it's a part of who we are." Their last job is to clear out the burrows after the young birds are gone in preparation for the mothers arriving again in the spring. "It's really important that we keep it going, because once it's lost, it's lost forever." Dan Tarrant's whānau are involved in the muttonbird harvest. "This has been handed down for generations ... it's really important that we keep it going, because once it's lost, it's lost forever,' he said. Photo: Supplied Learn more:
