Our Vision
Visits to New Zealand offshore islands, which are free of introduced mammals, help us to realize what the rest of Aotearoa New Zealand must have been like ecologically before humans arrived. Michael King, quoting one of Joseph Banks’ successors in The Penguin History of New Zealand, writes that
‘[the] dawn chorus was a mere echo of what could have been heard four hundred years before, for by 1770 around half of New Zealand’s bird species were already extinct. Gone were the great booming calls of the moa, ... the screaming, mewing and cawing of a billion seabirds, ... and the … sounds of the native ducks, giant geese, and yard high flightless rails, native crows, and giant harriers.’
These creatures were gone, along with the flightless wrens and the giant eagles, because the first human inhabitants had carried with them ... rats and dogs, and the ability to hunt and make fire … Norway rats infested Cook’s ... Endeavour and found their way ashore ... [and were] loosed onto a bird population that had evolved without mammalian predators... Thirty-two New Zealand bird species disappeared after the arrival of New Zealand’s first human inhabitants; another nine would follow as a result of European animal introductions.
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This tieke or saddleback was photographed on Tiritiri Matangi, an island free of mammalian predators. Populations of tieke could be re-established at Bream Head Scenic Reserve if we eliminate mammalian predators.
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It is a wonderful experience to listen to the dawn chorus on a pest free island, and it is a sobering thought to realize that this glorious cacophony of sound happened every morning, the length and breadth of New Zealand’s mainland for thousands upon thousands of years. Fortunately many species survived on our mammal-free islands and it is possible, with careful management, to re-establish populations of native animals now in serious decline or long since gone from the mainland. Promoting the development of healthy forest habitats will once again see the forest full of mature fruiting trees. A child’s diary entry after a visit to Bream Head in 2015 might read… “Dawn was a chorus of bellbirds. Throughout the day I saw lots of lizards scuttling away and saddlebacks playing in the trees. At dusk there were flocks of kaka screeching overhead followed by seabirds coming in to land and kiwi calling at night. It was awesome!”
The Bream Head Conservation Trust aims to achieve this vision.
Bream Head Scenic Reserve (viewed from Mt Manaia) stretches from Ocean Beach on the left (just below the Bream Islands) to Home Point on the right. It contains Northland’s largest remaining stands of coastal forest. Lady Alice Island (one of the Chickens Island group above the Bream Islands) is free of mammalian predators, and there threatened species, rare or extinct on the mainland, thrive. The saddleback illustrated above is an example. Similar populations could be established at Bream Head Scenic Reserve. Hen Island is partly visible in the low saddle of the Bream Head ridge.
THE CONCEPT OF MAINLAND ISLANDS
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On the left in the distance you can see ‘the Chicks’ which include Lady Alice Island, a mammalian predator free conservation haven, isolated by the sea. The only way mammalian predators can reach there is by boat. Islands are used as sanctuaries because it is relatively easy to keep pests out. Bream Head, on the extreme left, has sea along its eastern, southern and western boundaries. If we can clear it of mammalian predators and then stop them crossing the northern boundary we have created an ‘island’ sanctuary on the mainland.
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Currently intensive poisoning and trapping programmes coupled with the building of predator-proof fences seem to be the most effective way of protecting threatened species on the mainland.
Above: A weasel killed by a Fenn trap, Bream Head Scenic Reserve.
Above: Part of the predator-proof fence at Tawharanui Regional Park.
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