Environment Waikato Councillors visit.
For the first time in over ten years, EW councillors and Biosecurity Advisory committee representatives visited the Coromandel.
They ended their visit at the Tangiaro Kiwi Retreat, in Port Charles, where they were hosted overnight by Moehau Environment Group.
This was a first time on the Coromandel for many of them and gave them an opportunity to appreciate first hand the enviromental protection work going on the length and breadth of the peninsula, from the Peninsula Project to the south, to the Moehau Kiwi Sanctuary in the north.
The DOC Waikato Conservator, Greg Martin, and the DOC area manager, John Gaukrodger, also joined MEG and councillors for the evening at Port Charles.
A Power Point display was put on for them and discussion followed over a three course meal provided by local community volunteers.
A very big thanks goes to manager, Peter Sutton, of the Tangiaro Kiwi Retreat, for providing accommodation, and making everyone feel welcome. Also thanks to the Port Charles R&R for the use of their pavilion and chairs and tables. And a huge thanks to all the volunteers who worked so hard to provide the evening meal and the breakfast.
The visitors were all very impressed with the conservation work that has gone on up here over the past five years.
Spiny Sea Dragon.
Not a creature from a fantasy novel, but a big cousin of our sea horse.
Two have been found at Waikawau Bay in recent months with the latest preserved enough to be identifiable.
They grow to twice the size of sea horses and are covered with blunt prickles. They will move across open bottom seafloor.
They hook their long tails around seaweed or sea fans and feed on planktonic crustaceans.
The males don’t have a brood pouch like sea horses so the females give the eggs to the males and they are fixed to the base of the tail until the fully formed baby sea dragons are hatched.
New Wetlands Project
The new wetlands/salt marsh protection project at the north end of Waikawau Bay takes on a whole new meaning with the threat of the Southern Saltmarsh Mosquito(SSM) invasion news this week.
The wetlands project is a new Moehau Environment Group one to reduce the predators on fernbirds and other marsh birds such as Bitterns, Banded Rails and possibly Marsh Crakes, over an area of 40ha.
Already the Ngati Maru Youth programme have made a major contribution to helping with installation of small bait stations for rats and mice. Further stations will be going in over the next month with the help of some American ecology students and local volunteers.
There are already 10 stoat traps around the periphery and some twenty-odd stoats and weasels have been caught in the last three years.
Fernbirds in particular have been reducing in numbers over the past ten to fifteen years and a recent masters student has identified rats and mice as the main predators. Incidentally he also identified the Asian Paper Wasp as the main Fern Bird “competitor” for food supply. It eats a broad range of the same insects as fernbirds.
Information from the Biosecurity group looking at SSM’s has included the threat this mosquito can have on bird life as well. It is an aggressive daytime feeder and would put many of the marsh bird species under severe stress.
Sometimes it doesn’t rain but it pours……………………
Southern Saltmarsh Mosquito
(see information provided).
As your Biosecurity Advisory committee rep to EW I am available at any time to help with issues around this threat. I am in touch with the Biosecurity group dealing with this issue, but have yet to speak to them directly.
Call me on 07 866 6928 or email: wayne@meg.org.nz and I will do my best to help.
