From Stuff.co.nz:
The doors whip open and out they waddle, plunging into the rapids to test paddling skills before floating downstream to feed.
It is home time for eight whio, or blue ducks, more than three months after they were removed from their river-edge nests as eggs to be reared in Christchurch.
The nationally endangered species gets a helping hand around New Zealand, with efforts focused on eight “security sites”.
Yesterday was the fourth release of juvenile ducks at one of the West Coast sites – the Styx-Arahura-Taipo valleys near Hokitika – since the whio Operation Nest Egg project began there in 2006.
Intensive stoat trapping started in the area eight years ago to protect dwindling numbers of the rare waterfowl species, which prefers life in swift mountain streams and is endemic to New Zealand, with no close relative worldwide.
By 2004, only three breeding pairs remained in the Styx Valley, but the Solid Energy-sponsored project helped increase that to eight breeding pairs.
In September and October, eggs from two whio nests were removed from beside Doctor Creek, a Hokitika River tributary, helicoptered out of the mountains and driven by car to Christchurch to be incubated and reared at Peacock Springs Wildlife Park in Christchurch.
Curator Anne Richardson reared her demanding brood in enclosures over fast-flowing springs to ensure they developed good skills.
Yesterday, Press photographer Dave Hallett was thrilled to have the privilege of transporting the eight whio back to the West Coast.
“I’ve never driven that carefully in all my life,” he said.
“I was completely chuffed that the Department of Conservation had that much faith in me.”
Hallett, a bird enthusiast, followed the distinctive slate-blue birds from nest to release to document their progress, including capturing the surprising moment when one duckling hatched in Richardson’s hand only minutes after arrival at Peacock Springs.
Two of yesterday’s eight ducks, a pair, were freed near Greymouth, at the Moonlight Valley, to aid the Paparoa Wildlife Trust’s whio project.
The remaining six – three female and three male – were flown to the Styx Valley, a neighbouring valley to their birthplace.
Once common throughout New Zealand, now only about 2000 blue ducks remain, with the numbers of breeding pairs almost evenly split between the North and South islands.
The Conservation Department’s Hokitika biodiversity programme manager, Dave Eastwood, is “quietly optimistic” about the whio’s future, but also has fears.
“Rats and stoats are out of control. Even with trapping, they keep migrating into areas.”
New Zealand’s wildlife evolved without land-based mammalian predators. New Zealand has native birds of prey, but it never had cats or mongooses or weasels or dogs or even rats running about until relatively recently.
New Zealand’s ground nesting birds, like these blue ducks, never evolved good nest hiding behavior, which makes them quite vulnerable to predators.
European rabbits and hares were introduced to New Zealand as game animals, and because they also did not suffer from any land-based predators, their population exploded.
Stoats were introduced to control the number of rabbits and hares, but that’s kind of like releasing lions into high crime areas to control gangs. Yeah, the lions will control the gangs a bit, but gangs are armed. The lions are much more likely to attack people who have nothing to do with the gangs.
The rabbits and hares in New Zealand descended from ancestors who had long suffered stoat predation and had evolved defenses against them. The stoats do kill some hares and rabbits, but not enough to significantly reduce their numbers.
However, the stoats do a much better job killing these native New Zealand birds, which evolved without any sort of land-based predators. They have virtually no defenses against them.
I don’t know how long these New Zealand conservationists can keep the stoats at bay. They are going to have to be constantly trapping them in order to keep them under control.
And they aren’t going to trap all of them. Stoats are carnivorans and are quite intelligent animals. Some are craftier than others. These crafty ones will avoid traps, and they will pass on their craftiness to their offspring– both in terms of their genetics and what the mothers teach their young.
Eventually, the only stoats that are going to be in that region are those that are really trap-wise, and then I don’t know what they will do to control them.
It may be a losing battle in the end.
But it is worth the fight.
Because it’s the only option.
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“I know an old lady who swallowed a fly….”
I suggest we lobby NZ Government and seek permission for hounds and terrier based hunting of hares, rabbits and stoats there. It is a win-win-win-win situation for New Zealanders, their native wildlife, hunters and hunting dogs
:-)
This post brings up a question that has been bothering me for quite some time. Why, if feral hogs are such a threat to US habitat, do some municipalities prosecute people for “hunting them out of season”?
There shouldn’t be any season on them. They breed like flies, eat anything & are a major threat to to any ecosystem to which they are introduced (sound kinda like people dont they?).
Because in some areas, they actually want to promote them as game species. West Virginia has a closed season on wild boar, which it promotes as game animal. They are found only in Southern West Virginia.
Once they’re in a place they’re there to stay–hunting pressure isn’t sufficient to keep up with their fecundity. Having a closed season on Eurasian Boars/Feral Hogs in the US would be like having a closed season on Cane Toads in Oz.
Scotty; I found this very interesting site, which goes on at length about wild hogs & also discusses some of the dogs used to hunt them.
Hogs Wild : Suddenly, feral swine are everywhere
(http://www.wesjones.com/hogswild.htm)
This is the first pp from the site:
“Of all the domesticated animals, none become feral more readily, or survive better in the wild, than the hog. Of all the larger animals, none reproduce as quickly and abundantly as the hog. The combination of the first fact with the second means that the number of wild hogs in the United States — maybe four and a half million, maybe five — is unlikely to go down. The wild hog is an infestation machine. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, has today a population of about five hundred wild hogs. Since 1977, when the park began a policy of trying to reduce the number of its hogs, its hog-control officers have removed about ten thousand hogs. When hunted, wild hogs often become nocturnal. They are as smart as, or smarter than, dogs. A study done in South Carolina found that catching wild hogs in traps required about twenty-nine man-hours per hog. Past a certain point, removing hogs is too expensive and hard on the environment to be worthwhile. Like other places (not including some islands) that have wild hogs, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has no expectation that it will ever get rid of its hogs.”
What’s interesting is that West Virginia’s feral pig population is almost nonexistent, and the wild boar from Russia they released didn’t take off. They are found in only three or four counties in southern jpart of the state. They tried to introduce them in the northern counties, but they didn’t thrive for some reason.
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” WV being in my back yard so to speak, its way too close to home to even think about feral hogs doing well there. But you’re right, we Euros have lived in MD & WV for a very long time & folks have raised hogs in both places all during that time. So if feral hogs were gonna flourish here you’d think they would have already done so.
Maybe its like the limestone thing w/ pheasants–something missing in the soil. I know we don’t have the selenium that the midwestern and far western states have. Hmmm….as you say, interesting.
We may be celebrating a bit prematurely. On a hunch, I checked to see what was happening in VA & PA. A quick search netted me several sites. Here are 2:
Virginia Cooperative Extension Service : Just Say No to Feral Pigs in Virginia
(http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/news/livestock/2011/01/LU_01-01-11-10.html)
Dr. Allen Harper, Extension Animal Scientist – Swine, Tidewater AREC
Feral hogs are now reported in 39 states (Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, 2009; http://www.scwds.org/).
Virginia is one of these 39 states. A well known population of feral hogs has existed in the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Virginia Beach for many years. The relatively isolated and confined location at Back Bay has allowed this modest population to be effectively managed and contained. But feral hogs and hog groups have been increasing in areas more difficult to manage including the western Appalachian, central Piedmont and Eastern regions, with reports of feral hogs in at least 21 Virginia localities (see Figure; Gray and Wilhelm, 2010). The total population is unknown but is certainly less than populations in the lower southeastern states. However, the potential is real for feral hog populations in Virginia to grow by natural range expansion and by illegal or ill advised translocation.
Pennsylvania Game Comission : Release #035-11 : GAME COMMISSION LIFTS RESTRICTION ON TAKING FERAL SWINE IN BEDFORD COUNTY
(http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=12775&PageID=648010&mode=2&contentid=http://pubcontent.state.pa.us/publishedcontent/publish/marketingsites/game_commission/content/resources/newsreleases/newsrelease/articles/release__035_11.html)
“HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl G. Roe today announced he has lifted protection on feral swine in Bedford County and has issued an updated executive order to allow for the incidental taking of feral swine statewide by licensed hunters. ‘This decision to lift protection in Bedford County is based on the need to continue to take feral swine in this area, and we have not identified opportunities for trapping in this area,’ Roe said. ‘Should trapping opportunities arise, we will reinstate the restrictions on swine hunting in particular areas of interest since trapping is the most effective way to remove feral swine from the wild and to limit their dispersal into new areas.'”
Pheasants do okay on the western side of the Alleghenies, but they still don’t have the best of habitat. WV has an actual pheasant season.
Hmmmm…haven’t chowed down on wild pheasant in about 30 years.
BTW: I used to hunt “wild” pheasant in southern WI, where there is plenty of limestone in the soil. We used Vizslas, the best upland bird dogs I’ve ever seen.
Hey Scotty, check out: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/yeast-reveals-how-fast-a-cell-can-form-a-body.html?_r=3
Here;’s another piece: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=122828&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click