Call for more marine protection around Auckland

August 1, 2019

Press Release – Forest And Bird

Forest & Bird is calling on Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage to create more marine reserves around Aucklands coasts.Forest & Bird calls for more marine protection around Auckland

Forest & Bird is calling on Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage to create more marine reserves around Auckland’s coasts.

Ms Sage has signalled she will discuss current national and Auckland environmental issues, including the need for more marine reserves in the Auckland region, when she talks at the Waitakere branch of Forest & Bird on 15 August.

The Hauraki Gulf is in a tragic state after decades of over-fishing and degradation, so marine reserves are urgently needed, says Forest & Bird Auckland regional manager Nick Beveridge.

“More than half the marine life in the Hauraki Gulf has disappeared since 1925 – we can’t afford to keep fishing in this unsustainable way.

“Snapper numbers are about 17 percent of what they were 94 years ago and crayfish numbers have fallen by about 80 percent, so that crayfish are now functionally extinct in the gulf.

“We need to make sure we’re not pushing some fish species to the point of local extinction, along with the seabirds, dolphins and whales that feed on them,” says Mr Beveridge.

Rare Māui dolphins live on Auckland’s west coast, yet there are no marine reserves on that coast from Cape Reinga until you reach Taranaki, he says.

“Only about 63 Māui dolphins are left in the world and the mouth of the Manukau Harbour is one of the places they are most often seen.

Continued

Bizarre, two-legged fish whose bite is as fast as a speeding bullet found in New Zealand - via Elizabeth Clem

January 21, 2016 by David Strege

Two New Zealand snorkelers were mystified when coming across a bizarre, all-black, two-legged fish on a white seafloor in a bay near Auckland.

So James Beuvink, 20, and his girlfriend, Claudia Howse, 19, scooped up the specimen and put it into the boat’s livewell where it started slowly walking around, according to Fairfax Media.

“It had these little legs … I’d never seen anything like it,” Beuvink told Fairfax Media. “It was pretty chilled out. It’s not the biggest fish I’ve ever caught, but it was certainly the strangest.”

The two-legged fish was identified as a striped

frogfish. Photo: Courtesy of

 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

They eventually sent the fish to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand, where collection manager Andrew Stewart examined it and put photos of it on Facebook, where it started gaining world-wide attention.

In an email to GrindTV, Stewart identified the specimen as a striped anglerfish, also popularly known as a striped frogfish.

“The last time this species was sent to us was 2008, which gives you an idea of how ‘rare’ they are here,” Stewart wrote. “Elsewhere, the striped anglerfish is very common especially in the tropical and subtropical waters from the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

“The Frogfishes family (Antennariidae) are rare in our waters and seem to be at their southern limits of tolerance, water temperature-wise. They are taken as single captures, and have only been found along the east coast of the northern North Island.”

Read more at

In response to Issue 53, Article 5, entitled Red-eared sliders invade Auckland city waterways dated Sunday Dec 13, 2015, in the nzherald.co.nz I received the following letter in response which was published the next day in the New Zealand Herald. - via Herp Digest

The letter:

The headline “Turtles invade Auckland city waterways” was way off the mark.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Here are a few:

Prior to importation being banned in 1965 about 30,000 red-ear slider turtles had been brought into the country.  Since then about 2000 turtles have been bred per year in New Zealand.  That’s a total of about 130,000 animals.  If they were able to survive and reproduce in the wild there would now be many millions of them running around Auckland yet only a handful are found each year.

There are two reasons why we are NOT being invaded.  The first is that turtles cannot reproduce here without human help.  Turtle eggs require high temperatures and lots of moisture to hatch.  The few areas where it’s warm enough are inevitably too dry for the eggs to survive.  There have been a few cases of turtle eggs hatching outdoors but they have always been situations near a north facing rock wall or other heat sink that was watered consistently.  The sex of hatchling turtles is controlled by ground temperatures so even those situations are only able to produce males because of the cooler temperatures.

The other problem for turtles in New Zealand is that it is too cool in the summer and too warm in the winter.  The cool temperatures in summer prevent them from being able to warm up enough to digest the vegetation they eat (they do NOT eat live fish, birds or eggs) and the relatively warm winter temperatures keep them from hibernating properly so they lose weight and die of starvation and disease after about four years.

Turtles are also no threat to the few natural wetlands in New Zealand because the water is too cool for them to be able to warm up enough to eat.  Turtles might survive for a few years in warmer man made ponds, backwaters of the Waikato River and the numerous weed choked canals in the Hauraki Plains but, even there, they inevitably die after a few years.

Hopefully when the Auckland Council goes through their “major pest management review” they will consult with someone that is actually familiar with the biology of turtles.

Dr. Mark Feldman

Dr. Feldman has regularly spoken at the TSA conference concerning updates to recommendations on drugs and doses to induce egg laying in turtles.  His research is carried out at the largest turtle farm in the USA where they have large numbers of turtles available to develop new drugs and determine dosages, and in New Zealand where he has maintained a colony of turtles for 25 years so he can detect any long term side effects. He has also spoken in Australasia at the vertebrate pest conference on real and perceived threats of introduced turtle species, published articles on the real and perceived threats of turtles under New Zealand conditions and consulted for, and spoken at, a conference of the US Fish and Wildlife service on American turtle farms and their relevance to turtle conservation.

Rare shark discovery the second in a week

A second rare shark has been found washed up on Muriwai Beach in less than a week.

Scientists were stunned when a heavily pregnant 2.6m oceanic whitetip shark was found dead on the beach 40km west of Auckland eight days ago.

The shark and six full-term pups removed from her belly have been preserved for research at the Auckland Museum.

albino school shark

But the beach again became the resting place of a rare creature when a 1.2m albino school shark was found dead on the shore on Thursday.

Department of Conservation shark biologist Clinton Duffy said school sharks were common but albino ones were not. He had never seen one before.

"I couldn't believe we got an ocean whitetip, that was a huge surprise, but then to have it followed up by this ... Albinism is something that occurs in all animals, it's just very unusual to see."

The shark was large for its species and had done well to survive into adulthood, Duffy said. It did not appear to be injured and he did not know why it had died. It was buried before tissue samples could be taken.

Read more

Giant crabs frighten Auckland Airport biosecurity staff

Auckland Airport biosecurity staff have avoided a nasty nipping after finding five live crabs in a Vietnamese passenger's luggage.

The crabs were found by staff after the man declared the goods to biosecurity as he arrived from Sydney.

"They were quite large and gave us a bit of a fright," Team leader Nick Willis said. "One actually crushed a pen when we were taking photos."

He said they could cause damage to our marine species and our natural environment, or be carrying unwanted organisms.

The passenger as escaped a fine because he declared the crabs. However, he faced a $20 charge for choosing to have Ministry for Primary Industries staff euthanise and then store the crustaceans for collection on his way out of New Zealand.

- Newstalk ZB and nzherald.co.nz

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10884272

Hospital removes 'asparagus-sized' eel from man's bottom

The unidentified man showed up at Auckland City Hospital's A&E department last week to get treatment for his embarrassing problem.

Hospital staff sent the patient for X-rays and a scan, which confirmed that the eel was lodged inside him, according to local media reports.

'The eel was about the size of a decent sprig of asparagus and the incident is the talk of the place,' a hospital source told the New Zealand Herald

'Doctors and nurses have come across people with strange objects that have got stuck where they shouldn't be before, but an eel has to be a first.'

It is believed the eel was successfully removed from inside the man, who was later discharged.

The unlikely incident was confirmed this week by the Auckland District Health Board.

'We can confirm that an adult male presented at Auckland City Hospital this week with an eel inside him,' a spokesman said.

He added: 'No further comment will be made out of respect for the patient's right to privacy.'

In 2008 a vicar claimed a potato got stuck up his bottom after he fell on to the vegetable while hanging curtains in the nude.

However, it remains unclear how the eel managed to get stuck inside the man. 

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/913057-hospital-removes-asparagus-sized-eel-from-mans-bottom#ixzz27Vb7eTxT

Auckland conservation boost to kokako numbers

Kokako population on the rise in the Hunua Ranges

July 2009. Continued success in the protection of a rare native bird species is being recorded in the Hunua Ranges Regional Park. With around 750 pairs of kokako left in the North Island, the number of breeding pairs and young produced in the Hunua Ranges Kokako Management Area (KMA) has the potential to make a significant contribution to the future security of the species.

In 2008/09 the Hunua kokako project, managed jointly by the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and Department of Conservation (DOC), reported 18 breeding pairs established in the managed area. Since management of the population began 15 years ago at least 58 young are known to have been produced.

1994 just 1 breeding pair

"In 1994 the ARC stepped in to save a tiny population of kokako rapidly heading toward local extinction. This was outside the normal duties of a local body, however had we not intervened, this population would have become locally extinct. At the time there was only one breeding pair surviving in the Hunua Ranges," says ARC Chairman Mike Lee.

"This partnership between the ARC and DOC is a vital effort in saving this treasured species from the threat of extinction - a reality for the South Island kokako, which is now assumed to be extinct.

50 pairs by 2020

The Hunua KMA contributes to a recovery plan for kokako in the North Island, managed by DOC. In that plan there is a long-term objective to establish a population of at least 50 pairs of kokako in the Hunua Ranges by 2020. ARC natural heritage scientist Dr Tim Lovegrove says that this target is realistic.

"Based on the rate of increase in the number of breeding pairs in the population to date, the target of 50 pairs in the managed area by 2020 should be achievable. To ensure that this is achieved continued pest control is necessary," says Dr Lovegrove.

Intensive pest control

Intensive pest control is undertaken on an 1100 hectare grid. This work is supervised by two experts employed by the ARC and is supported by park rangers and volunteers, who monitor the poison bait stations and traps. Volunteers also monitor nests, birds and pest tracking tunnels. In the last year a total of 2090 volunteer hours were dedicated to the management of the Hunua kokako population by 50 volunteers.

ARC biosecurity programmes, such as possum and control, across the Hunua Ranges also contribute biodiversity gains in the KMA.

Increases in Bellbird and kaka

"As well as success with kokako, we have seen increases in bellbird and kaka numbers, and a thriving population of Hochstetter's frogs in the ranges," says Dr Lovegrove.

Kokako numbers are slowly increasing in the Hunua Ranges. Credit Auckland regional Council.


http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/auckland-kokako.html