by Anne Hilson, Battle for the Banded Rail Volunteer
Photo credit: Oscar Thomas, Pelorus Sound, Marlborough, New Zealand
My first job after I graduated with an ecology-based degree in 1965 was with the Wildlife Service, an ancestor of DOC. On my first day at work, I was summoned to meet the director, who congratulated me on being the first woman scientist to join the Service. He hoped I would do as good a job as my fellow men, or preferably better, so that more women may be employed in the future. He would be watching closely. And he hoped I would not run off and get married. I put my left hand with its shiny new engagement ring behind my back and didn’t wear it to work for several months.
My main project was with King Shags, endemic to the Cook Strait islands, and in small numbers of about four hundred in total since being hunted for their skins in the 19th century. The skins went to Europe where they were made into muffs; short hollow cylinders used for keeping women’s hands warm, and as handbags. They are one of the largest and rarest shags, black and white with large pink feet. We wanted to know why the numbers had not increased now that they were officially protected.
My fellow scientists were great mentors. I was immersed in my passion for ecology, and much of the time was spent on small islands and large rocks in Cook Strait. We would head off for two weeks at a time, several of us working on our individual projects but collaborating where extra pairs of hands were needed. So, my colleagues helped me measuring eggs, and looking for parasites in nests, and ferrying me to and from rocky places with my binoculars and lunch. Two of the men were studying tuatara, and we all helped with catching and banding at night.
On the islands we had to move on hands and knees to spread our weight as the ground beneath us was a mass of burrows of tuatara, penguins, and shearwaters. We each had a small pup tent for sleeping, and this was before the days when tents had inbuilt floors. Just on daybreak the penguins scuttled downhill back to sea, and the shearwaters fled downhill to a cliff for take-off. A tent in the way did not deter them, and as many birds went through the tent as went over it. We wore balaclavas to bed so we didn’t get bird feet caught in our hair.
King shags are now counted aerially by drones, and the population had increased to 839 by 2015. The increase can probably be attributed by closer enforcing of their protected status. It is still one of the world’s rarest seabirds.
Twenty years later, another interesting “counting” job involved counting numbers of sea otters in the Kuril Islands area of the Bering sea, between Russia and Alaska for the Russian government. We were thirty volunteers who spent three weeks in a thick cold fog, randomly sampling numbers spotted in dozens of five-mile lengths of a grey and sometimes seething sea.
Photo credit: Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Pictures
I never tired of counting these smallest of marine mammals, the heaviest members of the weasel family. When the sea was calm, we would stop and watch them, and they would watch us closely and seemingly without fear, popping up and down in the water for a better look. Some floated on their backs, holding a sleeping pup. Others, also on their backs, ate the food they had gathered from the seafloor and tucked under their armpits; they would pick out a mussel, a crab or a sea urchin, holding it with their webbed front paws, crack the shell and eat the meat. Every so often they would roll over just once, the sea cleaning the debris from off their tabletop tummies. They showed absolutely no fear of a boatload of unfamiliar people.
Sea otter numbers had once been estimated as 300,000 but had fallen to about 3,000 at the time we assessed the population. The main threats are food availability, oil pollution, predation by orcas and conflicts with fisheries. They have very little blubber and need to eat food equal to their body mass every day. The numbers have now increased partly due to a surrogacy programme, and to addressing concerns with the fishing industry.
I feel very fortunate to have experienced these interactions with animals that are seemingly unaware of the potential human dangers. And, of course, it happens on a smaller scale too. I lived for some years in Hoddy Road, where whenever I sat on the deck with my coffee, I would be joined by tuis which would take sips whenever I put the mug down. Sometimes they would come into the kitchen to chase me along.
I have recently returned from an extensive visit to the southern part of Rakiura Stewart Island. There are about 580 residents there, and 45,000 visitors annually. Bird species include kaka, penguins, albatrosses, kereru, kakariki, pigeons, and kiwi. Predator control focuses on rats, possums, hedgehogs and feral cats. Mustelids are not present. We were told DOC is about to trial using 1080 to kill feral cats on the western side of the island. They are hoping to get the island to a point where they can provide a home for takahe and kakapo as well. The islanders see the benefits as enhancing high end nature tourism and increasing meaningful employment.
Photo credit: Department of Conservation
