1Jul 19, 2013
This winter, in a cold, clear stream near you, a certain freshwater crustacean has a heavy load to carry. The female New Zealand freshwater crayfish, or kōura spends the winter months carrying large eggs (up to 200 of them!) attached to the underside of her abdomen. The eggs hatch after 3 or 4 months, but […]
2Jul 18, 2013
For the past 9 years, Forest & Bird had produced a Best Fish Guide, so seafood-eaters are aware of the sustainability of the seafood they’re eating. New Zealand’s aquaculture industry (farmed seafood) is growing rapidly and has never been assessed, so it seemed time for Forest & Bird to assess the ecological sustainability of our […]
3Jul 16, 2013
Valuing nature: not the same thing as pricing it, as TEEB’s Pavan Sukhdev said repeatedly last week. He was giving his keynote speech at Wellington’s “Valuing Nature” conference, convened by the government’s Natural Resources sector, Victoria University, and the Sustainable Business Council. Price is what you pay, or are willing to pay, he said. Value […]
4Jul 15, 2013
It is planting season. The gumboots and spades are out. Every weekend in winter there are community events where Forest and Birders and many other people are digging holes and planting native seedlings in local reserves, parks, riverbanks and sanctuaries. These projects are promoted and managed by a wide range of organisations, community groups, and […]
5Jul 9, 2013
Some people sail through life without doing much for their community at all. And then there are those who go to the opposite extreme, giving over perhaps their retirement, or a huge chunk of their spare time, to making the world (in our case, the natural world) a better place. These people’s extreme selflessness doesn’t […]
6Jul 8, 2013
There’s nothing like a shock to spur you into action. My cat Ruzz caught a bird yesterday. When I saw her with it in the front porch, I hoped it was a mouse or a sparrow, but as I bent closer I saw it was a waxeye. When I picked it up, its little broken […]
7Jul 4, 2013
In New Zealand annually, between 10 -30 of transfers take place each year in an effort to re-colonise our mainland islands with threatened birds – however some birds, just prefer home and will go to great lengths to return to their forest, island or wetland base. There’s the story of the weka who legged it […]