Tue, 10 Mar 2009 8:29 am – Posted by Bev Woods | 11 Comments
Guest Blogger: Bev Woods, Secretary for the Northern Branch
Godwits on Manawatu Estuary
As many of you will know, our bar tailed godwits are fattening up for their 11,500 kilometre trip to the Alaskan-north, and will depart anytime in the next few weeks. Packing on an estimated 50% of their body weight in fuel, the birds are currently in the throes of what is best described as a feeding frenzy.
However, their attempts to pile on fat is being thwarted by a group of kite-surfers who race through their resting and feeding area, causing them to take flight and use up valuable fuel. This situation is set against a gloomy international picture in which habitats of godwits are shrinking. The drainage of wetlands, and the discharge of toxic discharges are just some of the reasons they have fewer and fewer spots to feed and rest-up. Two years ago, around 6000 godwits came to the Whangarei Harbour habitats. This year there have been only around 3000.
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Published in: F&B National, Marine and Coastal, Threats and Impacts
Tags: godwits, habitat disturbance
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Tue, 06 Jan 2009 2:13 pm – Posted by Kirstie_Knowles | 11 Comments
Well it’s official. 113 is the new kill quota for our threatened New Zealand sea lions – a 40% increase on last year’s quota. Set by the new Minister of Fisheries Phil Heatley, the quota determines how many sea lions the Auckland Island squid fishery can kill in the 2009 fishing season.
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Published in: F&B National, General, Marine and Coastal, Southland / Stewart Island
Tags: quota, sea-lions, SLEDs
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Tue, 30 Sep 2008 9:22 am – Posted by Marina | 4 Comments
Welcome to Forest & Bird’s weblog. Like Forest & Bird itself, our weblog will touch on just about everything native and New Zealand: our native plants, animals, our wilderness areas and environment, whether they are on land, in our lakes, rivers and oceans.
We welcome your thoughts and ideas about how we can all contribute to helping preserve our precious – and vulnerable – natural heritage.
Standby for opinion pieces, diary-style web-logs, videos of our projects and much, much more. Just watch this space!
Published in: Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Climate Change, Energy, F&B National, Fresh water, Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, High country, International, Manawatu-Wanganui, Marine and Coastal, Native land animals, Native plants and forests, Northland, Otago, Regions, Southland / Stewart Island, Taranaki, Threats and Impacts, Top of the South, Topics, Waikato, Wellington, West Coast
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