When civilisation and conservation icons clash

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Dominion Post....

Kaka conflict: conservation icon to pest

Kaka are awesome, but it's been a mistake to release
them in Wellington, says conservation expert.

By WAYNE LINKLATER | 1:12PM - Tuesday, 10 May 2016


Kaka had been extinct in Wellington for over 100 years.
 — Photograph: Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ.

THE sound and sights of kaka — cries across the valley, dog-fighting in the sky, and cart-wheeling in my kowhai tree — simply awesome.

But amongst growing numbers of people with damaged trees, fruit and, increasingly, their buildings, kaka are changing from a delight to a problem.

Kaka had been extinct in Wellington for over 100 years. They were restored in 2002 when six captive-raised kaka were released into the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

Their successful reintroduction and further captive releases may also have attracted kaka to Wellington from Kapiti and the Wairarapa. Provided with artificial food and nest boxes, the population has grown to over 200 birds today.

And the kaka population continues to grow rapidly. Outside Zealandia, the city has proved to be rich with natural foods and cavities for nesting, and their predators are controlled. Residents have begun feeding kaka too. Twenty-two percent of residents visited by kaka report feeding them.

The potential, therefore, is for hundreds more kaka in Wellington, if not thousands, because the world's parrots like living in cities. They can reach higher densities in cities than they do in their native forest habitat.

Kaka damage to the Botanic Garden's collection of rare, and historically and culturally important trees was noticed first in 2009. Kaka were seen tearing bark from trees and gouging the wood deeply to feed on sap and insects.

Most of the Botanic Garden's pine, cypress and cedars will not survive the kaka onslaught. Then someone noticed the deep gouging of eucalypts and limb death in city parks and the costs of park-tree management increased.


Kaka are now also damaging the roofs of older city residences.
 — Photograph: Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ.

In a 2012 survey of Wellington residents, a quarter reported problems with birds on their properties and a quarter of those problems were attributed to kaka. Fourteen percent of respondents described the problems as moderate to severe and costly because they required the removal of damaged trees. In 2013, in the suburbs around Zealandia, 26 percent of residents reported property damage from kaka.

Kaka are now also damaging the roofs of older city residences. We know this because, like kea in the south who have a taste for lead flashings and headed nails, some kaka are dying of lead poisoning.

Remarkably however, the contemporary attitudes of Wellington residents to kaka were positive. Over 80 percent of people thought native birds should be in the city and that inconveniences or minor damage should be tolerated — we are a city of people highly supportive of native wildlife.

But we are much less united when it comes to managing native species that cause more serious damage. Half of us thought a native species damaging property should be controlled. The release of kaka into Wellington has initiated a new, costly and protracted human-wildlife conflict.

Perhaps reintroducing kaka to a city wasn't such a good idea — a tremendous mistake by conservationists?

As the rate and severity of damage by kaka grows, I expect support for kaka, and perhaps conservation generally amongst some, to suffer. Indeed, in a recent study residents who suffered kaka damage were less positive about kaka being in Wellington City.

Worse still, will some of those seek compensation, or for kaka to be removed or a flock destroyed?

Kaka can't be owned. Under Section 57 of the Wildlife Act, they are the property of the Crown and the Crown is not liable for the damage they may cause. But history tells a different story. If ‘pushed’ the Crown does sometimes, eventually accept some liabilities or at least responsibilities for solving the problem, as they have when Kaikoura seals sleep on State Highway 1 or kea mutilate high-country sheep.


A kaka has a feed on Kapiti Island. — Photograph: Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ.

Consider too that if kaka had recolonised Wellington City without assistance they would have been in small, unsupported numbers. Instead kaka are here in large and growing numbers because they were reintroduced and artificially fed and bred to be abundant by conservation organisations.

Might those organisations also, then, be responsible for kaka damage?

Like organisations that mine or harvest our natural resources, conservation organisations are also responsible for their environmental and social impact. I fear the potential of a political and legal backlash against conservation if property damage by kaka grows. This aspect of New Zealand environmental law has not been tested but it might be.

What can be done? Zealandia and local residents could stop feeding kaka and providing nesting boxes. We shouldn't be encouraging the extreme numbers that artificial food and nests supports.

And, if numbers and damage continues to grow, Kaka will need to be managed. Troublesome birds might be captured and rehomed far away. We should prepare ourselves for a time too when flocks may need to be destroyed, although perhaps usefully as a routine cultural harvest. But rehoming and culling are only temporary fixes because some kaka will find their way back and others will take their place.

Eventually and at cost, residents will need to modify their gardens and buildings so that they are less vulnerable to kaka damage.

Most importantly, conservationists must learn from the Wellington-kaka experience.

Wellington is now a city, not a forest. Just because kaka lived here once, it does not follow logically that they should live here again. Conservationists should consider people before native species are restored.

I love kaka. But their introduction to Wellington City is proving to have been a mistake.

• Wayne Linklater is Associate Professor of Conservation Science and Director of the Centre for Biodiversity and Restoration Ecology at Victoria University.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/79817641

[ssweetpea]

Reduce the feeding and remove the nest boxes. Then learn to live with the problem.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Friends of mine in the suburb of Northland have got kaka nesting in the trees up the back of their place.

They have virtually taken over the neighbourhood, but they are very entertaining with their antics.

They've got no fear of humans either.

I'm starting to see kaka in Masterton. I think having a large population of them in Wellington, along with the huge populations of kaka at Kapiti Island and at Mount Bruce (north of Masterton) is encouraging them to spread out into new areas around the Wellington region.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Dominion Post....

Too many kaka? What nonsense

By CHARLES DAUGHERTY | 5:00AM - Tuesday, 24 May 2016


A kaka at the Kapiti Island wildlife reserve. — Photograph: Cameron Burnell/Fairfax NZ.

CONSERVATION has a new frontier. Its location may surprise some New Zealanders, because it's not an isolated beach or distant alpine valley. Long silent, these places remain so, their birdlife and dawn choruses destroyed as predatory mammals invaded over the past two and more centuries.

Wellingtonians will not be surprised — their city is the spearhead of the new frontier. Zealandia's abundant birdlife is moving beyond the safety of its mammal-proof fence and re-claiming the city, made safe for native birds after 20 years of committed pest mammal control by Wellington City Council and the regional council.

The Zealandia movement has gone national. Fenced sanctuaries now dot the length of the New Zealand landscape, often within easy flight distance of a city: Orokonui (near Dunedin), the Brook Waimarama (Nelson), Cape Sanctuary (Napier/Hastings), Shakespeare and Tawharanui (Auckland).

Rotokare (New Plymouth) and Maungatautari (Hamilton) are only slightly further from their cities. Tui, bellbirds, kereru, and even kaka are colonising an urban frontier that is safer habitat than our native forests.

Why has this happened? Many reasons. Most importantly, people love nature. Nature inspires us — as Associate Professor Wayne Linklater recently said, “The sound and sights of kaka… are simply awesome.”

Nature galvanises and rejuvenates our spirits. A rapidly growing body of research also tells us that connections to nature are essential to human and economic health and well-being.

Almost 90 per cent of New Zealanders now live in cities. We will experience nature on a daily basis only if nature returns to cities. Local and regional councils understand the benefits of biodiversity.

Wellington City's widely reviewed biodiversity strategy, Our Natural Capital, “recognises that healthy biodiversity contributes to healthy environments and that creates healthy people,” as well as contributing to economic sustainability, tourism, and our quality of life — hence the council's substantial investments in environmental restoration and pest control.

Achieving the ambitious goals of Our Natural Capital requires a concerted effort. Led jointly by Wellington Zoo and Zealandia, the Nature Connections programme brings together 10 Wellington region environmental partners to advance the region's ecological goals.

The Department of Conservation actively partners with Nature Connections and nationally supports hundreds of local environmental groups.

Wellington is a leading player in the international Biophilic Cities Project, which aims to foster, protect and grow “deep connections and daily contact with the natural world.”

To contributing cities, “Nature is not something optional, but absolutely essential to living a happy, healthy and meaningful life.” Wellington's partners include such forward-thinking cities as Oslo, Singapore, Perth, and San Francisco.

None of this might need mentioning, except that Associate Professor Linklater's enthusiasm for nature appears measured. Despite noting that over 80 percent of Wellingtonians support kaka and other wildlife in the city, he asks if “reintroducing kaka… was a tremendous mistake?”

Because of the damage kaka have caused to some trees, gardens and buildings, he concludes that it was.

Nature can indeed be bothersome. In 1856, the great English naturalist AR Wallace observed the famously foul-odoured but much loved durian fruit in Borneo falling from trees and injuring or killing people who sought to obtain them.

He remarked that “all the varied productions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, have not been created solely for the use and convenience of man.”

Like kaka and durian, trees can be inconvenient. They drop all those annoying leaves, and their roots damage urban infrastructure. But we treasure and manage urban trees because they make our lives better.

Neighbourhoods with more trees have happier, healthier residents and less crime.

Let's keep the return of kaka and other birds to our cities in perspective. As environmental stewards, our challenge is to make our cities safe for both nature and people. Internationally, designers are creating high rise buildings that minimise birdstrikes.

Canadians have learned to co-exist, mostly peacefully, with grizzly, black and polar bears, fearsome predators that sometimes wander down city streets. Swedes love their moose, despite 5,000 road accidents annually involving moose, a few fatal to humans.

In Nepal, community development programmes include initiatives for co-existence with tigers that are safe for humans and tigers.

Wellingtonians have committed to a visionary plan for a better, nature-rich future for its citizens.

The occasional inconveniences that nature in cities may bring are bumps in a long journey and sure signs of success. The challenges that birdlife will bring to New Zealand cities are modest in comparison to the joy, pleasure and benefits they bring.

We will find new, imaginative ways to manage their return.

So now is not the time to flinch. We have much to gain from a biophilic future. Congratulations, Wellington. Too many kaka? Don't be ridiculous.

• Charles Daugherty is Professor Emeritus of Ecology at Victoria University of Wellington.  He is a former Trustee of Zealandia and is presently a Trustee of Predator Free New Zealand, and a Board Member of Zero Invasive Predators.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Conservation.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/80280276

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

i think my old pussy cat could fix this problem

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A bullet could fix your old pussy cat in the blink of an eye.