Fowl play in a good way at Forest & Bird reserve

22 January 2016

Eighty pāteke – New Zealand’s rarest mainland waterfowl – have been relocated to their new home near Bethels Beach today after a successful year of conservation by Forest & Bird Waitakere.

Habitat te Henga – a wetland reserve in Bethell’s Beach run by volunteers from Forest & Bird Waitakere – was awarded this huge flock of fowl after an 85% survival rate with the first 20 pāteke they received from the Pāteke Recovery Programme in January 2015.

The nocturnal ducks are considered “nationally endangered, recovering”, with the species making a massive comeback from 700 birds in only two locations in the wild 15 years ago, to well over 2500 today – largely through the efforts of this captive breeding and release programme, which is the largest of its kind in the country.

According to John Sumich of Forest & Bird Waitakere, each of the 20 pāteke that were released into Habitat te Henga last January were monitored with a transmitter. A strict predator control programme was put into place that resulted in the capture of over 400 pests in one year - including 184 rats, 54 stoats and 41 weasels.

“Monitoring the bird transmitters was a labour intensive exercise involving trudging and kayaking through dense wetlands – and quite a few adventures along the way,” says Dr. Sumich.

“One of our pāteke’s transmitter signals disappeared five days after being released so we assumed it must have died - only for the signal to reappear after 22 weeks. Another one started giving a mortality signal with no movement for two days. We searched amongst the wetland grasses only to find – a stuck duck - bedraggled, stressed and hungry, but still alive. It had tunneled so far into the carex grasses while foraging that it had got stuck. These are hardy ducks though, and it flew away as soon as we released it from the grasses.”

Dr. John Sumich believes there are wider conservation opportunities as part of the work being done at Bethell’s.

“Habitat te Henga is the largest wetland in mainland Auckland. Our aim is to help reintroduce and preserve a species that was almost extinct and at the same time protect and help flourish what we already have here, which includes some of our more secretive wetland loving birds such as bittern, spotless crake and marsh crake.”

Kevin Evans, Pāteke Captive and Reintroduction Coordinator from the Pāteke Recovery Group. said Habitat te Henga is doing very well and the quality of its wetland habitat is fantastic.

"We hope this new flock of pāteke will show a similar survival rate of 85%, followed by signs of breeding and eventually a self-sustaining population.”

Anyone who would like to help the pāteke project at Habitat te Henga can do so by making a donation via the website - http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/habitattehenga . Locals or visitors to Bethel’s Beach are also encouraged to keep their speed down and their cats and dogs inside at night, to further protect the nocturnal ducks.

Habitat te Henga and Pāteke Recovery Programme would like to thank sponsors for making this programme possible including Pāteke Partners, Auckland Zoo Conservation Fund and Air New Zealand."

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