News

Johannes Fischer, our 2016 scholarship recipient, discovered that the South Georgian Diving Petrels he studied for nesting behaviour (see paper), were not quite the same as the South Georgian Diving Petrels in other parts of the world.

A subsequent study found that there were enough differences between the birds to declare the Codfish Island ones a separate species. The new species was named Pelecanoides whenuahouensis sp. nov. Read the full paper.

180 Year 10 students of Te Puke High School surveyed a section of the dune on Maketu Spit last month, as part of the Maketu Ongatoro Wetland Society (MOWS) Education Programme, using our newly developed dune vegetation sampling technique.

This method was developed by us over the last three years and funded by the Ministry for the Environment. Read more…

Keep an eye out for this application to become available on our website towards the end of this year.

Tane’s Tree Trust has started a campaign to get a tree planted for every baby born in NZ this year. They are aiming for 60,000. You can pay $10 for a tree to be planted for this campaign. Go here to take part in that.

You can also register the trees you have planted as a group or as an individual. Many of you have planted or will be planting trees in your back dunes this year. Unfortunately pingao and spinifex don’t count on this site. Those can be recorded here.

Canon is once again offering grants to non-profit organisations.

There will be one grant of $4000 worth of Canon equipment plus $1000 cash for each of the following categories:

• Environmental group
• Educational organisation or School
• Community or Social organisation

Applications for 2018 are now open and close on 20 July.

The selection of the winners will be somewhat different this year in that the public will get to vote on the three finalists in each category.

For more information and to apply go here.

[Onoke Spit is one of the places we visited on our Wonderful Wairarapa field trip in March this year!]

Forty hard working Kahutara School pupils joined a community group last Friday to work on a native planting in one of Wairarapa’s toughest environments – Onoke Spit.

Kahutara School pupils have been involved for the past eight years in weeding and mulching the Onoke Spit plantings and putting new native plants in the ground that are suited to the environment.

This year the pupils, the friends and staff from the Department of Conservation and Greater Wellington Regional Council planted 400 taupata, salt-marsh ribbonwood, oioi (jointed rush) and harakeke (flax).

The low growing plants and open sand provide breeding habitat for native banded dotterels, Caspian terns, white fronted terns, variable oyster catchers and the occasional little blue penguin.

For the full story go here.