On the 20th August field and nursery staff took pupils from year 6 Macandrew Bay School to Otapahi to view penguins. This was organised as a thank you to the class for their hard work painting our Nursery Buildings (this event was previously featured on this site). After a week of extremely bad weather, Friday afternoon turned out warm and sunny -we couldn’t have planned it better.
The students came all prepared and very excited, we were on an expedition! After a steep climb up the hill that was no problem for energetic little legs we were rewarded with views of penguins coming in after a full days fishing. One student counted around 28 birds during our time there. The pupils told us that they felt very special to have had the opportunity to see the birds at such a unique site. The smiles on their faces indicated a good time was had by all especially the YEPT staff. Thank you to volunteer Paula West and teachers of Macandrew Bay School for helping us make this happen.
On the morning of 6th June, three Trustees were joined by seventeen volunteers to plant out another area of the fore-dunes at Okia. It was easy planting, partly because the ground had been prepared by staff, but also because we were digging into sand, and as well many of the plants were flax (Phormium tenax) and poroporo (Solanum aviculare) which required only a spade cleft rather than a square hole.
About 500 plants were swiftly put into the ground in time to return at lunchtime avoiding the rain. Plants were
placed together tightly to avoid sand blow and allow for some plant loss in the difficult sand environment.
Lala Frazer
Question: What happens when you take a very enthusiastic volunteer, a group of year 5 and 6 students from the local school, and a lot of paint?
Answer: An unbelievable transformation of buildings at the YEPT Nursery.
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Now that the excitement of the trip is behind us, our sub-antarctic clothing has been washed and stowed, photos downloaded and the team has dispersed the length of the country, life is back to normal and we can look back on what we achieved during our 4 weeks away.
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The Trust welcomes Jim Young, a teacher from Catlins Area School, to their team. Jim will spend 2010 working on his project at Long Point thanks to receiving an Awarded Teacher Fellowship.
The New Zealand Science, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellowship Scheme is funded by the New Zealand Government and administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Jim’s career in teaching has taken him from around city and country schools in Queensland to the rural community of Owaka in the Catlins. He has previously been involved with conservation work in the Catlins, growing native plants and assisting Fergus Sutherland at the Forest & Bird (Southland) Te Rere Reserve.
Jim ‘s project ‘Whakaora Irahuka: restoring the white cliffs’ will be investigating aspects of seabird restoration at Long Point / Irahuka, including surveying and mapping seabird habitat, establishing vegetation plots, examining predator species composition and abundance and surveying the lizard fauna and distribution. We expect that Jim’s work will contribute significantly to the Trust’s planning processes and development of seabird conservation and restoration in the reserve. His professional experience as a science teacher will greatly assist in aspects of the project, but as the fellowship is designed to do, it will also present new challenges, information to acquire and skills to learn.
The Trust will act as the host organisation with the responsibility of supporting Jim and providing the resources and equipment necessary for the project to be successfully undertaken. It is unusual for a conservation trust to undertake this role, which would usually be taken by universities, Crown Research Institutes, local authorities, and museums.
We hope that the Catlins Area school will be able to benefit from Jim’s experiences with the Long Point / Irahuka project; this may include hands on experience with aspects of the research.
Crucial support for the application was received from Dr Bill Lee of Landcare Research and Dr Jamie Newman (University of Otago) who will act as science mentors for the project.
The population census of yellow-eyed penguins in the Stewart Island area was completed in November 2009 when the last remaining area to be surveyed, Codfish Island/ Whenua Hou, was visited. Last surveyed fully in 2001, Codfish Island / Whenua Hou is considered one of the strongholds of the Stewart Island penguin population and has been one of the study sites for the Trusts 2003-2008 research into factors affecting penguin breeding success. Two of the original surveyors, Dave Houston and Dean Nelson from DOC, and Sandy King from the Trust made up the 2009 survey team, with help from resident Kakapo Rangers Errol & Steve. The survey was completed within a week and found 46 breeding pairs, a drop from 61 breeding pairs in 2001. This could be a real downwards trend, or it could be just an extreme interannual fluctuation, but to find out more regular surveys and monitoring will be required. The Trust is working with DOC and the Southern Institute of Technology to ensure this can happen.
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The YEPT Nursery was lucky enough to have youths from the Dunedin Malcam Trust Conservation Corps (assisted by their supervisor, Garth Hassall) build two additional stand out boxes. The plants are placed on these boxes several
weeks before they are to go out to the habitats to ‘harden off’ (decrease watering) so that they are adjusted to similar environmental conditions they will be exposed too once planted.
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