Fiordland crested population monitoring

[Dave H]

A summary of what's happening with Tawaki monitoring by Erina Loe that I lifted from DOCs Oct Fiordland Coastal Newsletter.

"Tawaki population monitoring began on the Fiordland coast in 1994 at three locations: Martins Bay, and East and West Shelter Islands in Doubtful Sound/Patea. Two additional populations were added to the programme in 1995 and 1996 – Breaksea Island and Whenua Hou Nature Reserve on Codfish Island. These predator-free islands were chosen to provide a comparison between populations with no predators and the existing monitoring sites where different threats are present – weka exist on both Shelter Islands, but are absent at Martins Bay where stoats, possums and rats are present.

Tawaki population monitoring is also carried out by DOC staff in Haast at Jackson’s Head, Monro and Murphy’s Beach. This monitoring has been ongoing annually since 1990.

The sites on the Fiordland coast are visited twice yearly over a three year period – in August to count the number of nests (or nesting attempts), and October to count chicks. Counts are timed to coincide with the Whenua Hou and Haast Tawaki Monitoring Programmes.

Depending on the results from the 2006-2008 census, monitoring efforts will be suspended for five years from 2009 and recommence in 2014. Although nesting attempts at the Fiordland sites seem to be down on last season, it is important to look at the success rates for breeding over the three year census period before drawing any conclusions about the current status of the Fiordland population."

[Dave H]

Apparently the 5-year gap between monitoring has now been abandoned and at this stage monitoring is happening in all sites each year (Breaksea Island - 2 sites, Shelter Island - 2 sites and Martins Bay - 3 sites).

[Pete McClelland]

The Codfish monitoring was carried out from 1996 to 1999 then started again in 2007. While very preliminary it appears there has been a decrease in this time, Jeremy Carroll who did the monitoring believes that the largest decrease was in 1998- 1999 and the population has not recovered since.
It is currently planned to redo the monitoring for the next 2 years and then take a break but that will depend upon the outcome of the workshop etc.
This work will be taken over by Jo Hiscock who should be attending the workshopas she starts here in mid June.

[angela14]

Well, I just want to say thank you to Erina Loe especially you in sharing with us your post about the summary of what's happening with Tawaki monitoring.




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