56 Boating New Zealand
New Zealand’s beaches are the incubators, dinner plate and the corridor
to nocturnal nests for many protected native birds. With 80 percent of these birds
‘in trouble’, ensuring they remain safe on our beaches is crucial.Mind your dogs
S
pring and summer is a stressful time for native birds
as they’re more vulnerable when raising new families.
Vulnerable to attacks by predators, loss of habitats,
beach erosion, king tides and, more commonly sadly,
disturbances and attacks by unleashed dogs on beaches.
Little blue penguins, the world’s smallest penguin, are
suffering a population decline. Regular visitors to beaches all
over the country, they stagger ashore at dusk making a bee-line
for a comfortable nest bed past the beach. And again at dawn
as they wobble back across the beach to spend the day at sea.
Unfortunately, these beach trips often collide with a period
when dogs are – unlawfully – let loose to exercise and toilet.
Last summer a bird rescuer in Whitianga reported three
fatal dog attacks on little blue penguins in just one week,
while at Mount Maunganui 24 were killed by dogs on beaches
over the season.
The endangered dotterel and the ‘at risk’ oystercatcher,
both unique to New Zealand, lay their eggs in a scrape of
sand just above the high tide (and sometimes on the high
tide mark). Adults patiently sit on the nest for a month until
the camouflaged eggs hatch – that’s if the eggs aren’t trodden
on, driven over, predated by rats, stoats, gulls, hedgehogs, or
washed away or disturbed.BOATBRIEF
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY FIONA POWELL