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Once hunted, now treasured – godwits find a haven in Nelson

Gerard Hindmarsh

Raised at Pakawau for his first five-and-a-half years, Gary Climo recalls how his father Arthur would go out along Farewell Spit to shoot snipe, what everyone incorrectly called godwits back then. He wasn’t the only one either, lots of locals were in on it.

Tasty little salty birds they were, just like the ‘‘redbills’’ they used to shoot too.

Firing into a congregated pack, one well-directed shotgun blast could give you half a sack full of the birds to take home. Best time to get them was late summer, after they had packed on lots of weight feasting on marine worms and small shellfish which they found on the mudflats, ready for their journey back to the northern hemisphere.

Doug Zumbach was the Lands and Survey Ranger for the Spit back then, and he became determined to catch the suspected offenders, but they all stayed one step ahead of him, largely thanks to Mrs Freeman who lived in the cottage beside where the carpark is now.

Whenever she saw Zumbach drive past, she’d go out and hang out a bright red tablecloth on her clothesline, a signal to the locals not to go snipe shooting that day. It worked perfectly, and no-one was ever caught.

Isn’t it amazing how attitudes change in such a short time? Now godwits are near venerated for their yearly migrations, the longest on the planet for any living creature. Their arrivals are celebrated in song, theatre and artistic events. We even track their flight paths.

This season we even knew the position of one bar-tailed godwit – dubbed Kupe, but more officially 4BWRB – because it had a tiny radio transmitter in a band attached to its leg which showed it was just passing over Norfolk

Island on its way to New Zealand, the last leg of its East Asian-Pacific flyway.

Godwit Kupe was one of 12 godwits which had been tagged two years ago. But its was the only transmitter still able to send a signal. Nothing we are finding out is much new. Traditions of Ngāti Awa and Ngāi Tāhuhu recall the long lines of kuaka (godwits) flying southwards over Pacific island homelands, only to return half a year later from the same point on the horizon.

Island ancestors correctly deduced a sizeable landmass and outfitted two voyaging canoes to go off and discover Aotearoa.

Kupe was another great navigator who followed the kuaka here. ‘Ko te kaupapa waka ki te moana ai, ko te kahui, atua ki te angi rere ai.’ As the fleet of canoes paddles the ocean, the flocks of gods fly overhead. The flocks of gods were a reference to the kuaka.

Māori also had a proverb which asked; ‘‘Kua Kite te kohanga kuaka? ‘Who has seen the nest of the kuaka?’ applied to anything unobtainable, because godwits do not breed here. The only place you’ll find their eggs is on the tundra of the northern hemisphere.

Maori hunted them, strictly controlling the taking of the birds with a rahui, or restriction, on who could take them and when. After the full moon in February was usually the starting date, their method using runners to drive them into woven nets of fine meshes.

Another method was to confuse the birds by surrounding them with flaming torches, before swift runners with nets would run into them.

Paddy Gillooly of Farewell Spit Eco tours says his passengers are always amazed to know how far the little birds have flown to get here.

‘‘At low tide they range out over the mudflats to feed, but as the tide comes in they are all pushed up to congregate in their thousands on the dunes of the outer Spit. They make quite a spectacle when they return around September.’’

It is estimated that during the course of a year, 45 to 66 per cent of all shorebirds in the top of the south can be found at Farewell Spit. But all these shore and wader birds used to be only second in number to burrowing seabirds, which dominated New Zealand’s natural ecosystems in ancient times.

Just a few kilometres south from the base of Farewell Spit the Cape Farewell Ecosanctuary is preparing for its first transrelocation of some 50 fluttering shearwater chicks this summer.

Leading the initial foray last week to investigate sourcing the chicks from Long Island (Kokomohua) in Queen Charlotte Sound were Golden Bay bird enthusiasts Marian Milne and Richard Stocker, Ngati Te Atiawa reps and seabird trans-relocation expert Tamsin Ward-Smith with support from local ornithologists from Wildlife International and Picton DOC.

‘‘We arrived at a time the birds were about to hatch,’’ said Marian. ‘‘Our next visit will be to mark the burrows we intend to source the chicks when they get past their fluffy stage.’’

It is estimated that during the course of a year, 45 to 66 per cent of all shorebirds in the top of the south can be found at Farewell Spit.

Some 50 nests with feeding flaps await the selected chicks within the predator-fenced Cape Farewell Ecosanctuary, where a rostered crew of volunteers will rear into action feeding them sardine smoothies on a daily basis.

Work to bring back native seabirds to Cape Farewell helped gain HealthPost Nature Trust two finalist slots at the Sustainable Business Awards 2021, in the Restoring Nature and Social Impactor categories.

The restoring nature nomination, which earned them a commendation at the awards ceremony, recognised the company’s work setting up the Wharariki Ecosanctuary and predator proof fence at Cape Farewell, in conjunction with local iwi (Manawhenua ki Mohua) and the Department of Conservation.

The predator proof fence was built across the neck of the cliffrimmed headland at Cape Farewell to isolate a 2.5 hectare sanctuary, big enough to accommodate several seabird species. The ecosanctuary was opened in January 2020, with the aim of reintroducing native seabirds to Cape Farewell and to reestablish a new breeding colony on the mainland.

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2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

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