Lovely and active day today. We walked all day. We started with a cable car ride up to a view of Wellington and a brief walk to a fascinating place called Zealandia.
Aftere suffering water shortages and a fire, Wellington realized it needed a more reliable water supply and a dam was built on the Karori River in 1871 or so. A little more than 100 years later, geologists realized the dam was on a fault line, which was a grave risk to the city should the dam fail after an earthquake. The city sought another solution for its water supply and Jim and Evie Lynch, local nature enthusiasts, had a brilliant and crazy idea.
Since the river was in a steep gorge, it could not be used for housing. What if invasive animals could be fenced out? Maybe the wildlife would restore to something like its pre-human ecosystem!
A sanctuary was born from this idea about twenty-five years ago. The fence is high, has a fine mesh, and goes a little bit underground. Over 500 acres are fenced in.
New Zealand had only two bats representing mammals before the ancestors of the Māori arrived. The Māori were responsible for importing a Polynesian rat, and for hunting the giant moa, a bird bigger than an ostrich, into extinction. Captain Cook brought European rats, boar and other mammals. These all took a severe toll on the birds of New Zealand and many have gone extinct. The native birdlife was simply not adapted to these predators.
When we visited Zealandia, we always heard birds around us. The sanctuary has successfully restored a large population of New Zealand birds. A rare reptile, the Tuatara also calls Zealandia home. We walked and listened for a good two hours.
After a lunch at the sanctuary, we braved the threatening rain, and walked back to the city through a wonderful botanical garden. The garden has representatives from other continents. It was a pleasure to see some plants I had never seen before.
In North America, we of course battle invasive species. The sadness of having so many birds having gone extinct is has a much higher degree of awareness here, though. It’s easier to feel great sadness about the loss of songbirds and animal as dramatic as the moa must have been. New Zealand is very away of biocontrol, as we saw when we were screened by customs upon entry.
The possum is the worst of the invaders, and volunteers trap then in human traps that kill them. In some areas they are even poisoned, although that is controversial. They simply hunt too well and eat bird eggs. In areas where the possum has been managed, the song birds are more populous and the forest is full on song.
We’ve had a nice dinner and are getting ready to be on the move early tomorrow.
