Appeal To Council To Help Protect Kaikōura Seabirds

Sunday, 16 March 2025, 9:32 pm
Article: David Hill - Local Democracy Reporter

March 14, 2025

Local conservationists have called on the Kaikōura District Council for help to protect under-threat native birds.

Kaikōura couple Alisa McGilvary-Howard and Ted Howard made an appeal to a council workshop on Wednesday, March 12, to help protect the banded dotterel / pohowera, which nests along the Kaikōura coastline.

The birds are under threat from cats, dogs, hedgehogs, motorbikes and people having parties on the beach.

The couple asked the council if access to sections of the coastline could be restricted during the nesting season, from September 1 to December 7, to give the birds a fighting chance.

‘‘Could we, as a community, create some sense of a sanctuary?’’ Ms McGilvary-Howard asked.

‘‘People say, ‘why should we protect them, aren’t they everywhere?’ Well, no.

‘‘The dotterel is as much a Kaikōura species as the whales, but not as much as the Hutton’s [shearwaters].’’

While the dotterel can be found on braided rivers and coastlines in other parts of the South Island, Kaikōura is like ‘‘a whirlpool" which sucks birds in because there appears to be plenty of resources, she said.

The beach areas with the most dotterel nesting sites are at South Bay between the Coastguard and The Caves, and further north between the West End shopping area and the New World supermarket.

Ms McGilvary-Howard has been monitoring dotterel nests on the Kaikōura coastline voluntarily for more than a decade and completed a self-funded project, banded dotterel study in 2016.

Mr Howard monitors the northern section, and said around 150 eggs were laid this season, with around 40 hatching, but just one chick survived.

‘‘The hedgehogs get into the eggs and the cats feed off the chicks,’’ he said.

A further four chicks survived at South Bay, but more adult birds were lost to predator attacks.

‘‘Dotterels can live for 20 or 30 years, but we often find young adult birds dead and that is a life lost and breeding opportunities lost,’’ Ms McGilvary-Howard said.

She said dotterels are intelligent birds, but the species evolved over thousands of years when there were no mammal predators.

Before humans, the main threat was from other birds from the air, so dotterels developed a natural camouflage to blend in with their environment.

It means the birds and their eggs are hard to spot, but cats, dogs and hedgehogs can smell them.

When threatened young chicks naturally seek the lowest level ground, which is often vehicle tracks, leaving them vulnerable.

Ms McGilvary-Howard suggested an initial measure could involve erecting signs advising people not to enter a section of the beach during the breeding season.

Mr Howard said there would be potential tourism opportunities with protected areas, as the area already attracts bird watchers.

Kaikōura District Council chief executive Will Doughty said there was appetite for cat bylaws and bird sanctuaries in other parts of the country.

Council staff will prepare a report on possible options to protect the birds.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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