Cape Kidnappers pateke release
New Zealand’s rarest waterfowl species makes a big splash on its release at Cape Kidnappers and Ocean Beach Wildlife Preserve.
With the help of Banrock Station Wines and Wetland Care New Zealand, New Zealand's native pateke, one of the world's rarest ducks, will get a big helping hand this Friday when 60 captive-reared birds are released in the huge Cape Kidnappers wildlife sanctuary.
Banrock Station Wines has a long term commitment to global conservation and has committed more than AU$5 million from sales of Banrock Station wines to 60 projects around the world to date. Banrock Stations wetland restoration program led to the Wine & Wetland Centre being listed as a wetland of international importance in 2002 under the international Ramsar Convention.
Proceeds from Banrock Station wines sold in New Zealand are given to Wetland Care New Zealand, who, in partnership with Banrock, supports the Pateke Recovery Programme and other wetland restoration projects throughout New Zealand. To date, Banrock Station Wines have donated over $250,000 to support 20 projects around New Zealand.
Pateke, sometimes called brown teal, are half the size of the common mallard duck and live a nocturnal life, resting under waterside vegetation through the day and hunting insects on land at night, Landcare NZ ornithologist Dr John McLennan said.
Found only in New Zealand, the once-widespread pateke have been declining since the late nineteenth century. They were now our rarest mainland duck and probably the fourth rarest in the world, he said.
The 2400-ha Cape Kidnappers and Ocean Beach Wildlife Preserve could be the safe home they urgently need.
Situated on the famous Hawkes Bay headland and guarded by 9.6km of predator-proof fence, it is the biggest ecological restoration project in New Zealand.
Like most New Zealand ground-living birds, pateke are easy meat for cats, ferrets and stoats, but behind the sanctuary's predator barrier intensive trapping and poisoning have reduced predator numbers to nearly zero.
Forty captive-reared pateke were released on a pond there last year. Several paired up there or at other ponds within the sanctuary and at least one pair bred successfully, Dr McLennan said.
Inside the fence, not one pateke was killed by a predator.
But several made the fateful flight outside the fence, where life was clearly nasty, brutish and short.
Radio-tracking from aircraft and by searchers on foot showed most had soon died, probably in the jaws of hungry stoats or cats.
Now 60 new birds, bred by Pateke Captive Breeding Network volunteers around the country, are to be released on three of the reserve’s network of wetlands.
Some of this year's birds would have their wing feathers clipped to stop them flying away for the first 12 months, Dr McLennan said.
Feeders, loaded with special pateke pellets and fitted with a snug-fit gate to keep mallard ducks out, would be put by the ponds to encourage the birds to stay.
Judging from last year's results, the prospects for the class of '09 were good, he said.
Wetland Care New Zealand Director and Pateke Recovery Group member Ossie Latham said the intensive predator control and new duck-friendly plantings around the ponds would give the pateke a good chance of survival.
“This proved true last year and the ongoing improvement in habitat bodes well for the long term establishment of pateke on the Cape,” he said.
Mr Latham said he was very pleased that Banrock Station Wines had continued to support Wetland Care and the Pateke Recovery Programme.
“Their contribution to this project enables each bird to wear a transmitter so that they can be tracked and if survival rates continue to improve, further releases are planned.
“This would be a happy result for the Cape Kidnappers landowners and for the biodiversity of the Hawkes Bay region,” he said.