How are Waiheke kororā really faring? Working towards an Island Wide Survey
Sep 6
Like many marine animals, kororā live their lives in the sea or in their burrows scattered on rocky coastlines or opportunistically using the basements of coastal houses. It’s only when they noisily and stinkingly live under our homes or get attacked by our dogs, or we find them dead on our beaches, do we really notice the ‘real’ kororā.
With some funding support from WWF-NZ, the Waiheke Marine Project (WMP) is now directing attention to the distribution and abundance of this taonga species around the island. We want to support the learning and development of what the best practices are to help protect and regenerate Kororā colonies and their habitats, through collaboration with other Waiheke organisations, the Waiheke community, and mana whenua at a grass roots level. This will then form the foundations for a seabird focused project to be explored in the near future.
Kororā are inshore feeders, the parents going out every night to bring food to their chicks during the winter to spring breeding season. The trouble is that we have denuded our inshore fish populations, and with the fish gone the kina have not been held in check and the kelp has been decimated. The kelp are where the small fish e.g. paketi and crustaceans are safe. These are kororā food and without this food they and their chicks starve. On Waiheke people have been pulling down the old baches or they have boarded up the basements, so some of the opportunistic kororā burrows have been disappearing at an accelerating rate.
In 2013 the application for a marina at Matiatia led to an increased awareness in the community around the kororā and local conservationists began monitoring these birds. Then in 2016 Auckland Council Biodiversity contracted the first island wide kororā survey. When a new marina development began at Putiki, causing distress for the resident colony, kororā awareness and community passion amplified. Groups such as Protect Putiki with huge energy from mana whenua (Ngāti Paoa) have continued to feistily advocate for the Putiki Bay kororā.
In the last six years the island has started to feel the effects of climate change, with more periods of intense rainfall and extended drought. In Tīkapa moana (Hauraki Gulf) the boil ups of pilchards have continued to disappear and scientists gloomily report further declining moana health.
Among several kororā related questions the Waiheke Marine Project is pondering is ‘Has the Waiheke indigenous kororā population numbers substantially changed since 2016 or is it stable?’ Thanks to WWF funding, WMP has been able to contract DabChickNZ (who carried out the 2016 survey) and bird specialist, Jo Sim, plus her two trained dogs Miro and Rua to resurvey 95% of the 2016 areas plus new coastal potential habitat (that is inaccessible by land) in late August. These latter areas have been chosen because of community kororā observations and WMP has boat capacity to be able to land Jo and her dogs there.
The survey began with an opening karakia down at matiatia in the early morning as the kororā became active. Jo is used to getting to a place and getting straight into the work so it was nice to take a pause, share kai and whanaungatanga (relationship building) before diving in.
At the conclusion of the DabChickNZ survey, the WMP will openly share the results in a way to assist all of us to become more aware and caring of the very special kororā around Waiheke. It is anticipated these results will be available by early October.
By Sue Fitchett
Team member