Wilderness January 2017

DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM? IT’S A TELLING comment, and one DOC should be heeding because if one person is saying it, you can bet more are: “It’s like DOC is the Department of Tourism in Fiordland, meanwhile the Ruahines are neglected.” Janet Wilson from the Palmerston North Tramping and Mountaineering Club said that to me when I talked to her about DOC’s closure of its Ongaonga office. Simply swap Ruahines for any other North Island forest park – Whirinaki, Kaimai-Mamaku, Kaweka, Coromandel – and the sentence is one that could be uttered by just about any tramper in the North Island. Wilson was dismayed by the closure of Ongaonga for two reasons: it meant the nearest rangers to the eastern Ruahine Forest Park will now be based an hour away in…

A NOTE ON EATING RATS I certainly hope that Brando Yelavich (‘Wildboy takes on Stewart Island’, December 2016) has taught himself how to identify the different species of rat, which he says he is looking forward to eating. Most of the rats on Stewart Island/Rakiura are not ‘native’. All three rat species found in New Zealand (kiore or Pacific, Norway, and ship rat) are present on the island, with ship rats being the most abundant and most pervasive species. Ship rats are found in all vegetation types and are pretty much the sole rat species present in podocarp forest. Norway rats tend to be more common close to watercourses (coastal and freshwater), wet areas and subalpine shrubland, while kiore dominate in manuka and riparian shrubland and areas of wire rush.…

Get your photo published here to receive an Opinel No.5 folding knife worth $20. Learn more about Opinel at ampro.co.nz. Last Weekend submission criteria can be found at wildernessmag.co.nz…

DRONE TECHNOLOGY TO HELP TRACK PROTECTED SPECIES An Auckland conservationist and a robotics engineer have teamed up to develop a drone that will help monitor protected species. Conservationist John Sumich and co-creator Philip Solaris of robotics company X-craft were awarded $25,000 from the World Wildlife Foundation to develop DroneCounts, a multirotor drone which will be able to receive several signals at once and map animals within an area. Sumich, one of the founders of Ark in the Park and Habitat Te Henga in the Waitakere Ranges, met Solaris in 2015 during a brown teal/pateke translocation project. As part of the project, the first 20 pateke were tagged with transmitters, which had to be tracked regularly to monitor the birds’ movements. “There’s difficulty of access to find the birds, access around…

The Matuku Link is not pristine, insists John Staniland. Rather, it’s the result of many decades of devoted conservation energy. “Pristine means totally untouched. Nothing in Auckland is pristine. But this – this is healthy regenerating land,” Staniland says adamantly, looking over the lush bush that neighbours his home at Bethell’s Beach. A retired schoolteacher, Staniland is unabashedly passionate about Matuku Reserve, a 120ha forest and wetland sanctuary next to Bethell’s Beach. It’s home to native birds such as the matuku (bittern), fernbird, and spotless crake, and has more than 250 plant species, from wetland lillies, orchids and broadleaf trees to native kauri and tanekaha on the ridges. “For years, I’ve loved Matuku Reserve,” Staniland says. His dedication to the area has earned him the nickname ‘Lord Mayor of Matuku’.…

BETTINA GROTSCHEL, 34, GERMANY Start date: October 14 “It's been great overall with a few tough days in between,” Bettina Grotschel said just as she was about to start the Whanganui River Journey. After 1146km on the trail, she summed it up with this: “This country and its people are amazing.” After an easy-going Ninety Mile Beach she experienced the mud of Herekino and Raetea forests. But Grotschel found a positive among the muck: “ I was enchanted by the beauty of the trees, ferns, plants and the melodies of the birds,” she said. She said a common joke among TA walkers she encountered was: ‘This is so muddy it must be the trail!’. Grotschel used her time in Auckland to resupply with new footwear and socks, and reflected that…