The Green Room
Nic Vallance gives a great presentation about her advocacy role in F&B conservation to TV's Close Up http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/face-conservation-has-makeover-3780463/video
Go Nic - conservation only benefits from having enthusiasts like you out in public...
PS And so pleased to see they didn't shy away from mentioning pro-1080
Fantastic Interview. Brilliant subject.
Forest and Bird should consider sending Nic on a high school speaking tour throughout the country.
you're too kind guys...
hmmm, will bring up the 'high schools' tour with the powers-that-be... not a bad idea. Right now though, i'm beginning my "Save the Mackenzie Country" tour... coming soon to a branch near you!
Quick update from the Canterbury team - we're still 'out of office', but have at last found some temporary accommodation until we work out what's happening to our lovely offices in town. For any of you folk in CHCH, you'll be painfully aware of how unsettling the earthquake and all the aftershocks have been. 'hope you're all safe and sound in any case.
The conservation issues haven't slowed down though, and our wonderful natural heritage needs you! so, stay up-to-date, on-board, and please use the "Green Room" for any queries, rants, spleen-vents, upcoming events or issues you'd like to discuss. I get a bit sad when I see that no-one's been using this for a couple of days... we're all here for the same reason, let's get the talk buzzing!
With best regards,
the Unbearded One... : )
Hi Nicola - this is a bit of a historical question. Was watching the episode of "Meet the Locals" last night that covered deer recovery in Fiordland. Interesting to watch and generally good coverage I thought.
One little point - do you know why they used footage of running mobs of TAHR while talking about deer numbers? Surely not for dramatic effect? :-)
Gidday Oscar... hmmm, i just went back and had another look at that episode... you may be right!!! in a couple of the shots at the beginning of that episode eh?
I'm going to absolve myself of responsibility and say that i didn't cut it together - a very hardworking team of mostly-citified folks in Auckland did... but i'd say those shots (and the difference between a deer and a tahr might have slipped through the net!).
We did do a tahr hunting story (well a story about a new bridge for tahr hunters, but there's a few tahr in there i think) on the West Coast for the Meet the Locals show too if you're interested- http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/fifth-series/building-bridges/
I don't have freeview at the moment, and i didn't realise Meet the Locals was still playing! hope you're enjoying it.
Nic
Both Himalayan tahr and deer numbers are out of control in South Westland right now and regardless of who does it there needs to be an active programme to drastically reduce numbers because they are having a serious detrimental effect on the native plants.
Oh well, you know Aucklanders Nic, a deer or a tahr, as long as they look vaguely cervine anything'll do....
Interesting definition from Wikipedia : The word "deer" was originally quite broad in meaning, but became more specific over time. In Middle English der (O.E. dēor) meant a wild animal of any kind (as opposed to cattle, which then meant any domestic livestock).
So there!! 8-)
The problem with Green Party's advocacy of the re-settable possum trap is that the trap doesn't actually do anything about high deer numbers widespread through the dense lowland forests of many parts of NZ, especially the South Westland World Heritage Forests.
There is a sort of conspiracy of silence about these deer numbers. It is very difficult for helicopters to shoot them because they are under the forest canopy. Some helicopter shooting occurs on the beaches and river banks.
Foot hunters are few and far between and in the roar prefer to shoot stags.
The deer are in such high numbers that they are even stripping the flax and kie kie in their efforts to find food.
.I realise this is from overseas, and the animals aren't tahr, (tahr are goats, right?...8-) Aucklander, you see - give me some leeway...), but these goats doing acrobatics to scale a dam face sure made me think about the difficulties in trapping these critters and their rellies http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10685457 . Even in this case shooting at a dam face probably isn't the smartest thing to do either (we'll have no sarcastic comments about shooting at inappropriate targets, thank you).
Same sort of issues with goats as with deer down there, Tawaki?
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