On Wednesday the 11th of May a teacher called Mr Bagnall came into our class to talk about some animals that live in our native bush.
First of all he talked about Black Oyster Catchers which were not a protected bird when duck shooters used to practice shooting them.
The Kakapo were found at Stewarts Island by a deer hunter in 1962 and then reported to the Wild Life Center that he had sighted it, however they didn’t reply so he captured a Kakapo and pulled some of its feathers off to have proof. But still they didn’t reply. More and more people said they saw Kakapo on Stewarts island and they were beginning to get noticed.
He also talked about the North Island Robin and how Eastbourne wanted to have Robin in Butterfly Creek. But first the rat numbers had to go down by setting up traps every 50 meters because then they would get killed. Then they had to transfer the Robins from Kapiti Island to Butterfly Creek. To reduce their stress level they had to hire a chopper (helicopter) and land it by the bus garage at the back of Eastbourne. They got 40 Robins and each one had its own box with food in it and one by one they were released in Butterfly Creek.
~Martin and Drew
