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Our Far South: What it boils down to

17 February 2012 – 9.09am

King penguins surrounding the zodiac. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

We arrived at Macquarie Island - the sheltered waters in the lee of the island provided a welcome relief from the open ocean we had crossed between here and the Auckland Islands.

The cool subantarctic summer did not detract from the spectacular wildlife – elephant seals and penguins everywhere! Until 1920 the elephant seals and penguins of Macquarie Island were boiled down for oil. A single Royal penguin would produce about 600ml or one pint of oil.

The Australian antartic explorer Mawson petitioned for Macquarie Island to be classed as a wild life sanctuary. A recent publication reported in New Scientist shows that the population has recovered surprisingly well over the last 80 years, and now numbers are back to half a million after dropping to around 4,000; and genetic  diversity is close to pre-slaughter levels – vital to long-term survival.

Gentoo penguin, Macquarie Island. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

Four species of penguin now breed on the island as do 2 species of fur seal and of course the giant elephant seals.

Although we did not get a chance to see any Antarctic or sub-Antarctic fur seals, we did get a chance to see more king penguins, swimming and on shore and the much smaller Gentoo and Rock-Hopper penguins that were close in around the Australian base at the northern end of the island.

The base is used forvarious scientific experiments and monitoring and is also the base for the hunters who are working to finally eradicate all the introduced rabbits.

The have not seen any sign of rabbits now for two months, but this monitoring will go on for probably another 2 years.

Yearling elephant seal. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

Although all of this years Elephant seal pups have already left to go to sea, there are a few yearlings from the previous year, tiny compared to the enormous males that are still hanging out in their wallows. The few females scattered amongst them are dwarfed by the males as they are only about a quarter of their size.

The project of pest eradication on the island is an amazing success story, as they have now succesfully removed all the mice, rats, cats and hopefully now all of the rabbits.

The areas that were fenced off to keep rabbits out are full of the tussock plants that would have once covered the island.

Elephant seals and regenerating tussock. Victor Anderlini.

We are now heading out to sea and leaving the lee of the islands for a four day journey down to Antartica itself.

This island shows how fragile this ecosystem is but also that with considerable effort what can be done to restore them.

Aurora australis - the Southern Lights. Photo WWF.

Posted in Biodiversity, Birds, Field trips, Mammals, Penguins, Whales | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Our Far South: from shipwrecks to high seas

16 February 2012 – 8.06am

Becalmed in Carnley Harbour. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa

I awoke to find that the boat had moved over night to the bottom end of the Auckland Islands, into Carnley harbour, with Adams island to our south. Adams island is home to Gibson’s wandering albatross – DNA research is currently being carried out to determine if Gibson’s Albatross is distinct from other wandering albatross species.

We had incredibly calm weather and took a zodiac ride up one of the arms of the misty harbour to visit what was left of the wreck of the Grafton. One of the great tales of survival of early sailing in the our sub-Antarctic seas. The five men aboard set about extending one of their life dingies, they had to even make their own nails! they made a sturdy little craft to take three of them back to New Zealand in search of help for the two men left behind.

Wreck of the Grafton. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

Now what is left of the Grafton is used primarily as a sealion hangout.

Our investigations on the rocky shore revealed something that surprised me, a spider living in the intertidal zone! I hope that when I get back to Te Papa that my photo will be enough to help Phil Sirvid identify it.

We spent the morning looking at areas within Carnley Harbour, including an area where rata trees were once cut down by the crew of a German merchant vessel at the start of World War Two. They used the wood as fuel to enable their vessel to reach Chile.

Adams Island in fog, Carnley Harbour. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa

“Figure of Eight” Island is home to the most southern breeding site for NZ sealions in the Auckland group. Unlike sealions at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island these sealions breed  in the bush on this small flat islet.

It has been a calm sailing so far, and so there has been a chance to give lectures and have debates. The primary one today being about the NZ sealion and their interactions with the commercial fishery for arrow squid. Lots of things may be influencing the decline of the this sealion population, however it seems clear that fisheries are unlikely to be completely blameless in this. Female NZ sealions, have to work very hard to get the food they need to be able to keep themselves in good condition and to pass that on to their dependent pups. The squid fishery coincides with the exact time when female sealions are foraging hardest to meet the demands of supplying milk to their pups. NZ sealion is the only sealion in the world where the survival of females is less than that of males: it is mostly female sealions that historicaly have been caught as by-catch in the squid fishery. Which surely can not help when a population like this is affected by other influences like disease outbreaks and even normal levels of predation.

Sealion Exclusion Devices (SLEDs) have been put in the trawl nets of the fishery. There is much debate about the chances of a sealion surviving being thrown out of a net at 200m depth. the fishing industry claims that they are now not catching any sealions, but perhaps these SLEDs are just removing the evidence of mortality from their catch.

I have been keeping a look out for Whales…you can only see them if you look!

Heading south. Image WWF.

After lunch we set sail out in to the wilds of the Southern Ocean on our way further south to Macquarie Island. I am greatly looking forward to seeing the elephant seals at Macquarie.

Posted in Birds, Bugs, insects and spiders, Field trips, History, Mammals, Plants, Whales | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Our far South: Return to Enderby

14 February 2012 – 12.13pm
 
 
 
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Sandy Bay, Enderby Is 1995. Photo Anton van Helden, Copyright Te Papa

I visited Enderby in 1995 as part of the DOC Sealion project. The project is still going today. Sadly the most noticeable thing on my return was the much smaller numbers of sealions and pups.

It is very saddening to hear from Louise Chilvers (DOC’s sealion biologist) that the population has decreased by 50% in the last 12 years alone. In part because of disease epidemics, but probably also because of other factors such as fishing and climate change which may be having an impact on these remarkable animals.

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Sea lion pup suckling. Photo Anton van helden. Copyright Te Papa.

New Zealand sealions Phocarctos hookeri, are the deepest diving eared seals in the world. They have been recorded to dive to depths in excess of 700m. They are sadly, now the rarest sealion in the world, with a population of only about 10,000 animals.

 

The island vegetation has recovered however. After the removal of cattle, rabbits and all other mammalian pest species the undergrowth in the southern Rata forests and the tussock fields that ring the island have bounced back vigourously.

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Southern Royal albatross, Auckland Islands. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

The yellow-eyed penguins seem to be doing well, which is heartening.

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Yelloweyed penguin. Photo Anton van Helden. Copyright Te Papa.

One Southern Right whale was seen, a reminder that in the winter months they come into Port Ross in the Auckland Islands to calve. At nearly 18m these animals feed on tiny swarming crustaceans called Copepods that they sieve through the water with their long baleen.

Right whale, Port Ross, Auckland islands. Image WWF.

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Louise Chilvers and Anton van Helden, Enderby Island.

The Te Papa Fish team will be coming down here in the next week or so to investigate the animals that live deep down in the waters around the island.

Posted in Birds, Field trips, Mammals, Penguins, Uncategorized, Whales | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Our Far South: The Snares

13 February 2012 – 9.04am

After leaving the port of Bluff, we took our sunset cruise down past Stewart Island on towards the Snares, our first port of call in Our Far South.

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Snares Island. Photo Antonvan Helden, copyright Te Papa.

The first marine mammal spotting of the trip was a small pod of Southern right whale dolphins, these spectacularly sleek animals have no dorsal fin and gave the imprssion of being giant penguins porpoising along. They are just one of the many species of marine mammal which inhabit our rich southern waters.

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Snares crested penguins. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

Into the zodiacs we went to explore the rugged coastline of these islands.  Devoid of any introduced predators they are remarkable for the abundance of bird, from the tiny black tomtits and fern birds to the soaring Buller’s Mollymawks. The islands with their tree daisy and leatherwood shrub coverings are home to a massive number of Sooty Shear waters whose burrows festoon the island. Groups of Snares crested penguins could be seen gathered along the rocky coastal cliffs, while the exposed coastline is covered with massive clumps of bull kelp.

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Sea lion, Snares Is. Photo Anton van Helden, copyright Te Papa.

The islands are also home to New Zealand Fur seals, hunted in vast numbers in the late 1790′s to about 1830 when it was no longer economic for sealers to hunt them.

A few sub adult male New Zealand Sealions also call it home and swam around with inquistive looks.

Next target the Auckland Islands, we should reach there in the early hours of Sunday morning. I am looking forward to this as I spent the summer of 1995 there as part of the Department of Conservation Sealion Recovery project.

Posted in Birds, Field trips, Mammals, Penguins, Uncategorized, Whales | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Our Far South

8 February 2012 – 9.38am

Auckland Islands sign and NZ sea lion pup. Photo Anton van Helden. © Te Papa

Welcome to Our Far South. This coming Friday I will be standing on the dock at Bluff, looking south, and about to board a boat heading to the sub-Antarctic Islands and the great white continent itself as part of the Our Far South project (www.ourfarsouth.org). What will I see?

We all know about Stewart Island and some people might think that is where New Zealand stops; but there is a whole lot of territory even further south than that!

The subantarctic Islands include the Auckland,  Campbell and Macquarie Islands where we will see colonies of sea lions, elephant seals, penguins and our everpresent companions of the southern oceans – the albatrosses.

Our Far South is unique, and is an extraordinary area for Whales and seals, sea birds, remarkable plants, fish and invertebrates from the tiniest plankton to the colossal squid! It is also an area that hugely impacts on the world’s climate. As I head south I will report back to you on the natural environment of Our Far South and how its biodiversity, climate and geology is so intricately interconnected.

Elephant Seal Auckland Islands. Photo Anton van Helden .© Te Papa

Our Far South is an area that although remote is impacted by the things that humans do from fishing (and Whaling!!), pollution, oil and mineral exploration, climate-change. I will be looking at these things and reporting back.

So Hat and gloves on and away we go….heading South!

Posted in Birds, Colossal squid, Field trips, Fish, Penguins, Whales | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)
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