Newsletter #93
Top image: Safe and warm under mum, the first pohowera / banded dotterel chicks of the 2023/24 season on the Lower Upukerora. Credit: Anja Kohler
Tēnā koutou,
Our Annual General Meeting and a General Meeting was held Friday 27 September. You can read all about them here:
- Minutes: General Meeting
- Minutes: Annual General Meeting
- Chair’s Report AGM
- Manager’s Report AGM
- BRaid Constitution 2024
Our next General Meeting will be 2-5pm 28 February 2025 at the Department of Conservation office, 31 Nga Mahi Road, Sockburn.
As we are now in the breeding season, it’s a fantastic time to come and meet some of the birds, both the permanent inhabitant and national and international travellers returning for the season. Birds NZ in conjunction with the Ashley Rakahuri Rivercare Group are running an open day at Waikuku Beach Saturday 19 October. See the poster below for more details.
Please do keep the news stories coming as I don’t always catch them as they fly by (apologies for the pun…)
Bird Surveys
- Ashley Rakahuri survey – Saturday November 16. Please meet at 9am in the picnic area at the South end of the Cones Road bridge. All fit and suitably dressed people are welcome, and must be able to cross water channels and walk in the riverbed for up to 3 hours. For more information please contact Sue or Bev.
- Please remember to send me your dates for bird surveys if you would like volunteers, and send me your bird surveys when they are completed. These are added to each of the river pages on the website. This helps researchers and community groups to discern trends when they’re looking back over past years. Please also send a copy to Miles Burford at ECan, as Miles is compiling an amazing database with the aim of eventually making it accessible online through Canterbury Maps.
- Reminder: Protocol for best practice in monitoring river birds (DOC PDF)
News
- Replacement for the Resource Management Act takes shape – Nat. Govt. press release
- Inconvenient truths’ stall naming PM’s science chief – Newsroom; “The coalition agreements bind the Government to follow data and evidence, but systematic cuts across the public sector have resulted in the loss of 400 scientific roles, including agency-specific chief science advisers… Luxon said the decision to lose these positions wasn’t dismissive of evidence, but rather “a different way of thinking”.
- A four-wheel-drive ban on the upper Ashley Rakahuri River would be difficult to enforce, councillors were told at a council meeting on Tuesday, October 1. – North Canterbury News (NB: this was page 1 of the North Canterbury News; as the digital edition may be hard to access, the link is to PDF file of the report).
- First World Rivers Day a splashing success for Ōtautahi – The Press
- Major freshwater u-turn ‘snuck in’ to unrelated bill – Newsroom
- Migrating birds caught in Hurricane Helene that struck Florida last week appear as a blue mass in the eye of the storm. Generally speaking, most birds survive using this tactic, but exhaustion also takes a toll, especially during migration (see here for a research paper on the topic):
Research & Reports
- Harris; Braided rivers and landscape-scale perspective, Flow #44 pp3-7 (PDF). The following image is a summary. Click to download a PDF of the summary.
- Ledgard et al; Lower Upukerora Restoration Group Annual Report 2023/2024 (PDF)
- Gearon et al; Rules of river avulsion change downstream, Nature 18 September
- Costanza; Misconceptions about the valuation of ecosystem services – ScienceDirect
- Caesar et al; Planetary Health Check: A Scientific Assessment of the State of the Planet, Planetary Boundaries Science (PDF)
- Philips: Why hasn’t deadly bird flu reached Australia yet? Several theories explain why Oceania is the last region free of the H5N1 virus. Nature News (Open access)
- Storymap: A way forward: land use change for Aotearoa – Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Click the image below to see the complete story.
Donations
BRaid is an Incorporated Society (No: 2453663) with Charitable Status (Registration Number CC50089). Membership is free but donations are much appreciated. Donations can be made to BRaid Inc. Account number: 01 0877 0818466 00. Please include your name in the reference line and ideally email us, so that we can thank you and send you a receipt. Donations are tax deductable citing our NZ Business Number 9429043210572.
