Newsletter #108
Image: South Island Pied Oystercatcher | Tōrea
Tēnā koutou katoa,
Firstly, a big shout out to artist Iain Cheeseman who very generously donated the proceeds from the sale of his Ashburton Art Gallery Foyer Wall project ‘The River Is’ to BRaid. Iain’s generosity will go towards the running costs of our annual Braided Rivers Seminar at Lincoln University 08 June 2026. I’ll be creating a bookings page over the next few weeks, so mark the date in your calendars.
Are you interested in controlling weeds and pest species along Canterbury Rivers? Not a trick question! Applications are now open for the new three‑year term of Environment Canterbury’s Biosecurity Advisory Groups. “If you’re passionate about protecting Waitaha Canterbury’s environment and want to help guide biosecurity work in your area, we’d love to hear from you.” You can download the application form here (68k Word document).
This following video is something I feel I should have known, but didn’t, so I’m now wondering if any if our endemic black-billed gulls have also latched onto this strategy?
Ngā mihi,
Sonny Whitelaw
manager [at] braid. org. nz
Bird surveys
Please send me [manager @ braid. org. nz] copies of your bird survey reports/datasets so that I can add then to the relevant sections of the website. Please also send copies to Miles Burford at ECan, as Miles updates the braided river bird database.
News/articles
- DOC Community Fund opens Tuesday 31 March 2026; closes 5pm Thursday 30 April 2026: $9.2 million will be available for community groups, private landowners and iwi across New Zealand protecting our threatened species and ecosystems.
- ECan: Mapping tool reveals decline in tōrea across Canterbury braided rivers
- RNZ: Extreme weather is transforming the world’s rivers. We need new ways to protect them
- RNZ: Country Life: Possums, stoats and hedgehogs no match for Canterbury’s 4×4 trappers “It takes a village to raise a dotterel – because they can’t get by on their own nowadays.”
- Scoop: Tasman District River Catchment Study Could Accelerate NZ’s Climate Response “Kotahitanga mō te Taiao Alliance and The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa New Zealand aim to develop a restoration model that could be used across New Zealand, focusing on collaboration across whole river catchments.”
- Morphum Environmental webinar: Walking the talk: giving effect to Te Mana o Te Wai through genuine partnership in catchment management. Presentation from the NZFSS Conference Ōtautahi December 2025.
- New Scientist: Birdwatching may reshape the brain and build its buffer against ageing
- Big Picture Science: (podcast) Birds of a Feather “…feathers are unraveling a new type of mystery, as scientists from the BirdGenoscape Project use them to map the migratory routes of birds.”
- Forest & Bird: This International Bat Day (17 April), let’s help pekapeka fly again with the power of creativity!
- Tonkin: Nine ways extreme events reshape river biodiversity plain English explanation of research report below; how floods, droughts, heatwaves, and compound events are impacting life in rivers
- Tonkin: Nine ways we can future‑proof rivers against extreme events; how we can protect river biodiversity from the increasing threat of extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves
Research & Reports
- 2026: Tonkin et al; Extreme events and river biodiversity under climate change Nature Reviews Biodiversity
- 2026: Harris et al; Food-web structures link multi-scale processes in complex landscapes, Ecology 107 | 3
- 2026: Armareg-Marriott, Changing bird nutrient inputs, Nature Climate Change 16
