By Craig Balsom
On the 25th of April 2024 Ngāti Hei kaitiaki Craig Balsom joined a party of five people undertaking an ecological survey on Waikaia and Kuranui islands. Despite the islands being only 500 metres apart there were marked differences in what was found. Here’s Craig’s account of the trip.
Waikaia (Rabbit Island) and Kuranui (Penguin Island) sit southwest of Whakahau (Slipper Island) approximately 7 kilometres from Tairua Harbour. The team consisted of Peter Corson from Quality Conservation, an island eradication expert, Kathryn O’Toole Pest animal lead for Waikato Regional Council, James Russel from Auckland University who is a rodent and seabird expert and Ben Gordon of the Department of Conservation Whitianga in his role as Biodiversity manager for our area.
“The last time anything similar to this was undertaken on these islands was around 50 years ago.”
The aim of this expedition was to spend a night on each island and catalogue all bird and plant life on the islands as well as setting 30 rat and mouse traps each night to get an understanding of what state the ecology of each island is in. The last time anything similar to this was undertaken on these islands was around 50 years ago.
We circumnavigated both islands first by boat to assess possible landing areas and get a feel for the islands before landing. Several seals were spotted basking on the rocks of both islands.
Left to right: Waikaia and Kuranui islands sit southwest of Whakahau, approximately 7km from Tairua Harbour (Photo: Craig Balsom); Harbourmaster vessel drops us off (Photo: Craig Balsom); Kuranui ‘beach’ (Photo: Peter Corson).
Once we had selected a suitable landing spot, we disembarked the harbour master’s vessel and set foot on Waikaia. The first feature we found as we scrambled up onto the island proper was a short but deep maioro (fortification) protecting the island from any unwanted visitors. As we cleared the undergrowth to create our campsite several artefacts were uncovered, including a small cutting tool made of obsidian and what we think was a grinding tool possibly like a mortar and pestle made of stone.
The next discovery we made was that there was definitely kiore present on the island as they ran around between our feet and up onto our tents as we sat in camp enjoying a cuppa and planning our various tasks for that evening. Pete and Kathryn were on plant and invertebrate identification , whilst the Ben, James and I were tasked with laying out a trapline of 30 rat and mouse traps along the entire length of the island before turning our focus to surveying what seabirds roosted on the island at night and possibly doing some banding of seabirds as well.
During the trap setting exercise we noted several seabird burrows, in some spots there were so many burrows close together that if you weren’t careful where you stepped you would collapse a burrow which you would then have to rebuild. We returned to camp to have dinner and await the arrival of seabirds at last light.
The arrival of the Oi (Grey Faced Petrel) at dusk was a magnificent experience. To see and hear these birds flying at low level above the trees and then crash landing into the low scrub really was a great experience. We set about banding as many Oi as we could that night, while Pete and Kathryn walked the island looking for invertebrates by torchlight.
At dawn the next morning we packed up camp and while Pete and Kathryn ferried all our gear back to our pickup spot, Ben, James and I recovered the traps finding around 15 kiore but no mice.
”There were noticeably less kiore on Kuranui compared to Waikaia and some different plant species present. This is despite there being only 500 metres between the two islands.“
After a short wait the harbour master arrived to transfer us to Kuranui for round two. After a tricky landing, due to a reasonable swell running, we were again setting up camp and again during this process a couple more obsidian cutting tools were uncovered. We camped beside an old mutton birders hut which has completely fallen down now but the old stone fireplace is still visible. Mutton birding is obviously a very thirsty job as indicated by the many large piles of beer bottles present.
We basically repeated the trapping, plant/invertebrate identification, seabird banding exercises again. There were noticeably less kiore on Kuranui compared to Waikaia and some different plant species present. This is despite there being only 500 metres between the two islands.
Clockwise: Clearing bush for camp (Photo: James Russel); The kiore (Rattus exulans) were not shy! (Photo: Craig Balsom); Small obsidian cutting tool (Photo: Craig Balsom); Banding Oi (Grey Faced Petrel) (Photo: Craig Balsom).
Our departure from Kuranui was a bit more difficult as the swell had risen even more but we achieved this safely with only one of the party having to go for a swim! We arrived safely back in Tairua before midday.
In conclusion this was a great initiative and opportunity to assess the ecological health of these two Ngāti Hei owned motu. The scientists of the party are collating all the data collected on the survey and this will be presented to Ngāti Hei in the next few months. From there Ngāti Hei can decide how the findings are disclosed and to whom, if at all and how we use this information going forward to improve biodiversity on, not only these two motu but the other motu and whenua for which we are kaitiaki.
Lastly, I would like to thank the iwi for giving me the opportunity to be involved in this project with a great group of people. I felt honoured and privileged to represent Ngāti Hei and get to explore Waikaia and Kuranui.
