The critically endangered New Zealand Fairy Tern has a total population of just 43 birds and has teetered on the brink of extinction since the 1970s.
Fairy tern chick, Steffi Ismar
They once nested right around the North Island from Golden Bay to Upper Northland. Now they can only be found at a very few sites around the North of Auckland.
Predation by cats, ferrets and stoats, habitat loss and disturbance during the breeding season has taken a large toll on their population.
Like us, fairy terns are beach-goers. However, they’re easily frightened and become quickly stressed, so disturbance by visiting beach-goers, dogs and vehicles can cause them to abandon their nests, or chicks. It can even prevent them from looking for a mate, or breeding!
DOC has a plan to restore the population to 200 birds by 2015. However, this looks unlikely to be fulfilled unless wider community support is harnessed. Given their small genetic pool and the rampant development around their breeding sites the risk of extinction is especially high.
What’s also alarming about their population is that there are only a few breeding pairs – only 20% of their population have formed breeding pairs, when over 70% of their population is at breeding age.
This has led us to initiate a project to protect more safe breeding sites. So far, we have
- Assessed potential new breeding sites in Northland, Auckland and Great Barrier.
- Assessed their current breeding sites to determine whether they are sufficiently safe and adequately managed.
We subsequently formed a team of researchers and volunteers to help determine which are the most important habitats for nesting birds to find food for their chicks and where the non-breeding adults feed & roost while the other birds are breeding.
To view our report on this research, see here.(part one), part two
