<- Environmental guardianship field trip videos
Journey to Tamatea
Whakataka te hau ki te uru.
Whakataka te hau ki te tonga.
Kia mākinakina ki uta.
Kia mātaratara ki tai.
E hī ake ana te atakura.
He tio, he huka, he hau hū.
Tīhei mauri ora!
Cease the winds from the west.
Cease the winds from the south.
Let the breeze blow over the land.
Let the breeze blow over the ocean.
Let the red-tipped dawn come with a sharpened air.
A touch of frost, a promise of a glorious day.
Andrew
Nau mai, haere mai ki Tamatea. Ko Andrew tōku ingoa. Hei kaiārahi ahau ki LEARNZ.
Welcome to Tamatea Dusky Sound! I’m Andrew, the LEARNZ kaiārahi.
And after a pretty cool helicopter flight, we’re on our way. And we’re onboard Flightless with Pure Salt to explore and find out more about this amazing place, its special characteristics, and its unique biodiversity. And how people are working together to protect it now and for future generations. And hopefully inspire you to take some conservation action near your place.
Reducing pests in Tamatea
Andrew
Well we’ve left the Flightless, and Maria from Pure Salt has brought us over on the tender to Mamaku | Indian Island. And we're in this fascinating little harbour [known as] waka harbour. This is where Māori used to pull up and shelter their waka before going on to the island. And interestingly, this is the place where Captain Cook met Māori here in Fiordland.
Now Rusty has got our ākonga crew just up there and he's going to talk all about predator trapping and the trap line that they’ve got here to ensure we've got an abundance of native bird species, insects and all that sort of thing. Let’s go and catch up with them. Come on.
Rusty
And we’re doing this to look after the flora and fauna, to look after all these birds; give them a chance in life. These species were introduced by us.
Betty
It's quite good trapping here on Mamaku because on Stewart Island we don't have mice or ferrets or stoats. So the traps are quite different I have noticed. So I've learnt how to set different traps. The problem with predators is that they're killing our native birds. We're helping out with the Predator Free Rakiura 2050. And I think that's a very good learning opportunity for lots of the younger kids too so they can understand how to protect our island from all the pests that we have.
Tiki Iti
I've never done trapping before, but seeing how it's all done. I've got my kit here. All the things that I need to trap. I've seen that it can be quite beneficial; traps are working. And that's a really great sign because it means rats are being caught. But it's also bad because rats are still on this island.
Jessi
This is a chew card. And so like the tracking Talons you've been using, these chew cards allow you to work out if there's any predators around. And by bringing them in, luring them in, with this kind of tasty lure that’s down the side. And what we do is we leave it out and then the predators come around and they chew it, and leave unique tooth marks or bite marks on the card. So then when we collect these in tomorrow we can work out what's been here and what's been chewing the card. And the cool thing about this is that you can do it in your backyard at home, and you can just put them… you can actually make these yourselves out of like real estate signs or any other corflute. Put some peanut butter down the side. Fold them in half and nail them to a fence post or to a tree. And then the animals walk past, bite this, and you can work out what you've got.
Tiki Iti
There are also ways to see what they're dealing with and count the numbers, like the tracking tunnel. It’s a little piece of ink with some peanut butter on them. The rat comes in and they walk on the ink, and they can read these footprints and they can tell how many rats have been around in the area. Also, there are cameras. So they'll have a big pile of food like corn, and a camera over here. They come and have an eat and the camera will catch them.
Rusty
We got a dozen of these cameras around. They are out there to see what's happening in the environment. We're picking up predators. Seeing what native wildlife we've got. We run into Kiwi. It’s pretty cool to see them!
Tiki iIti
Seeing what they do has been really, really important for me because now I feel that if anyone needs help trapping, like in my community, that I'd be able to go and help them.
Fiordland's unique marine environment
Whiti mai te ora i te rangi e tū nei.
Whiti mai te ora i te moana e takoto nei.
Whiti mai te ora o te whare e tū nei.
Pou te hihira. Pou te rarama.
Tīaho i roto. Mārama i roto.
Hui te ora. Hui te mārama.
Haumi ē! Hui ē! Tāiki ē!
Andrew
Well we got in for a dip just next to Mamaku | Indian Island. Great to get in the water, Seán. It's absolutely beautiful down there. And this environment, this marine environment, in Fiordland is really unique isn’t it?
Seán
It is. Yeah, it's a very special environment. It's a bit different from other environments we have around New Zealand, where we have a lot of rain here. That rain will soak down through our forest. And essentially the forest is like a massive teabag, and as that tannin-stained water comes out, it rests on the surface of the beautiful ocean here and acts like a pair of sunglasses. Now that pair of sunglasses blocks out a lot of light. What that does is it allows deep sea creatures that are affected by light to live nice and shallow. So it's called deep water emergence. So we can go for a snorkel like we've just been here before, and you will see deep sea creatures that normally you'd have to use a submarine or ROV to go down to find them. So very unique!
Andrew
Yeah, it’s brilliant. Brilliant to go and see. And you know when you're down there and you’re in amongst those kelp forests. And of course you've got your forests up here on the whenua. You really feel like there's this connection between the land and sea, even though they're separated sort of. There is a real connection, isn't there?
Seán
Massive connection yeah.
There's so many different trees up in here and much the same as in the sea there. We’ve got so many different seaweeds through there. And they rely on each other. So nutrition does come out of the forest there or even trees just falling down into the sea.
Andrew
Seal.
Seán
Gidday mate. Here to have a yarn?
Andrew
That’s what you get here in Fiordland. Sorry, carry on.
Seán
One of the locals.
Andrew
Yeah.
Seán
So let's talk about say a tree falls out of the forest or a landslide happens. That falls down into the ocean, everything will feed on it. That's part of the same cycle. Everything is interconnected. We’ve always sat here and thought, there’s the land, here’s the ocean. But they are actually joined together in many a different way.
Andrew
And the health of one another. You know, the health of the land is going to impact the health of the sea.
Seán
Definitely. Yeah, well one needs the other. So we need to look after both of them.
Andrew
Great. Hey, thanks, Seán.
Don’t know where everyone’s gone, but they’re obviously really enjoying themselves. But yeah, so good! Get into the water. See what it's about, make those connections.
Exploring Moana Uta marine reserve
Rebecca
Moana Uta has been a marine reserve since 2005. And now we are right down the head of Wet Jacket Arm. So it's a whole fiord. Moana Uta actually means the ‘inland sea’. So we're right in amongst all of these mountains. You can see that the walls of the fiords are so steep up here. So you can imagine that this place doesn't get much sunlight in the marine environment because of all the shading. And it doesn't get much wave energy from the ocean swell. So you don't get those big kelp forests all washing around in the waves. And you don't get all that sunlight and all that water movement; real lush, kelp forests growing and lots of phytoplankton that fuels the marine environment and all of the animals underneath.
So when we go diving today, you know, usually you’d think we’ll jump in the marine reserve, and we'll see way more than we saw yesterday when we weren’t in a marine reserve. But we're actually in a really different kind of environment. So it's a lower energy environment. We will see fallen trees and animals that have found their homes on the trees. And the seafloor will look like the base of the forest when we're doing our forest walks.
The really amazing thing about Fiordland is that you'll notice that all around us in the catchments is this incredibly lush rainforest. And it's a really productive forest in itself. So you've been for a walk in the bush, everything is just covered in growth. And that finds its way into the marine environment through landslides that happen when there's big storms or big earthquakes, that just shove all of that energy, all of that carbon that's been captured from the forest and the sunlight down into the marine environment.
Today we're going to go for a dive across the delta, which is like the coastal wetland. So there's a big river that comes in, carrying all of that energy from the forest in the form of, kind of, mud and sticks and leaves and tree trunks. And it plops it all down on this big, kind of, mud flat that we're going to swim across. And you might think, how boring, we're going to go look at some mud. But the cool thing about mud is that inside the mud, there are all these animals working away to munch up all of that forest material. So there’s special worms and urchins that burrow through the mud, and they gobble it up and can digest it. And then the fish can come along and the crayfish and whoever else, and they can feed on all of the animals that are living in that mud.
And so you get this crazy thing happening where the animals that live in here, in the sea, actually get most of their energy from the forest, which is probably how it used to be way back in the days before the forests were, you know, burnt down and cut down and turned into farmland around New Zealand. So this is like a fully intact ecosystem from the tops of the mountains to the depths of the fiords.
One of the really special features about this marine reserve, which has really excited us, is that we're seeing fish that we thought were only sort of deep sea fish, finding their home again back in the shallows in this marine reserve. And so if we're lucky enough we might be able to see hāpuku (groper), bass. So the fact that we can now potentially go swimming with them here in this amazing, special marine reserve, is just like such a great example of how when you remove that fishing pressure, things can restore themselves back to the way that they used to be. So, fingers crossed we get to swim with the hāpuku today. I’m really excited about that.
Betty
I liked when we swam through all the jellyfish. It was real cool seeing the baby ones, which are like the size of my fingernail. And we saw lots of cool fish. And it was cool, kind of, seeing an underwater forest.
Vesper
My highlights were the big, humongous fish swimming underneath you. I think marine reserves are important because they protect our species. And it's just quite cool to see that there's going to be more, and we can just see the changes that are happening.
Removing undaria from Tamatea
Rebecca
So this is a juvenile. See it’s a… the distinctive feature, even in the juvenile, is the big spine that runs up the middle of it.
Rebecca
Undaria is an invasive kelp that came to New Zealand back in the 1980s. And it's all around New Zealand, gets carried on the hulls of ships and in ballast water, and so you find throughout most of the main ports and harbours around New Zealand. Unfortunately, in 2010 it was discovered in Fiordland, just in one wee spot. And since then it's gone on to grow and grow.
It grows into this really long kelp. So this is the bit that attaches to the shore. You can see it's got a really long blade and it captures its energy from the sunlight. So it photosynthesizes like other plants. It's really easy to identify undaria because first of all, they have this really long spine that runs down the middle of them. So they're really distinctive compared to our native seaweeds. And when they get mature, they develop this thing called a sporophyte, which is down at the base of the seaweed. And that's this wrinkly thing down here. And that's where all the spores, all the seeds, come from. This one's almost mature. And when it gets mature it starts to release these spores into the water column and then they go with the currents and settle out and make baby undaria.
We’re really worried about the impact that undaria can have on the incredible, unique native ecosystem under the water here in Fiordland. We've got so many iconic features in Fiordland, like you know, you've all seen footage of the black corals and the red corals. And but also just on the rock walls, these beautiful native seaweed; really diverse native seaweed communities. And the problem with undaria is it grows so quickly and so thickly that it shades out all the other animals underneath it. Kind of smothers them.
One of the biggest challenges with dealing with invasive species underwater is that you can't see them, so it's really hard to get people interested in doing something about them when it's a problem that hardly anybody gets to see. But it's also really hard to detect invasive species. Like when they get to a place, to detect them early enough to have any chance of doing something about it. And you can see that Fiordland has this massive coastline. And it's the same with New Zealand. We've got such an extensive coastline.
And so what we really need is everybody's eyes to be part of the solution. So when you're out in the sea shore and you're snorkelling or you're mucking around in the rock pools, and you see something that you haven't seen before, you just don't think it looks quite right. Or maybe you remember seeing it off one of those invasive species cards. Just tell someone. There’s these amazing 0800 lines you can call. Take a note of where you are. Take a photo of what you've seen if you can, and report it. Because all of these invasive species incursions that we're dealing with round New Zealand have started from somebody reporting one of those species in a place and thinking this isn't quite right.
The thing about invasive species like undaria, and all of these other species that just don't belong here in this environment, is they’re all just one boat ride away from here. So all it took for undaria to get here was one hull that had an undaria plant growing on it, coming in and maybe dropping anchor or pulling up to one of the barges in this area. So what you can do about it is if you are lucky enough to go on a boat, ask the skipper or the owner of that boat if they have taken the time to make sure that the hull of their vessel is clean. That's the main way that these invasive species sort of hitchhike their way around the country and into places like this.
Seán
The way we're dealing with undaria in Fiordland, it's a collective effort. You've got research going on in here. We’ve had Otago University coming in on research plots, writing papers on how it’s affecting this environment; how quick it grows. So we learn about this invasive seaweed. We then can develop tools to work towards removing it out of this environment.
MPI contracted Pure Salt to come in here and develop a tool to be able to help for removal of this invasive seaweed. Maria and myself, who own Pure Salt, we are also construction divers. So we've used tools in the past that have allowed us to remove stuff from the seafloor to the surface. So we modified that tool, which is essentially a big underwater vacuum cleaner. You bring that vacuum cleaner in here, set it up on a barge, and you put some construction divers down with some research divers, and they literally go and weed this seaweed out. Put it into the vacuum cleaner and that brings it to the surface for us. When we get it to the surface it can be processed. One good way of processing this seaweed is to sterilise it. So heat up our hot tub we have on board to a really high temperature, which you wouldn't want to get into, put the weed in there, and essentially make a big broth out of it. It sterilises it, the spores are no longer active, and you can then put the seaweed back into the ocean or put it ashore.
Fishing sustainably
Group
Looking good!
Group
Nice!
Andrew
Seán, we've come to a part of the Acheron Passage, and we thought we'd try our luck with some fishing. Put some kaimoana on the table. It's a great activity, lots of fun. And there's some certain practices that you do here onboard Flightless to ensure fishing is sustainable. So what are some of those things that you do to make sure that our fish stocks are being preserved for the future?
Seán
Well, there's a few different things we do onboard here. Recommendations by the Fiordland Marine Guardians who help us look after this environment for the future generations. They tell us things like the hook size for example, so 6/0 hook size. That means we will only catch the larger fish, so not catching all those small ones.
Seán
We're also taking it a step further – we remove the barbs off our hooks. Great practice because it makes it easier for you to remove your fish. So if you have a fish that you have to return, nice and easy to take it off.
Andrew
And I notice you've only got one hook on this rig.
Seán
We're out there fishing. As you say, great activity. We may as well sit there and fight with that one fish versus trying to do some of that bulk harvesting. Let's just keep it to one hook. Bring up one fish at a time. Then you know what it feels like. A lot more fun!
Andrew
And of course, when you've caught a fish or a few fish. It's the old way I was brought up, you take the fillets off, skin it, bone it, chuck the scraps away but, you know, there's so much more we can do with the whole fish, isn't there?
Seán
Definitely yeah. Well you look at a fish as a whole there, it's all edible. So what we do onboard Flightless is we will scale our fish, so then we have our skins, so then we can consume the skin by itself. Then you have the fillets that you take off. Then you have your frame itself. You can smoke your frame up or you can make yourself a nice fish stock out of it. There's so much meat on those bones and on those heads. And there's the livers also that we can consume and the wings. So it's all flesh. And the joy of doing it that way, you don't have to be amazing at filleting. It does get better after time. But you're going to be eating it all anyway.
Andrew
Nice. And there's also a marine fishing ap that's been developed that you're using as well to help monitor fish stocks around Fiordland?
Seán
Correct. So, yeah, Mainland Catch we're using at the moment, which gets us to record where we're fishing, the fish we're catching, who's catching it. Take some photos. It's fun. You can show who's got the biggest fish for the day there. So that's us as a recreational, as a charter boat, we have to record our fish stocks, as do the commercial guys. So it's great for everyone to get in there, record what fish have been taken out the ocean, how we're doing it, where we're doing it. It gives us a really good idea on how our system is going.
Andrew
Yeah, brilliant. Right. Sustainable fishing; fishing for the future. So we can always have fun. Hey, thanks, Seán. And I might go and try my luck.
Seán
Good luck with that.
Exploring predator free Pukenui Anchor Island
Andrew
Kia ora e te whānau. Well, we are on Pukenui Anchor Island, here in Tamatea Dusky Sound.
In fact, we've just gone to one of the highest points on this island. We’ve come back down because the weather has kind of come in a little bit. But this is a predator free island. No cats, rats, stoats, possums to interfere with the native biodiversity.
Just over there is our ākonga crew with Jo Marsh from the Department of Conservation. And she's going to talk a bit more about the special nature of this place and why being predator free is so valuable. Come with me.
Jo
Back here, down on the low part of Pukenui Anchor Island. Such a privilege to be here. You guys excited? Yeah.
Pukenui is a real gem in Dusky Sound. It's a biobank. It's a place where we've managed to get rid of those introduced predators, the stoats and the rats, and reintroduce some of those really endangered birds. Like a safe haven; a sanctuary for them. And you will have noticed walking around here, how lush this forest is and how many birds there are. This is what it used to be in New Zealand. So we're trying to recreate that right here on Pukenui Anchor Island.
We've seen so many seeds, different types of food. Without those predators, there's just so much more food for everyone to eat, all the birds, the insects. You see how dense this bush is if you're trying to like walk through that. Without the deer, it just makes everything so lush. So what it used to be. And with this biobank now, it's really really important for conservation in New Zealand because we're preserving these amazing endangered species here. So that once we get the technology and stuff sorted, that we can make New Zealand Aotearoa predator free, we have…
There’s a kākā. Did you hear that too? Yeah, awesome.
We can then transfer these birds back to the mainland, back to other islands that are going to act as sanctuaries for our native wildlife.
So you may have noticed as we're walking that there's still some traps on this island. So even though it's a predator free island, it's really important that we are keeping up this monitoring to make sure that if any stoat or rat was able to come to the island that we know about it, and we catch it before it's able to breed and reinfest this population. And that's why we also did that biosecurity before we came on Pukenui Anchor Island because it's so easy to have a mouse or rat or something in your bag. And that would just be a disaster wouldn't it! To think that you're responsible for bringing something like that onto this island, because it would just have devastating impacts. So a really important part of coming to these special islands is that we do our biosecurity checks before we come.
Well done team. Yeah.
Betty
It's so cool being here on Anchor Island because it's just so lush, the bush. Everywhere you look there's something new growing and it's like there'll be a tree stump and there'll be all sorts of different things thriving on there.
Vesper
I think it's really cool that we still protect it because we don't want all of our hard work just to go to waste. And we just get so much out of this place, even though it's one island, this could save birds from being extinct.
Tiki Iti
Being here on Anchor Island, Pukenui, I think my favourite part has just been walking around, just hearing the life around me. I’m hearing kākā and tīeke. And these are really amazing birds that I don't really get at home. So being in this super special place where I can get all these new birds and new information has been really exciting.
Uses for seaweed
Andrew
We’re on our way to a place to do some seaweed gathering with Fleur Sullivan. She's a famous chef in New Zealand. You may have heard of her. And we're gonna go out in the tender, the little inflatable boat, to collect that. And then we're also going to do some snorkelling amongst the kelp. It's not going to be the ideal time to get it, in terms of tide, it's not quite low tide. And also seaweed grows where there's lots of current, and that's not often the best places to do snorkelling. We're going to get some, have a look at it. And did you know that all seaweeds in New Zealand are edible? Some might taste a bit better than others. And it's probably in the products that you are using or even eating today. So very exciting. I’m looking forward to it.
Fleur
We’re going to find some Bladder kelp. Maybe some Neptune's Necklace.
Thank you Betty! You will have some food tonight.
If the sea was clear, then you can see this whole big garden under the sea. It grows so fast I think there’s enough for everybody. It's a valuable resource to be used in many, many ways. Even just for fun like, with this piece here, it's a piece of bull kelp. You don't usually find it with all those holes in it. I don’t think it's been eaten by anything, I think it’s just probably been battered against the rocks. But it was used always for the tītī; to put the tītī in. And in the offseason, they would make their bags; and put their hand inside and open it all up and make it into a bag.
At the beach, you can make a flipper for yourself. You split it along there, push your hand in there, and put your foot in. Put that wee bit up the back. And you can make yourself a really good flipper. And with the stipe here, when it's bigger, you can make a cricket ball out of it.
Where I love it to use is when you catch a good fish, you put your fish inside it with some cockles from the beach. And you can feel the fish in there, and you can just go by touch, that you know when the fish is cooked. And when you cut it down there and across there and open it up, the kelp is all green inside and you've got your fish all cooked in there with the cockles all round it. And you put it down and people just love it!
So the sea lettuce is the handiest one for you to start with. Just tide-level, on the rocks. Spot out where you are that there's no runoff or anything that would be not healthy. And you can pick it. And you can just get the sand off it and eat it, enjoy it. Take it home and put it in your salad. Dry it. It’s actually really nice little meal in there.
The bladder kelp is the fun one. It's great on your garden. You can dry it. And you then deep fry it. You can just pan fry it and cut it into little pieces, and it makes lovely healthy chips. Another good thing with it is you can just, when it's dried, crumple it like that, crumple it. And you just scatter it on the top of your salad or on your meat or anything at all. You'll find lots of ways to use it. Now that wee part there, you can pickle. You can pickle it whole, or you can pickle it in little slices. And then you've always got it in a jar.
Reflecting on a week in Tamatea Dusky Sound
Tiki Iti
We're on the bridge here at Flightless, heading east back up to meet the helicopter to finish off our amazing trip here in Tamatea Dusky Sound. This trip has been such an eye opener to the amazing conservation work and the hard yards that people who really care are putting in. And it's just been amazing to be around such passionate people. And I hope I can take this passion back to my home.
Betty
We’re coming to the end of our journey here in Tamatea Dusky Sound. It's been an amazing experience, and I think I'd like to come back. Some of the highlights for me were definitely snorkelling; seeing all of the things there are to see, like all the bush. It's all so beautiful. All the sea animals, they're just so amazing.
I learnt about a new sea creature, which is the black coral. And it was quite interesting because it's only black when it's dead. So it's quite a nice, white, pearly colour.
Tiki Iti
A couple of the highlights for me have been seeing some amazing birds I've never seen before. The kākā. And seeing some super cute, little Fiordland crested penguin. The marine life is just so vibrant here. I’ve seen so many crayfish. I caught the biggest blue cod; that was a bonus. And just being in such an untouched and remote destination.
Betty
After this trip, I want to pick up snorkelling again. I used to do a lot of it but I've kind of been a bit slack on it. So I think I'd like to do more of it because the ocean is such a beautiful place and I'd like to appreciate it a bit more.
For conservation, I think I'd like to do more trapping. So maybe setting up a few traps around my house to catch all the rats, just to protect I guess the birds in my backyard, like the tūī, pigeons, kiwi. All those birds.
Tiki Iti
I’d like to have a look at my local trapping line. I know quite a few of the people on it, but they're all quite old. So I'd like to bring my mates along, start getting myself and the younger people interested in this, and gripped by the conservation like I've been.
Betty
My advice is if you go on an adventure like this, you should definitely say yes to everything, because you can see so much stuff. It's just an amazing experience.
Tiki Iti
As you can see here, the weather is quite challenging. But I've learnt that there's no such thing as bad weather down here. You'd be crazy to miss an opportunity to explore this wilderness here. We have snow just behind us, but we still rugged up and walked up some amazing hills and caught some beautiful views.
So back at home, even if it's raining, get out there. See what there is to see. Because you never know what will happen if you just say yes.
