Environment – Ghosts of the Hauraki Gulf

In the early 20th century there were so many spotted shags in the Hauraki Gulf that they could “fly in a constant stream all afternoon”. People sometimes amused themselves with shotguns for hours, using spotted shags for target practice, “Shooting went on till all cartridges were expended and probably a hundred or more dead or dying birds were lying in the water.” Apparently it was a common ‘sport’ to just lay whole colonies to waste, eradicating them from areas where once they were abundant.

Spotted shags, kawau tikitiki or parekareka, are beautiful. They are grey-blue and, in the breeding season, adults have bright green-blue facial skin and blue eye rings, a double crest of upsticking feathers on their heads, and small black spots on their feathers and back. They have a long hooked beak and orange feet. They are a marine shag that fly low over the water, often in a V, and feed out to 16 kilometres off land.

The NZ Geographic article, ‘Where are all the spotted shags?’ states that by the 1930s there were only a few hundred birds left in the Auckland region, in two colonies. In 1931, shooting them was banned, and the population recovered over the next 50 years or so. By the 1970s and 80s, there were around 2000 breeding pairs on the Thames-Coromandel coastline. There were colonies off Waiheke, the Noises, Te Henga/Bethells and near Port Waikato. But now they’re in trouble again. The only colony left is at Tarahiki ‘Shag Rock’, near Waiheke, home to maybe 300 pairs.

Auckland Museum and Auckland Council, and landowners in the Noises, have tried to support recovery with predator control and the creation of shag colonies. They’ve bounced back before, but can they do it again? The odds are against them.

Many of their food sources are gone. Abundant pilchards and anchovy schools are a memory. In 1995, a ‘bushfire’ pilchard infection from Australia was brought in as bait, causing the “largest known fish mortality event in recorded history”. The Hauraki Gulf pilchards have never recovered.

Shags are an indicator of ocean health and scientists have been tracking spotted shags to see what they’re telling us. Ten shags were tagged last September. The tags show that the shags work really hard for their food, diving up to 400 times a day, deeper and flying longer, than most shags around the world.

There’s little food left, the water’s too warm and too polluted with nutrients. There’s nowhere else for them to go.

One day, shag 2247696 was tracked underwater for five minutes, then it went up a boat ramp, four kilometres inland and was, eventually, dumped in a farm ditch. She, and at least one of the other shags in the study, were drowned in set nets.

Shags really are an indicator. An indicator of how we disregard life and nature in its wonderful, colourful and quirky diversity. Diversity we may never see again. The skies and seas are desperately empty, but for the ghosts of their ancestors.