The West Coast Penguin Trust has expanded its primary school education programme to include more than 1100 children at 16 schools on the South Island’s West Coast, after receiving funding from the ANZ Staff Foundation last year.
And then this year, ANZ chose the Trust’s story as the subject for a new video.
Reina Webster-Iti, experienced and talented Creative Producer at ANZ, prepared a detailed plan to capture various aspects of the Trust’s work. Over three days on the Coast last month with her camera man, Joseph Jowitt, they filmed a wide variety of interviews and scenes.
The packed filming schedule included: Manager, Inger Perkins, Ranger, Matt Charteris who showed the ANZ duo penguin chicks and the penguin protection fence, Education Ranger, Lucy Waller with wonderful and generous support from Granity School, plus Alastair Judkins and penguin detection dog, Mena, who were working with the Trust at the time.
Most of the filming has ended on the cutting room floor, so it has been an interesting experience for the Trust to see how much goes into making a tiny film!
The ANZ team skillfully condensed all of that filming into a seamless 3 minute video to illustrate what we do as well as to share a community project that they support with the world.
The Trust was very fortunate to be selected. ANZ films a couple of the 60 or so projects that they support each year through their staff foundation fund.
While materials were chosen that would stand up to the harsh coastal conditions, those same coastal conditions are conducive to plant growth! Occasional checks of the fences have been carried out by volunteers and rangers so that any maintenance needs can be identified and remedied. The never-ending need for maintenance is managing the vegetation that can grow through the fence, for example gorse, blackberry and hydrangea, pushing it to breaking point in places, or flop over causing damage from the weight of rank grass, rushes and weeds such as montbretia.
Volunteers recently spent a few hours tidying up the main fence along Woodpecker Bay north of Punakaiki so a big shout out to them - thank you Fiona, Jony, Reef, Katrina, Mandy, Marty, Teresa and Deb! Flax had been pressing down on the fence, but now the fence has been freed up by these wonderful volunteers - and they picked up a fair bit of rubbish too.
Volunteer Natassja Savidge has offered to check and help maintain the Hokitika penguin protection fence and joined Ranger Lucy Waller and Manager Inger Perkins in May to inspect the length of the fence. Some minor issues were found but the main finding was the extent of the vegetation growth that was damaging the fence in places. Big thanks to Natassja!
