A Trust survey of an inshore island at Cape Foulwind, near Westport, has led to the surprise discovery of what appears to be the largest West Coast seabird colony between Cook Strait and Fiordland. (Photo: Fairy Prion by ZooPro)
Members of the West Coast Blue Penguin Trust were surveying Wall Island to look for sooty shearwaters and were astonished to find not only 300 shearwaters but an estimated 4,500 fairy prions. Even more surprising it appears the island, which is only 120 metres off shore from Cape Foulwind, is free of predators.
Trust Chairwomen and seabird expert Kerry-Jayne Wilson says it is exciting to find so many fairy prions as they no longer nest on the mainland.
“The entire island is riddled with burrows and is extremely fragile, we had to walk very carefully so as not to fall through any. At night during the breeding season is must be quite something to be there as they are very vocal birds,” she says.
Department of Conservation scientist Don Neale says, while DOC has surveyed most of the islands on the West Coast, the Department wasn’t sure of the number of birds on Wall Island.
“This is a significant find. Even though the birds are reasonably common, the habitat they create is gone from the mainland and seabird colonies on inshore islands are the last remnants of how New Zealand used to be,” he says.
“It is good to see the birds are there in numbers and are healthy. Now it is a matter of making sure Wall Island stays predator free, so the Penguin Trust is establishing traplines to protect the island”.
The West Coast Blue Penguin Trust is currently undertaking a project to boost numbers of sooty shearwaters and blue penguins at Cape Foulwind so in time the public will be able to view the birds returning to their nests at dusk.
Kerry-Jayne Wilson says the Trust had assumed the Cape Foulwind shearwaters were an overflow from Wall Island and that is why they undertook the survey. Surveys like these are done with the support of DOC and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Waewae.
“It is very rare in NZ to find an inshore island so close to the mainland that is still predator free. We will now increase our predator trapping on the mainland and, while the eco-system is too fragile to monitor regularly, we would like to make a couple of visits a year in conjunction with DOC to ensure the continued absence of predators on the island,” she says.
Fairy prions are the smallest prions and part of the petrel family, their colonies are found on islands around New Zealand. Sooty shearwaters are also known as mutton birds or titi and are almost extinct on the mainland of New Zealand.
Black backed gulls, white fronted terns, red-billed gulls and probably blue penguins also nest on the island.
