The national Seaweek campaign is led by the Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre in March each year and is a campaign that is especially important to the Department of Conservation on the West Coast with our taonga species and Marine Reserves.
This year’s theme was ‘celebrating sea creatures of Aotearoa’. DOC held a West Coast regional photo competition again, with some great prizes from very generous local organisations – including the West Coast Penguin Trust who provided a penguin themed prize pack. There was also a prize for the most proactive school (two nights at Ōkārito School House).
Along with other contributors, the Trust helped to judge the photos entered from Coasters as young as 4 or 5.
The winner of our penguin prize pack was Elise Caldwell of Hokitika, who said:
“I celebrate Seaweek by observing lots of sea creatures at Tauranga Bay seal colony. I loved watching this mummy and baby seal snoozing and snuggling together.”
Congratulations Elise!
All the Seaweek 2024 photo competition winners can be found here.
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!
