ROB DAVIDSON/SUPPLIED
A new colony at Tawhitinui Bay, a
fairly sheltered part of Te Hoiere/Pelorus Sound, actually gained about 22
birds in the last three years.
A vulnerable rare bird
species has lost a quarter of its population in three years, prompting a slew
of theories and calls for reclassification.
A second aerial king shag census
has recorded a large drop in the number of birds in the Marlborough Sounds,
down to 634, which is about 200 fewer than the first census in 2015.
The drastic drop in just
three years has residents, industry bosses and conservationists worried about
whether aquaculture, climate change or other causes are to blame.
Ornithologist Rob Schuckard
said in his report on the census most of the 12 breeding colonies, which are
only found in the Marlborough Sounds, had shrunk by an average of 24 per
cent.
The largest colony at Duffers
Reef, in the outer Te Hoiere/Pelorus Sound had lost about 85 birds,
he revealed in the report.
However the Tawhitinui colony,
also in Te Hoiere/Pelorus Sound gained about 22 birds, while the
Ruakaka-Blackwood colony in the Queen Charlotte Sound gained five,
calculated using averages numbers from three different assessors.
The new results were at odds with
expert advice given at aquaculture resource consent hearings in previous years
about the stability of the population, despite increasing industry in
the Sounds.
The census was commissioned by
New Zealand King Salmon (NZKS), which agreed to check the population every
three years as part of resource consent conditions for its Waitata
and Kopua salmon farms.
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