For the love of Mauao

A little blue penguin eyes a bit of plastic and starts chomping on it, before feeding the plastic to its baby – it's a vicious cycle.

Rubbish recently left on Mauao.

'A lot of seabirds eat plastic, they think it's food,” says Mauao Area Wildlife Trust director Julia Graham.

'Then they feed it to their young and they end up starving to death because they can't digest the plastic and can't process it, so it fills up their bellies.”

Julia says fishing lines, broken glass and other rubbish left dumped on Mauao is a major issue for the estimated 800 penguins that live on the mountain.

That's why Mauao Area Wildlife is hosting a clean-up of the mountain this Valentine's Day.

Julia says with high foot traffic during the holiday season, Mount Maunganui accumulates a lot of rubbish, particularly in places important to the wildlife.

'The trust tries to hold regular clean ups from the second Sunday of every month. But because it's after New Year's and there's been a lot of action on the mountain – and with the recent fire – we just thought it was a really good opportunity to get out there and show the mountain a bit of love.”

Between 800-900m2 on the northeast side of Mauao was burned following a fire that is believed to have been deliberately lit by people throwing fireworks from the summit on January 14.

While Julia says the penguins were safe from the alleged arson, as they can't burrow in the rock cliff face where the fire occurred, she believes if the fire had been a month earlier it could've been devastating.

'There would've been grey-faced chicks everywhere because they like those cliff bush areas,” Julia told SunLive at the time of the fire.

'This time of year there's always going to be young birds. Luckily, most of the young petrels have fledged by this time of year; there's maybe a few left.”

Julia says this time of year is also moulting season for the penguins, with plenty of fledglings on the mountain.

'We try and make it safe for them in preparation for moulting season and for the grey-faced petrels which start coming back to their nests in April.

'We want to keep it [Mauao] as clean as possible for the penguins, and the safety of the people as well. We love having our kids out there running around Mauao and to see broken glass and things like that everywhere is just really sad.”

Mauao Area Wildlife Trust's Mauao Clean Up is today, February 14, from 2pm-4pm.

Volunteers are encouraged to meet at Mount Maunganui Surf Club and bring water, food, closed in footwear and sunblock. Gloves and rubbish bags will be provided.

You may also like....

1 comment

Well

Posted on 14-02-2016 19:52 | By Capt_Kaveman

Stop moaning about and do something, lots of unemployed and able homeless, to many sitting at a desk with no insight on getting these able people moving for the better


Leave a Comment


You must be logged in to make a comment.