Power poles and cars to blame for recent spate of kea deaths near Arthur's Pass
Saturday, 9 September 2017
Cars and power poles are to blame for a recent spate of kea deaths in the South Island.
Seven keas were killed in the Arthur's Pass area in August, soon after a civilian-run tagging programme kicked off to track the treasured alpine parrots.
In an update on their website, the Arthur's Pass Kea Team said two keas, named Andrew and Opawa, were electrocuted by a power pole at Temple Basin Ski Area.
'DOC Arthur's Pass and Temple Basin are trying to work with Orion to reduce these sorts of death from happening,' the blog post said.
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Four keas were also killed in road accidents in various locations across the region.
'It's important that you be vigilant in areas where keas are known to hang around the roads, including ski-field car parks, and slow down if necessary.
'In all cases, it is the young juveniles that are getting into trouble.'
Tourists and locals alike flock to Arthur's Pass to catch a glimpse of the intelligent, if not sometimes obnoxiously so, parrots.
Well-known for pulling rubber linings from skiers and tourists windows, research has shown the birds are good at team work, and fun and play was inherent to their nature.
A Givealittle page had been set up to help fund the team's work, through the Kea Conservation Trust, which had already raised $18,000.
They worked on the database for months and officially launched it on August 23.
'People like interacting with kea, they like taking photos with them they like feeding them, even though they shouldn't,' team member Laura Young said.
She said encouraging people to become citizen scientists and log kea sightings would promote interacting with the bird 'in a more meaningful way'.
Logging a sighting could be done online and only required the date, time, general location, ankle band colour, a description of the bird or birds and an email address. People could also send in pictures of kea they had seen.
Young said it would be lonely in the mountains without the parrot, and that sense of isolation was increasing as numbers decreased.
'They're just particularly noticeable by their absence.
'Lots of people anecdotally report that they're noticing fewer and fewer kea over the years,' she said.