Southern Māori ask to 'control' protected fur seal population to save muttonbirding heritage

Saturday, 27 October 2018

The fur seal population is increasing on the Tītī Islands in Foveaux Strait, causing problems for Maori who have customary rights to gather muttonbirds there.

Muttonbirders want to control protected fur seals, to stop them marauding over the habitat of the small seabirds that have been harvested by Māori in a tradition dating back countless generations.

Rakiura Māori are to meet with Department of Conservation officials this week, to discuss controlling one species to save another from population collapse.

They are expected to push for a targeted cull of the protected kekeno seals, or a management solution to keep them off the 21 Tītī Islands, off the bottom of New Zealand.

Rakiura Tītī Islands Administering Body chairman Tane Davis has written to the Department of Conservation, requesting they investigate methods to control kekeno on the islands.

**READ MORE:

Rakiura (Stewart Island) Māori have rights to gather muttonbirds on the Tītī Islands, around Stewart Island. They can harvest chicks each year from April 1 to May 31.

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* Once there were muttonbirds

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Rakiura Māori families have rights to gather tītī (muttonbirds) on the islands, in April and May each year. About 500 people exercise those rights, and they have whare on the islands where they stay. They snare the chicks as they emerge from their burrows, in the traditional manner.

But in a letter released under the Official Information Act, Davis said seal numbers were increasing by 25 per cent a year, 'overwhelming' the islands that are nesting grounds to the tītī.

'Each year now our people Rakiura Māori, who access their Islands, are indicating … the effects kekeno are having on their islands, and in some cases their own safety,' he warns.

'Mass areas of tītī burrows are being lost from seals flattening the whenua. In my own case, like others, they inhabit under our whare areas. Caution has to be taken especially when we have the company of our mokopuna and tamariki.'

Sooty shearwaters (muttonbirds) swarm in large numbers.

Forest & Bird marine conservation advocate Anton van Helden said the proposal to control fur seals was 'ridiculous'; the 200,000-plus New Zealand fur seal population was 'nowhere near' the estimated 2 million kekeno that lived around New Zealand before they were devastated by sealing in the 1800s.

'Culling fur seals is a no go,' van Helden argued. 'We need to consider other ways to control a situation like this. If in fact they are impacting on tītī, we have to find other measures to protect tītī.'

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage refused to comment, referring enquiries to the Department.

Tony Preston, the Conservation Department's operations manager for Murihiku, said the department had acknowledged Rakiura Māori concerns about the kekeno population on the Tītī Islands.

Kekeno had been recolonising areas around New Zealand since their protection under the Marine Mammals Protection Act in 1978.

'We have not yet met with the Rakiura Tītī Island Administering Body or Ngāi Tahu rūnanga and this will be the first step to get a better understanding of the impact kekeno are having on the Tītī Islands and the cultural harvesting of tītī,' he said.

'This is a complex issue and it would be inappropriate to comment ahead of discussions with Ngāi Tahu.'

Dr Michael Stevens, a former senior lecturer in Māori History at the University of Otago, completed a PhD in History that examined the knowledge and practices that underlay the annual tītī harvest, an activity he takes part in.

'The Tītī Islands are not, in my view, the rightful place for large numbers of seals. We lost substantial control of managing our own fisheries – paua, fish, and seals – and thus those things are now problematic.

'Where we have maintained control – the harvest itself – things are mostly in good health. This is the result of whole bundle of established customs that remain intact: only juvenile tītī are harvested and houses on the islands are only built in specified areas where tītī do not nest.

Rakiura Māori were in a difficult position trying to protect the birds, he said. 'If we cull seals on our islands, in line with our ancestors' behaviour, we would be breaching any number of statutes.

'However, if we abide by those statutes, the tree life and thus burrow density of several Tītī Islands will decline massively – and we would be failing to preserve the asset bequeathed to us and be passing on a lesser asset to our own children and mokopuna in turn.

'This quandary will be with us for as long as this country's laws and thus regimes of environmental management are disproportionately controlled by North Island-based and urban-dwelling Pakeha preservationists.'