Mother's love and protection just aren't enough these days if you happen to belong to one of those shorebird species which nest on open beaches. Predators, recreational vehicles, storms and beach-front developments threaten not just this variable oystercatcher chick but the very survival of several other species.
Poised to pounce, the praying mantis takes its name from a fancied,but not altogether appropriate,resemblance to the folded arms of the prayerful.
Adroit as a hummingbird, agile as a gymnast, these builders of elegant paper mansions are becoming a familiar sight in many northern areas. Can they be the same insects that savage some of our favourite garden residents and mete out painful stings to unwary gardeners?
Amphibians of the plants world, mangroves have adapted to life in one nature's most demanding environments.
It was treated like a homecoming, and there was a large and excited welcoming party to greet two flightless takahe that were flown into Tiritiri Matangi, an open island bird sanctuary in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf in late May. The welcoming party of over 400 included a virtual Who's Who of the local ornithological and conservation organisations, and scores of others who had over the years helped with the reforestation of an island that until 1984 had been intensively farmed. Over the years, more than 200,000 trees, many raised in the island's own nursery, have been planted in Tiritiri, mostly by parties of school children. These plantings have allowed such birds as saddleback, bellbird, stitchbird, whitehead and red crown parakeets to be reintroduced from other sanctuaries, to take their places alongside the tui and kereru that have crossed over from the mainland. Of course, not all native birds like dense bush, and the island planting programme has made provision for the possible introduction of species that enjoy open grasslands by leaving some former pasture areas untouched. When takahe were rediscovered in 1948, scientists were astounded. The heavy-bodied flightless rails had been recorded only four times in the previous hundred years. The last of those sightings had been in 1898, 50 years before, so it had been reasonable to believe that the takahe had become extinct. When Dr G.B. Orbell came across a small population of takahe in an out-of-the-way valley of the Murchison Mountains (west of Lake Te Anau in south-west Southland), it was hailed as the bird discovery of the century. Subsequent expeditions into the area established that about 200 pairs of takahe were living above the beech forest tree line, at about 1000m above sea level, in the high tussock grasslands. There they fed mainly on hardy tussocks, but also on other grasses, mountain daisies and sedges. With their large and powerful bills they could easily pull out tussock shoots and then, holding each one dextrously between their toes, strip away the dry outer leaf sheath and snip off the succulent white base beneath. It was easy to make a case for these birds being particularly well adapted for life in these upland tussock meadows. How ever, subsequent finds of sub-fossil takahe bones throughout the South and North Islands, right up to North Cape, indicated that these birds had once been widespread throughout New Zealand. While they can pull, strip and nip off the edible bases of tussock shoots throughout the day, at the rate of six per minute, they also pull up the rhizomes of ferns, snip away at soft herbs and can delicately glean the seeds from an ear of grass. They are clearly well adapted to a general browsing habit suited to the whole range of natural grasslands, and the alpine "homeland" far from being typical, evidently represents only their last retreat. The disappearance of takahe from more accessible open spaces was very probably related to early human settlement and hunting. Although in 1949 it was estimated that there was a fairly healthy population of up to 200 pairs of takahe, and the remote Murchison Mountain valleys seemed to be a safe refuge, a subsequent decline in their numbers was soon noted. Stoats had finally reached these back-blocks and the population of feral red deer, originally released for sport hunting, was multiplying and spreading. The deer are arguably a worse threat than stoats, for they have eaten the heart out of the highland forest undergrowth which was found to be vital winter forage when the tussock was covered by deep snow in winter. From the late 1960s, a decade of deer culling at a rate of 1000 deer a year helped to arrest the natural forest decline, and programmes of artificial breeding at Burwood (near Te Anau) and the Mount Bruce Native Bird Reserve (in Wairarapa) were set up. Later, transfer to predator-free islands commenced. It had long been appreciated that offshore predator-free islands were the best bet for the long term survival of this brilliantly coloured species and other vulnerable birds. Takahe have survived well on Mana and Kapiti Islands north of Wellington and on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds, and the transfer of two takahe from the latter sanctuary to Tiritiri is just the latest step in the island colonisation programme. The two birds, known as Mr Blue and Stormy, are both males, and must be regarded as pioneers on a mission to establish how well South Island takahe take to Tiritiri Matangi Island and to Northland's different climate. Takahe are strongly territorial, with territory sizes ranging from a couple to over 50 hectares, depending on the quality and quantity of the forage. On Tiritiri, some 80 hectares of grassland have been excluded from the tree planting programme, but it is uncertain how many birds this area would support. It is hoped that if Stormy and Mr Blue settle in well and thrive on their Hauraki Gulf island, females will be introduced in about a year, and the following year, chicks may be hatched. Whatever happens, the touchdown of these two birds on May 26 after an epic flight from Blenheim is reminiscent of an earlier pioneering flight. Perhaps as Stormy took his first confident step on Tiritiri he was saying to Mr Blue, and the rest of the world, "A large step for takahe," (for they have very big feet) "a giant leap for conservation."
To some people, crabs are ugly, aggressive scavengers that nip the toes of unsuspecting bathers in cartoons. To biologist John Walsby they are beautiful, complex creatures whose lives are full of intriguing secrets.
Oysters have been flourishing in New Zealand's coastal waters for millions of years. Fossilised oyster shells are a common feature of the exposed outcrops of mudstone, sandstone and conglomerate found along the northeast coast — some date back 20 million years. Just a few kilometres from the Mahurangi Estuary (one of New Zealand's prime oyster culturing areas), fossiliferous rocks at Mathesons Bay are packed with oysters. Some of these ancient specimens would make an oyster glutton drool and even call for a knife and fork, for the shells are the size of bread-and-butter plates. Neither cutlery, nor even humans, were around in those Miocene times, but when humans did eventually arrive on the scene it is clear that they were partial to oysters from their earliest days. In midden material from all around the world Denmark, Ireland, east and west coasts of America, Japan and Australia — oysters feature prominently and are often accompanied by the primitive tools needed to open the shellfish. Many of these middens are huge; one in Ireland measured 300m square and 15m high — a vast rubbish dump containing oysters, cockles, mussels and periwinkles, and showing that shoreline food has long been a staple of humanity. Oysters would have been a most valuable food resource for primitive hunters and gatherers. In addition to the essential proteins in the meat, fat oysters have stores of glycogen; a very good energy food for people living before the days of cereal crops and other cultivated carbohydrate sources. Oysters have been cultured for at least 2000 years, with the earliest records of culturing techniques being those of the Romans. They had an especially high regard for the oyster and sought out naturally bountiful growing areas and different local strains or species as they expanded the Empire. The Romans cultured the shellfish on sticks and ropes suspended from elevated walkways and gantries. Elsewhere around the world culturing methods have been as varied as fashion and local materials have allowed. Generally, culturing has been in quiet waters where wave action is too weak to damage the supporting structures or carry away the developing crop. While protected from storms, these sites invariably have soft bottoms of fine silt which can clog the feeding and breathing apparatus of sedentary animals. Creating suitable culturing conditions has therefore depended on providing hard surfaces for the oysters to attach to and keeping the shellfish above bottom sediments. Simple methods for cultivating mud oysters involved no more than the spreading of large amounts of culch for the spat to settle on. The culch was usually just empty oyster shell from previous harvests, and there were various penalties and bad omens associated with failure to return this most suitable of all substrates to the growing beds. Periodically the beds were raked to lift the developing oysters out of the ever-settling fine sediments. This was a full-time activity for the bed workers in the lowland coastal areas of such countries as England and Belgium where these culturing methods were extensive right up to the last century. In Japan oysters are grown on old shells that have been perforated and strung on ropes suspended from floating rafts or buoyed lines. Elsewhere they are cultured on recycled roof tiles and slates, custom-made trays, bamboo fences and frames, as well as on sticks set out on racks like those seen in New Zealand today. Oyster farming is still a young industry in New Zealand. It had its beginnings in the late 1960s with the then Marine Department promoting the culture of the New Zealand rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata). There was considerable appeal in the prospect of growing a luxury food for which the affluent might be prepared to pay high prices, just by putting sticks out in the tide. Oyster leases were applied for in harbours and inlets all around northern New Zealand, and the now familiar geometric arrays of growing racks sprang up as keen culturers rammed tanalised timber and money into the mud. However, the culturing of the New Zealand rock oyster was never a great financial success. The growing time from freshly caught spat to mature oysters of marketable size three to four years — was too long for growers to recoup an adequate return on their investment. The long culturing periods also brought other problems, particularly fouling of the oysters and competition from other marine organisms. A further problem was erratic and often inadequate settlement of spat ('spatfall'). The chance arrival of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in the early 1970s proved to be the saviour of the oyster culturing industry, though at first some growers were reluctant to farm it, and systematically removed young Pacific oysters from their growing sticks. Opposition, however, was futile. The Pacific soon became dominant in the farmers' spat-catching areas and on natural shores. The new species was here to stay. The main problem for farmers in changing over to the Pacific was that optimum growth for these oysters occurs about half a metre lower on the shore. Existing rack systems had to be lowered or replaced — a time-consuming and costly process. The benefits, though, were unequivocal: an oyster that settled heavily and consistently, grew three times as fast (reaching marketable size in 10-14 months) and was in good condition over much of the year. New methods to grow and handle the Pacific oyster evolved rapidly, and by the end of the decade the Pacific had replaced the New Zealand rock oyster as the main cultivated species. The change-over to the Pacifc oyster caused its share of problems for distributors. Neil Harrington, manager of Auckland export packhouse Kia Ora Seafoods, recalls the difficulty of having to contend with two rock oysters in a relatively small market. "We immediately got some connoisseurs of the native rock oyster who refused point black to eat Pacific oysters, but we also attracted some people who found the mellow flavour of the Pacific more to their taste and possibly for the first time in their lives became oyster eaters." There were plusses and minuses on the export front as well. The Pacific oyster had the advantage of a well-established international reputation, but the New Zealand rock oyster had the advantage of being extremely long-lived out of water (staying fresh for three weeks or more) and of travelling well. Neil Harrington looks nostalgically on the New Zealand rock oyster as a product which never got the chance it deserved, but for growers like Jon Nicholson of BioMarine, a large oyster farm in the Mahurangi Estuary, there is no question that the arrival of the Pacific was the best thing that could have happened. Pacific oysters are now farmed from Parengarenga in the far north to Ohiwa, near Whakatane, in the Bay of Plenty. Of the current 146 leases the majority are single-lease farms of only a few hectares. There are only half a dozen large ventures (with five or more leases) covering areas of some tens of hectares. Between them they produce an estimated 4000 tonnes per annum (approximately 32 million oysters). In 1988 50% of this harvest was exported, bringing in a revenue of $4.6 million. The main production areas are the Bay of Islands, Whangaroa, Mahurangi and Coromandel. In west coast harbours such as the Kaipara growers have the problem of their oysters being heavily overspatted in their second summer. Some growers have overcome this problem by moving oysters to the east coast during the spawning season, while others are using the prolific spatfall to advantage by producing single seed oysters for other growers . The positioning of oyster farms is a compromise between water quality and wave exposure. Pacific oysters grow best in open water, where temperatures are less variable, oxygen levels are higher and amounts of gill-clogging sediment are less. Oyster farmers look for areas where strong water flows bring a plentiful supply of food and where wave action stops mud from building up around the shells. However, greater exposure puts racks and crop at risk, so growing sites just inside estuaries are sought as the prime areas for oyster culture. The height of the growing racks is set at about the level of neap low tide (the highest of the low tides). At these times of the lunar cycle, when there is least difference between high and low tide, the oysters are barely exposed in air at low water. The description of oyster farming which follows is based largely on the methods used at Bio-Marine in the Mahurangi Estuary, one of the first farms set out specifically for growing Pacific oysters. To grow oysters, first you must catch the spat. Essentially this is very simple, as oysters will grow on almost any hard, cleanish surface. In harbours, estuaries and sheltered bays where sediments accumulate, suitable natural substrates are fairly scarce. The spat will therefore settle very readily on any artificial hard surfaces provided. Sticks put out for this purpose are usually nailed together in bundles and wired to 'catching racks'. Spacers are placed between the sticks so that water carrying the oysters' swimming veliger larvae is able to circulate freely, ensuring an even settlement. Before use, new sticks are dipped in a thin slurry of sand and cement which dries to give a rock-like film over the surface of the wood, ideal for the settlement of oyster spat. Locally developed and manufactured PVC sticks are also used. Pacific oysters breed by the separate males and females releasing their spawn of sperm and eggs into the water simultaneously. Spawning is initially stimulated by a rise in seawater temperature to about 22°C, but spawning by one individual also serves as a strong stimulus to neighbouring oysters to join in too. Spawning may occur at any time from December through to March, but the peak is generally around new year. Getting the right number of spat on a stick is tricky. An ideal density is between six and eight dozen, but it is possible for 10,000 spat to settle on a single stick. To prevent such over-settlement (which results in malformed, undersized oysters) some farmers delay putting out their spat-collecting bundles until the peak of spawning has passed. This approach has its risks because all spawning may suddenly cease with a sharp change in weather conditions, leaving the farmer with insufficient spat on the sticks, and hence wasted space. To a certain extent variations in settled spat densities can be accommodated by good management. Sticks with a lower density of oysters can be placed closer together on the growing racks. Alternatively, the catching sticks can be kept in their bundles to limit growth. There is insufficient water flow through the stick bundles to support active growth and juveniles soon reach a small size plateau. At this size (about 20mm in diameter) they are, so to speak, kept 'on hold' — healthy, but unable to grow further. This arrangement is very convenient for harvest management because active growth only commences after the catching sticks have been broken out of their bundles and laid out on the growing racks. By setting out sticks at regular intervals from the reservoir of bundled sticks, the oyster farmer is able to spread his harvest of marketable-sized oysters through the year. Moreover, forecast peaks in demand can be accommodated by increasing the number of sticks set out in advance to correspond with an expected growth rate. As with most farming ventures, growing conditions vary from year to year, affecting the crop quality and time to reach maturity. With the warm temperatures that persisted through the late summer and autumn this year, oysters have grown much faster than normal. As a consequence, some oysters set out to be ready for the 1989 Christmas market will reach optimum size too soon. These will have to be harvested at a time when there is less demand, and careful management of remaining stocks will be required to ensure sufficient numbers for the festive season. At Bio-Marine the process of setting out the thousands of collecting sticks is speeded up by the use of a nailing gun. The thin steel nails or staples slowly rust away, but hold well enough to secure the sticks until the oysters are ready to harvest. During harvesting, sticks with mature oysters are lifted from the racks and loaded into cradles or 'frames' on a flat-decked barge for transport back to a landing. There the cradles are hoisted on to a truck to be taken to the processing factory. To release all the oysters from each stick requires only a few stout blows along its length with a piece of iron waterpipe. The oysters are given a crude wash to remove the worst of the mud that accumulates over and between the tightly packed, frilly shells. Any clumped oysters are broken apart by hand as they pass along a conveyor belt to a rotating tumble-washer with high pressure water jets. The cleaned oysters are then size sorted. About half are of standard marketable size, with a quarter being of premium size and the remainder undersized. The latter are packed loosely into plastic mesh bags which are returned to the growing racks for about four months, until the oysters reach marketable size. Bio-Marine markets its oysters in three ways. Some, in good-shaped shells, are sold alive and unopened. Many are exported live to New Caledonia, where restaurant diners are prepared to pay premium prices to have the living animals opened in front of them at the table. A large proportion of the oyster harvest is sold in the 'half shell'. The flat upper shell valve is removed after cutting its connection to the large, central shell-closing muscle, leaving the succulent mollusc lying in a delicate serving dish that it grew itself. As food presentation is all-important, it is critical that oysters in the half shell are not damaged or spoilt with broken fragments of shell, and look truly appetising. The skill of the oyster opener is therefore an important factor in the reputation of the processing house. Any oysters that are slightly damaged during opening, or specimens that do not look fully fat, or are oversized, are taken out of the shell and sold to commercial and domestic caterers and fish shops as 'meat' oysters. Present-day oyster prices are as follows: At an ordinary restaurant half a dozen oysters in the half shell with a twist of lemon and little other preparation cost about $10 (= $20 per dozen). The same dozen oysters would retail for $5 in a city shop which had purchased them from the processor/ packer for $2.60. Some packers are also growers, but many handle product from small operations whose proprietors receive only $1.65 per dozen for unopened oysters suitable for marketing in the shell. Meat oysters are worth very little in comparison: a grower is lucky to get 15 cents a dozen. There is considerable fluctuation in local demand for rock oysters throughout the year. Demand drops from March to August, when Bluff oysters are available, and is also affected by a period of low restaurant activity during winter. Low season demand is about 5000 dozen per week, but this increases to 25,000 dozen per week during the high season from October to January. Thereafter supply drops off as spawning oysters lose condition. The domestic market is supplied mainly with oysters in the half shell and 'meat' out of the shell, chilled in plastic tubes or pots for the restaurant trade and for private consumers inexpert at opening shelled oysters. The whole of the domestic market is worth a little over $4 million per annum. The export market commands slightly higher prices (about $4.50 per dozen from the packhouse) with three quarters being sent as oysters in the half shell. The live export of unopened oysters, a moderate part of this market, is available to grower-marketers who can ensure that their product reaches its overseas destination within about 24 hours of harvesting. As unopened oysters require much less processing they are a profitable commodity at about $3 per dozen. [Chapter break] Most People Enjoy a good oyster, but to some they are nothing short of ambrosia. The Romans went to great trouble to ship the succulent shellfish from England to Italy packed in ice. (Though that is probably no more bizarre than us air-freighting considerable tonnages of oyster shell, with small amount of oyster meat inside, all the way to Japan, the United States and other distant countries.) In America a good many people have even been killed in disputes over rights to the prized beds of the Potomac River. The oyster is one of the few animals that we eat live. Open the shell, drink the liquor and then let the slippery mollusc slide out of its shell straight into your mouth. Some like to chew them slowly while others just roll them around the palate for a while before swallowing the creatures whole. Oysters seem to have a special appeal that is found in few other foods, for they have frequently been associated with amazing exhibitions of gluttony and excess. In ancient Rome thousands were consumed in lavish Bacchanalian feasts. It was apparently normal etiquette for the revellers to gorge themselves until they could eat no more, and then retire to a vomitarium with peacock feathers or other throat ticklers. Thus relieved, they could return to the party and start all over again. Oysters are molluscs, like cockles, mussels, grazing snails, whelks, slugs and octopus, but they are much simpler than many of their relatives. Because they do not move, they have no need for eyes or tentacles to sense where they are going — in fact, no need for a head at all. They possess neither teeth nor jaws, for they eat only microscopic plankton filtered by their gills and swallowed in a mucus stream. A common feature of nearly all molluscs is a muscular foot. Slugs and snails crawl along on it, clams use it for burrowing into mud and sand and mussels use it to attach elastic anchor ropes called byssus threads to rocks. As the headless adult oyster does none of these things, it is not surprising to find that it also has no foot. The free-swimming larval oyster, however, does have an active foot that allows it to crawl about in search of the ideal site to settle. As soon as the shell is cemented it has no further use for the foot, which withers and is lost. This lack of a foot is such a diagnostic feature that it can be used to distinguish oysters from other shellfish even after they have been smoked and canned in oil. (Such diagnosis is required from time to time by importing authorities to verify that canned smoked oysters are true to label.) By looking for the foot — and not finding it— a biologist is easily able to complete the verification. Lewis Carroll appears to have known about this detail of the oyster's anatomy. In his poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Through the Looking Glass we read: "But four young oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat, Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet." On the surface of it, oysters lead an idyllic life. They stay in their beds all day long; the only work they do is opening and shutting their shells; their meals are delivered to them, and they spend most of their lives drinking, putting away on average 180 litres a day. Of course, the problem with cementing your bed to the substrate and dispensing with the means to get out of it is that it is impossible to escape from stressful environmental changes, competition for a limited food supply, or from animals that try to eat you. Oysters can only defend themselves by adopting the siege strategies of medieval people who sought shelter in thick-walled castles. Such strategies often failed because the invaders eventually found a way in or penetrated the walls, or else the inhabitants died of starvation or disease. Life for the oyster contains similar difficulties. Sediment can choke them, hot summer days coinciding with low tides can cook them, run-off from the land can bathe them in fresh water (causing internal stress) and they are a tasty target for predators. Tooth marks all over the bare surfaces of oyster racks and sticks show that they are routinely grazed very thoroughly by fish. This would be sufficient to remove a large proportion of freshly settled oyster spat if the catching sticks were not kept wired up in bundles until the juveniles had grown sufficiently to no longer be vulnerable to this incidental predation. The oyster-borer Lepsiella scobina is a frequent killer of wild rock oysters on sheltered shores, but rarely attacks rack-cultured specimens. Also known as oyster-drills, these whelks are beautifully equipped for penetrating the oyster's armour. The rasping tongue with rows of hardened teeth (called the radula, and found in all snails) is modified in the whelks for drilling holes and mincing flesh. Each replaceable row has just three multi-cusped teeth, and on the terminal row these are arrayed around the working tip like the three cutting wheels of a geological drill. The radula is held within a proboscis tube that extends down to the oyster surface. The proboscis holds the drill tip in position as it is rotated alternately clockwise and anticlockwise to wear away a perfectly round hole. The whelk lubricates the abrading tip with a mucus secretion that may contain an acid to dissolve or soften the limestone matrix of the oyster's shell. It may take from one to three days to bore right through, depending on the size of the whelk and the thickness of the oyster shell, but the predator is rewarded with an enormous feast at the end. The proboscis and radula are squeezed through the hole to macerate the live oyster's soft tissues into a pulp which is sucked up through the proboscis into the whelk's mouth. If you were to put yourself in the position of the oyster, this would surely be one of the worst ways to die. Imagine listening to that incessant grinding for a couple of days, knowing that when the drilling was complete you would feel the toothed proboscis snaking across your body. It would then start mincing up only the less vital parts of the body to keep you, the victim, alive for as long as possible so that the shell did not gape to allow scavengers in to share the feast. Other predators include crabs, which break off the shell margins to gain access to the flesh inside, large starfish, which pull the shells open before smothering the whole animal and digesting it, and rays, which crush the shells with their powerful flattened teeth. The `mudworm' Polydora can be a serious problem on oyster farms, particularly if oysters are too tightly clumped and mud accumulates between the shells. Polydora is a small marine worm that lives in a tunnel that it bores chemically in chalky mollusc shells. The filter-feeding worm only seeks shelter from its host, but as it grows larger it must enlarge its living space, and narrow tunnels can become sizeable caverns partly filled with mud and mucus. Sometimes the worms bore right through the shell and the oyster responds by secreting a thin patch of nacreous shell over the hole (the same process by which pearls are formed in the pearl oyster). The problem with these internal shell blisters is that they are thin and easily broken. There is a danger that using a sharp blade to free an oyster from its shell may result in a blister being broken, and unsightly anaerobic mucus oozing out from the mud-worm's tunnel to taint the oyster. This year some farms have seen up to 80 per cent of their harvest spoiled by mudworm. Infections by fungi, bacteria and viruses are as common in the sea as they are to us and other organisms on land. Many infections are common in all marine shellfish, but are at a low level and generally go unnoticed. However, they can become serious in farmed populations where huge numbers are concentrated in small areas in conditions that allow very easy transmission between individuals. Fortunately for New Zealand oyster farmers there is no record of Bonamia, the scourge of the Bluff beds, affecting Pacific oysters. The oyster industry in New Zealand faces other kinds of hazards too. With world oyster production in excess of one million tonnes per year, our 4000 tonnes of exports relegates us to being a minor player competing against suppliers who are closer to the major markets (Hong Kong, USA,Singapore and Australia) and for whom labour costs are often much lower. Strong international price competition and a depressed local economy have given New Zealand growers a hammering. For many growers profits have not been commensurate with the capital investment and sheer hard work of operating an oyster farm. To make matters worse, the influx of a whole range of new seafood products on to the market has provided stiff competition for the oyster. Once the pieces de resistance of any smorgasbord, oysters have become passé, just one more item in an increasingly cramped section of the food market. After a decade of strong expansion in the industry, production levels and prices have been static for the last few years. All is not gloom, however. With renewed interest in all aspects of shellfish cultivation (and government predictions that the country has the potential to earn $250 million from aquaculture) oysters are likely to be on the menu for a long time to come.
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