Ulva Island Trust, New Zealand

Ulva Island is an open sanctuary of international biodiversity importance. It hosts such rare plants in the wild as Gunnera hamiltonii, Euphorbia glauca, and native birds such as Brown Creeper (Pipipi, Mohoua ochrocephala), Rifleman (Titi pounamu, Acanthisitta chloris chlori), Stewart Island Brown Kiwi (Tokoeka, Apteryx australis lawryi) and Yellowhead (Mohua, Mohoua achrocephala). Ulva Island is one of only two scientific reserves in all of New Zealand open to the public (the other being Tiritiri Matangi near Auckland). Dancing Star Foundation was pleased to be able to support two re-publications of the important guide to Ulva Island, written and produced by the Ulva Island Charitable Trust.

For more information:

> New Zealand Department of Conservation official website

> Ulva Island Bird Sanctuary Guided Walks website

> Elwin Productions, Natural History Filmmaking and Photography

> Stewart Island News Kakapo Encounter website

Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust Fund

A 5-year project, 2003 – 2008, was initiated in response to an observed decline in the number of breeding pairs of yellow-eyed penguins. Surveys in the early 1990’s estimated there to be ~600 breeding pairs on and around Stewart Island, but the Trust’s own comprehensive population census work in 1999 – 2002 found only ~200 breeding pairs. Also observed were a low number of juveniles and a large number of unexplained chick deaths which were of significant concern. Identifying the problem will provide the relevant guidance for ongoing management of this threatened species.

The Trust is particularly interested in what happens to the chicks in their first month, and will be taking weights and measurements over this time. This will allow researchers to compare the growth rate of each chick with the expected normal growth rate. Assumptions can then be made about the food supply – if the growth rate is slower than normal right from hatching then the food supply may well be the main problem. If the growth rate begins well then slows later, it could be that disease is kicking in after a couple of weeks, which in turn causes the chicks to starve and growth to slow down.

In contrast to Year 4, which resulted in 0% breeding success in the monitored area on Stewart Island (the Anglem coast) and lower breeding success on the monitored off-shore islands than in previous years, 2009 was much better. Six chicks fledged from the Anglem coast. This is the best season of all during this study for these island groups, perhaps influenced by the spectacularly fine summer and La Nina weather patterns experienced this season. However, it is even more obvious that all is not well for the birds along the Anglem coast. Firstly, only 16 nests were located, compared to 32 nests which were found along the same stretch of coast during the Trust’s comprehensive survey of Stewart Island in 1999. That is a very disturbing statistic showing a considerable reduction in the number of breeding pairs over 9 breeding seasons.

Secondly, of the 25 chicks that hatched from those 16 nests, 19 died and only six survived to fledge. All of the chicks deaths occurred before Christmas, during the Guard Phase, and most chicks died within three weeks of hatching. No predation was recorded, but starvation and disease were once again evident as causes of chick death.

Of course, this alone won’t answer all of the questions, but with the continuation of other external research into the foraging behavior (i.e. where birds go to feed, how deep and how long their dives are) of birds on Stewart and Codfish Islands, more may be gleaned. Also The Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust Fund began a study of the penguins ‘diet, and a more detailed investigation into the disease aspect of these birds. Researchers are hopeful that the end result will be a lot more detailed information, and, hopefully, some answers.

The Trust is proposing to carry out a full survey of the Auckland Islands in order to obtain a clear picture of the status of yellow-eyed penguin nationally, and to obtain a baseline for future comparison of changes in distribution and abundance. However this research will have to wait until necessary funds have been raised.

For more information, and to Donate:

> The Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust website

Dancing Star Ecological Preserve, New Zealand

In New Zealand, Dancing Star Foundation owns and maintains an ecological preserve which the Foundation created on the southern most island of Rakiura, or Stewart Island.

Comprising over 400 acres of hilly coastal land adjoining New Zealand’s most recently designated Rakiura National Park, the DSF Preserve can be divided into four distinct floral zones: Podocarp-broadleaf forest, coastal vegetation with an array of Coprosma, tree ferns and tree fuchsia, a small sphagnum-and-sedge wetland and pasture with sedges, bracken and various grasses. The forest is dominated by kamahi (Weimannia racemosa), rata (Metrosideros umbellate), rimu and miro trees. The coniferous rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) may live in excess of 500 years and grow to forty metres. The Preserve contains at least 126 native species, at least 11 native bird species and 7 known invertebrate species.

Among the many bird species found in the Preserve are Red-crowned Parakeets (Kakariki, Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae), Wood Pigeon (Kukupa or Keruru, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), parrots (Kaka, Nestor m.meridionalis), Tomtit (Ngiru-ngiru, Petroica macrocephala), Fantail (Piwakawaka, Rhipidura f. fulginosa), Bellbird (Korimako, Melanura anthornis), Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae), Grey Warbler (Riroriro, Gerygone igata), Silvereye (Tauhou, Zosterops lateralis lateralis) and Blue Penguins (Korora, Eudyptula minor).

The DSF Preserve constitutes what conservationists call a “mainland island.” A large portion of the refuge has been specially enclosed within an approximately 2.1 kilometer long state-of-the-art ecologically-engineered fence (designed by the internationally-famed New Zealand-based company, Xcluder) to help inhibit the movement into the sanctuary of non-native mammals which have a serious, negative impact upon indigenous life forms. An extensive grid of protections is in place, including electronic and video surveillance, with instant telephonic and satellite communication to a national network and a response team that can counteract any and all breaches. The Foundation is actively engaged in the ongoing monitoring of numerous fixed plots for re-vegetation, and continuous restoration of the Ecological Preserve. A team of top New Zealand scientists are advisory members for this exciting endeavor.

The refuge is not open to the public but is the sole domain of the wild biodiversity that dwells therein, watched over by dedicated staff members. Along with Ulva Island, this will be the only predator free piece of land on all of Stewart Island/Rakiura, and the first true place of safety for native species in 150 years on the Stewart Island mainland, New Zealand’s third largest island.

Other community and Department of Conservation efforts on the island indicate that, in time, the entirety of Stewart Island may well be free of non-native predators, making it one of the most globally important islands of biodiversity in the world. The biodiversity managers of Southland, and of Stewart Island, have embraced that vision.

And it is a vision that is, at least symbolically, a metaphor and true microcosm for the kind of research and goals embraced by DSF throughout the world.

Farm Animal Sanctuary, Upstate New York

In upstate New York, Gene Baur and his Farm Sanctuary is the focus of one of the key domestic chapters in Sanctuary. It was also a key filming location for DSF’s “Mad Cowboy”. DSF was honored to be able to help disseminate word of the fine work that Gene and his colleagues have engaged in for over twenty years, putting a face on all those billions of cows, sheep, turkeys, chickens and the like that end up on dinner plates, as leather handbags or fur coats. More than 52 billion so-called “farm animals” are slaughtered globally each year for human consumption of one form or other, and that does not include the tens of billions of fish that are killed. In the U.S., over 9 billion chickens and over 97 million bovines are slaughtered annually. Gene and colleagues have worked steadily to cast light on the abuses of the slaughter and transport industries; the indifference of many lawmakers and consumers; and the whole system of cruelty that has trapped so many animals from the moment they are born to the moment of their terrible deaths. Farm Sanctuary, near Ithaca, New York, as well as their sanctuary near Orland, California are two places where families may come to commune with rescued animals and realize how wonderful, spiritual, magical they are, up close and personal.

Gene’s efforts began in 1986 with a single gruesome discovery of a sheep that he and his partner Lorri would subsequently name Hilda. Hilda would have been just another statistic, heaped in a pile of animals left for dead. Hilda had passed out from injuries and heat exhaustion in a cramped truck that had taken her to be slaughtered. Once found, she was rescued and rehabilitated in the backyard shed of Gene’s home in Delaware. As the number of rescued animals grew, it became clear that more land was needed. Farm Sanctuary grew up as a result.

The revelatory literature regarding the nightmare of factory farming is now considerable, dating to the early debates in the British Parliament beginning around 1809; the first anti-vivisection laws; and then, the 1906 publication of Upton Sinclair’s portrait of slaughterhouses in Chicago, in his novel The Jungle. When Gene founded Farm Sanctuary few people had ever actually gotten inside slaughterhouses to investigate abuse and cruelty and lack of compliance with the Animal Welfare Act. But details have since come to light, in part due to consumer fears about tainted meat and transmissible diseases that were less known a generation ago. Gene, who studied agricultural economics at Cornell College in Ithaca, has declared calmly that factory farms are inherently wrong. “There’s no reason for them in this day and age.”

Gene and colleagues are actively engaged in education and legal reform work. In the year 2006, Farm Sanctuary sponsored a ballot initiative that was passed in the State of Arizona “outlawing gestation crates and veal crates”. Five Farm Sanctuary sponsored events in 44 cities throughout the U.S. devoted to a “Walk for Farm Animals” day took place. Also in that year Farm Sanctuary rescued 120 “broiler” chickens from “an abandonment case” in Brooklyn, New York; campaigned in Chicago against Foie Gras production; issued a scientific report pertaining to “The Welfare of Cattle in Beef Production”; and provided an oasis of peace and love for 1,500 more animals between its two refuges. At the same time, Gene has continued to campaign to prevent the suffering of “downed animals”; to promote more humane standards in New Jersey; to institute a national ban on battery cages and gestation crates; and other reforms he views as essential within the American Veterinary Medical Association. That’s for starters. Farm Sanctuary issues “go vegetarian” checkbooks which also read: Stand Up For Animals. They sell vegan cutlets, soy milk, books and videos; and they provide information on where to dine vegan within their area (a remarkable 31 different restaurants within the region.)

Too frequently ecological disciplines ignore meat-eating and the abuse of domesticated animals, as if to assert that abuse and predation is inherent to nature and evolution. What Gene and his colleagues teach is that humans are far beyond the brutalities of nature to the extent that our hearts have the capacity for unconditional love. This might be the solution to our other woes as a species. If we can make peace with the Lamb of God, then perhaps we can learn to respect and cherish each other.

For more information:

> Farm Sanctuary website

Central Park, New York

In profiling the most celebrated urban refuge in North America for Sanctuary, the 843 acre Central Park in Manhattan, DSF was fortunate to work with artist Cal Vornberger, one of the great photographers of birdlife in the world. For more than three years, Cal has made a daily pilgrimage into the park with his cameras to document the 270-odd bird species found there. (See Cal Vornberger, Birds Of Central Park, Foreword by Marie Winn, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2005).

But the park is also a haven for 26,000 trees of 200 species, at least 172 known insect species, 14 fresh-water vertebrate species, and numerous mammals, including Big Brown Bats, Eastern Red Bats, Eastern Gray Squirrel, Raccoon, Eastern Cottontail, Deer Mouse, Common Raccoon, Woodchuck and Norway Rat – and, recently, a wandering coyote. In fact, during a 24-hour bio-marathon, 837 species were recorded.

Even the microbes and algae are now being investigated. One of the Central Park Conservancy’s long-time initiatives concerns environmental education and basic scientific research. Native tree and shrub recruitment is studied alongside those non-natives that were planted in the Park. Wildlife migrations take up a huge part of the study; also, soil analysis, flora and fauna disease vectors, the monitoring of plots to observe regeneration – and the ever present possibility of finding new species that have made their way into the Park. There has also been a number of bio-invasives in Central Park. For example, in the 19th century, one fellow brought every bird species ever written about by Shakespeare into the park. The millions of starlings across America date to those first immigrants.

If you want to be alone in the middle of New York, Central Park is the place. Sit on a quiet park bench, call it your own and ruminate on all the mysteries and beauties of this world.

Here the wilderness conjured up by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux remains consecrated ground. The sense of a sacred wilderness in the middle of busy lives was partly expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and lived out by Henry David Thoreau. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park also invites a meditation on that wilderness, as its collection includes many of the greatest American landscape paintings, particularly Hudson River School artists like Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt, as well as the remarkable impressionist painter, George Inness.

Central Park, as President of Park Conservancy Doug Blonsky points out, has also rejuvenated Manhattan in some respects, becoming a haven for families to resettle the area. With 25 million visitors or so each year, this is one of the great sanctuaries on Earth.

For more information:

> Central Park Conservancy official website

> Wildlife Photography of Cal Vornberger

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Reserve

DSF chose to highlight Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve for its Sanctuary book for several reasons. One, it is the largest park in the United States. And, in combination with the contiguous preserves and parks in Canada, it forms the largest terrestrially protected area in all of North America, and one of the most extensive on the planet. It contains the largest number of glaciers in North America, many unnamed; and its tidewater glaciers (glaciers flowing directly into the Gulf of Alaska) are unique ecosystems in and of themselves.

18% of the entire known global population of Kittlitz’s Murrelets, one of the most endangered seabirds in the United States, lives in a particular Bay at the base of the largest vertical mountain wall on Earth, the West Face of Mount St. Elias (over 18,000 feet in elevation), the fourth highest peak in North America, after Mount McKinley, and Canada’s Mount Logan and Mount Cook. Mount St. Elias rises above the waters of the Pacific and its sheer walls and glacial shelves are home to this tenacious, remarkable little Alcidae family avian, the solitary Murrelet. The bird nests on the cliffs, possibly directly on the glaciers, but feeds socially out at sea.

Biologist Michelle Kissling and team, with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, as well as the National Park Service, have a long term study in place to better estimate the numbers of individual murrelets, their diet, distribution, movements throughout the year, reproductive ecology and behavior. The goal is to try and gain sufficient knowledge in order to help these birds stave off rapid decline. Sadly, their numbers have decreased some 80% in the past decade and a half. They’ll be gone in two decades if their crisis cannot be thoroughly identified and any adverse conditions somehow mitigated.

The extinction factors affecting this and other seabirds have previously been thought of largely in terms of potential oil spills, but there are countless other considerations. Global Warming looms large, a reality that may make it all but impossible for humans to restore healthy Kittlitz’s populations. No one knows for sure, because neither the Aleutians nor the Lost Coast of Alaska have yet been surveyed for this species. DSF has committed to assisting with the ongoing research effort by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife and National Park Service. DSF’s grant in support of Kissling’s research team effort has resulted in their obtaining matching funds from the Park Service and from the Wildlife Conservation Society.

For more information:

> Wrangell-St. Elias section of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior official website

> Conserving the Nature of America
section of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service official website

Farallon Islands National Wildlife Sanctuary

For the Sanctuary book project, DSF worked to document and chronicle critical efforts by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. With the generous assistance of Joelle Buffa, former manager of the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge and supervisor of the biology program for the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge system, DSF was permitted to put ashore at the Farallones, one of the least frequented and most important seabird breeding regions in the United States (outside of Alaska.) Here some two hundred thousand Common Murres, as well as Cassin’s Auklets, Brandt, Double Crested and Pelagic Cormorants, Pigeon Guillemots, Tufted Puffins, Rhinoceros Auklets, and Western Gulls are to be found: at least 300,000 breeding birds in the month of July. One also finds the so-called “vagrants.” Over 400 species of birds have been found at the Farallones.

In addition, there are five species of pinnipeds: the California Sea Lion, Steller Sea Lion, Harvest Seal, Northern Elephant Seal and Northern Fur Seal. And, there are the four species of sharks guarding the islands, including Great Whites, Leopard, Blue and Soupfin, plus big whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Twenty-eight miles due West of the Golden Gate Bridge, this is one of the crown jewels of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Refuge system and it is emblematic of the whole Wildlife Refuge concept as first envisioned and put into place by President Teddy Roosevelt.

It was also in the Bay Area — at the John Muir House in Martinez and Muir Woods in Marine County — that DSF profiled that great co-founder of the Sierra Club, and advocate for the protection of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy, John Muir, for the Sanctuary book.

Santa Monica Mountains Recreational Area

In the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, working with Dr. Raymond M. Sauvajot, Supervisory Ecologist with the National Park Service and his colleagues Dr. Seth Riley and others, DSF endeavored to portray the story of the last remaining mountain lions attempting to live in the 300,000 acre area; and the urgent need to provide connectivity between the diverse but severely constricted habitats for mountain lion populations throughout Southern California.

For more information:

> Santa Monica Mountains section of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior website

Carrizo Plain National Monument

The DSF “Hotspots” crew filmed at the Carrizo Plain National Monument in Central California, where the rare San Joaquin kit foxes, pronghorn antelopes, sandhill cranes, blunt-nosed leopard lizards, San Joaquin antelope squirrels and giant kangaroo rats, as well as unique alkaline salt flats and native floral species are found.

For more information:

> Carrizo Plain National Monument

Big Sur, Ventana Wildlife Society

Working with wildlife biologist Sayre Flannagan of the Ventana Wildlife Society, DSF recorded over a dozen California condors in Big Sur. The condor is the largest bird in North America whose rescue — from the brink of extinction — constitutes one of the great conservation success stories of any Endangered species in North America. The Ventana Wildlife Society does a fine job of helping to protect these birds, as well as educating the public, providing a strong platform for advocacy, and maintaining an ongoing biological study of the California condor. Today, the public can easily view this charismatic species from the roadside in Big Sur.

For more information:

> Ventana Wildlife Society official website