Mana Island, New Zealand

Mana Island is the smaller of two islands that lie off the southwest coast of the North Island of New Zealand (the larger is Kapiti Island). The island’s name is an abbreviation of Te Mana o Kupe, "the mana of Kupe".

Mana Island is a three-kilometre long, 2.17 square kilometre table, with cliffs covering much of its coast and a plateau occupying much of the centre. It lies three kilometres off the North Island coast in the Tasman Sea, west of the city of Porirua and to the south of the entrance to Porirua Harbour.

History

Mana was occupied by Māori from the 14th century. In the early 1820s, the Ngati Toa iwi, led by Te Rauparaha established bases on Mana.

European occupation began 1830s with a whaling station, and bush was cleared for an early sheep farm. A lighthouse was built to the north in 1863, but shipwrecks were caused due to confusion between this light and Pencarrow light at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, and the Mana lighthouse was removed to Cape Egmont in Taranaki in 1877, where it still stands.

Mana Island became Crown property in 1865. In 1886 Mariano Vella obtained a sublease of Mana. He knew little of farming, and arranged that Harry Harris of Pauatahanui would teach him sheep husbandry and farming practice. The lease was transferred from the Vella family to John Gault in 1953. It was then used as a site for raising exotic breeds of sheep. A suspected outbreak of scrapie (a very contagious and debilitating condition) resulted in all the sheep being slaughtered in the mid 1980s.

Conservation

The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DoC) now administers the island and it started to restore the forests, with almost 400,000 trees being planted so far. In 1989/90 mice were eradicated from the island. Subsequently, a wetland on the island has been restored and a number of rare and endangered bird, lizard and plant species transferred to Mana.

The island is now a scientific reserve with many native species considered rare on the mainland. Notable species now on the island include the Cook Strait giant weta, Shore Plover,North Island robin, takahe, Wellington green gecko, yellow crowned parakeet, and brown teal. The most recent example is the critically endangered Wellington speargrass weevil from the Wellington South Coast in 2006. The restoration programme has been characterised by a high level of community involvement, led by groups such as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand and the Friends of Mana Island.

The Department and the Friends are now collaborating on a five year programme to transfer the threatened New Zealand Shore Plover to the island. These are sourced from a captive population at the Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre. There are only abut 200 of these birds remaining in the wild.

About three DoC staff live on the island, which has its own native plant nursery, electric generator and boat shed. The DoC staff haul their boat out of the water up a ramp with a winch. Some structures now provide habitat to native animals. For example, little blue penguins roost under the old disused wool shed.

Seedlings from a 5km radius of the island are brought to the plant nursery. They are raised in the nursery until ready for planting. Most planting is done by volunteers on day trips to the island. Many thousands of native plants have been established under this programme yet the island remains mostly covered in grass. Planting has been mostly in gullies and sheltered parts of the island which experiences strong winds. The strategy has been to plant native shrubs in corridors around clearings. This suits most bird life and allows for natural regeneration.

Recent projects have included the successful translocations to the island of diving petrels and fairy prion chicks with the progeny of several of the transferees later successfully fledging - the first to do so on Mana Island for many centuries. The first 40 chicks of a third burrowing seabird, the fluttering shearwater, were transferred to the island in January 2006 with a further 200 scheduled over the next two years. These species are an important part of the restoration of the island because of their nutrient inflows (free fertiliser) and the habitats their burrows provide for reptiles and invertebrates.

Planned projects include the transfer to the island of a wide range of other species, many of which are rare and endangered. Notable amongst these will be the tuatara, the little spotted kiwi, a subspecies of the carnivorous Powelliphanta snail, and a range of threatened plants endemic to the Wellington region.

There have been attempts to start a Gannet colony on Mana Island, with conservationists building a fake colony of birds out of concrete, and installing sound systems that make Gannet sounds in the hope that real ones will be attracted. As of 2008, these attempts have been unsuccessful.

References

External links

• Department of Conservation Mana island page