Dunedin’s mayor says she will raise a flag to mark the 1000th chick to be hatched at Taiaroa Head and celebrate the city as an “icon of wildlife throughout the world”.<\/p>\n
Sophie Barker was delighted when she found out the breeding colony on Otago Peninsula had reached the milestone.<\/p>\n
“Oh my gosh! That\u2019s super exciting news.”<\/p>\n
Ms Barker said she would find a flag donated to the Royal Albatross Centre during her time there as marketing manager to fly on the mayor\u2019s flagpole.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s one of the privileges [I have as mayor].”<\/p>\n
The 1000th chick was a “great story of conservation success”, she said.<\/p>\n
“I think that it\u2019s a huge significance because it shows how we can have success in conservation \u2014 and the amazing work that Doc [the Department of Conservation] do in partnership with the Otago Peninsula Trust and also the Pukekura Management Trust.”<\/p>\n
The colony had had some “rough years” in the past, but the recent breeding success had been exponential with a record 38 albatross chicks fledging last year, she said.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s something incredibly special for our city when you think of how we sit there as an icon of wildlife throughout the world.”<\/p>\n
Doc ranger Sharyn Broni said she considered it a privilege to have witnessed the 1000th chick hatch at the colony.<\/p>\n
Ms Broni was the one to carefully place the chick, which was still breaking out of its shell, in an incubator moments after it hatched on Sunday.<\/p>\n
She said she nearly missed the moment because it had been such a busy hatching season.<\/p>\n
“I almost missed it because there was two others hatching … and we had a very wet day yesterday [Sunday] so there was a lot going on.”<\/p>\n
The chick was named TF after the place it was born, Top Flat.<\/p>\n
Ms Broni began working at the Royal Albatross Centre 28 years ago and was there in 2007 when the 500th chick hatched.<\/p>\n
Since breeding began at the site in 1938, it had become increasingly successful as the world\u2019s only mainland colony of the birds.<\/p>\n
So far this season, 16 eggs had already hatched and another 26 were on the way.<\/p>\n
“We fledge many more chicks here than can fledge in the wild on the Chatham Islands, where the rest of the population lives,” Ms Broni said.<\/p>\n
When the chicks hatched they weighed about 300g.<\/p>\n
They grew to about 10kg in the seven and a-half months before they left the colony.<\/p>\n
They flew for about 25,000km around the Southern Ocean before they returned to Taiaroa Head to breed.<\/p>\n
Ms Broni said it was important the chicks were put into incubators after they hatched so they did not get attacked by flies and die.<\/p>\n
Hoani Langsbury, the longtime ecotourism manager for the Otago Peninsula Trust, responsible for the Royal Albatross Centre, said achieving 1000 chicks was a significant milestone.<\/p>\n
It reflected how well all species on the peninsula were doing.<\/p>\n
He said tourism revenue in the area had directly contributed to the survival rate of the birds \u2014 30,000-$40,000 went towards their conservation each year.<\/p>\n
The money funded essentials like incubators and fish for supplementary feeding.<\/p>\n
When breeding began at the\u00a0site, under the watch of pioneering New Zealand ornithologist and conservationist, Dr Lance Richdale, two chicks hatched.<\/p>\n