Two p\u014dhutukawa trees have been illegally poisoned in the Coromandel, the Department of Conservation says.<\/p>\n
There was clear evidence of drill holes around the base of the trees at Hahei Beach Marginal Strip, Hauraki-Coromandel DoC staff wrote in a post on Facebook.<\/p>\n
An investigation was underway.<\/p>\n
“P\u014dhutukawa are iconic coastal trees, often celebrated as Aotearoa’s unofficial Christmas tree. But they are much more than a beautiful part of our summer landscape, they are important coastal ecosystems in their own right.<\/p>\n
“Their flowers provide nectar for t\u016b\u012b, bellbirds and geckos, while their trunks, bark and canopy offer habitat for birds, insects and spiders. A diverse community of native insects depends on p\u014dhutukawa, and the leaf litter beneath them supports hardy native snails adapted to life along the coast. Shags and white-faced herons often nest or roost in p\u014dhutukawa,” staff wrote.<\/p>\n
The trees’ root systems helped to stabilise coastal soils, dunes and cliffs.<\/p>\n
Damaging, poisoning or destroying native vegetation on public conservation land is a serious offence, which can result in penalties including fines of up to $300,000.<\/p>\n
DoC staff are asking anyone with information about who may be responsible to contact them and quote the reference number: CLE-12213.<\/p>\n
“Please help us protect these special coastal trees,” they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two p\u014dhutukawa trees have been illegally poisoned in the Coromandel, the Department of Conservation says. There was clear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-547429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}