Visiting Whataroa

The White Herons’ Nesting Ground

The West Coast of the South Island is certainly a unique part of NewZealand. There is an air of ruggedness about the place in its’ beautiful land and people alike. Like most of NewZealand, its natural resources have been recklessly pillaged over the years, leaving many of its’ forests decimated. Yet in this stretch of land between the Sothern Alps and the Tasman Sea, we can have a glimpse of what this land used to look like. Being relatively isolated ( until recent years ) has served to preserve much of the land from the greed that has massively deminished most of our countrys’ natural habitats.

OUR PIONEER HEROS

In the good ol’ days in the land of promise and fortune, the ladies of our pioneer heritage took a shine to the White Herons’ fairy-like breeding plumage - it made very nice additions to hats apparently.

So of course this made the feathers a valuable prise and, come spring time, made targets of these beautiful birds.

Since Whataroa is NewZealands only nesting ground, it was pretty easy for enterprising hunters to nearly wipe them right out. The numbers got down to as low as 40 birds before someone thought “Gees maybe we should stop killing these things”

Nowdays numbers are up around 400. With a bit of luck they might stick around for our kids to see.

Here’s hoping.