A wild affair

When Wild Dunedin was first published in 1995, New Zealand sea lion ''Mum'' had just had her...
When Wild Dunedin was first published in 1995, New Zealand sea lion ''Mum'' had just had her first pup. Her family now numbers about 50. Photos by Neville Peat.
Swampy Summit looking towards Dunedin.
Swampy Summit looking towards Dunedin.
An Otago skink suns itself against a rock.
An Otago skink suns itself against a rock.
Brian Patrick
Brian Patrick
Neville Peat
Neville Peat
Silver beech forest near Waipori.
Silver beech forest near Waipori.
Sutton Salt Lake, New Zealand's only saline lake, sits on the southern edge of the Strath Taieri...
Sutton Salt Lake, New Zealand's only saline lake, sits on the southern edge of the Strath Taieri valley.
The cover of Wild Dunedin.
The cover of Wild Dunedin.

Natural history authors Brian Patrick and Neville Peat continue their wild affair with Dunedin's flora and fauna, writes Shane Gilchrist.

Having turned their gaze to a wide and often spectacular range of flora and fauna, Brian Patrick and Neville Peat occasionally also ponder their own seemingly natural interplay. And why not? After all, it's a writing partnership that is both beneficial and enduring.

The assessment is mutual: Peat provides the readability, Patrick the credibility.

The pair have just completed a fully revised version of Wild Dunedin: the natural history of New Zealand's wildlife capital. First published by Otago University Press in 1995, it won the inaugural Montana New Zealand Book Awards' Natural Heritage category the following year.

In evolutionary terms, 19 years is nothing. Yet, plenty has changed in Dunedin and its environs, home to a wide range of habitats and landscapes, from the ocean to high alpine zones, inland ranges and forest valleys (in fact, the book encompasses some 3350sq km of terrain).

Peat points out that though Wild Dunedin was initially revised in 2002, any changes then were minor. This time around, the book has been redesigned, reformatted and its text revised.

''A surprising amount can change in that time. Just take Otago Peninsula and its fauna, for example.

''In the early 1990s, we would have been thrilled to see royal albatross fledglings number more than 10; now, we take it for granted there will be more than 20. Likewise, Mum, the New Zealand sea lion, had just given birth to one pup, so we were all dancing around, wondering what was going to happen next. Now there is quite a family numbering around 50.''

Dunedin's wildlife image might be based on its marine fauna, which includes its Otago Peninsula colonies of royal albatrosses, yellow-eyed penguins and blue penguins (previously known as little penguins), but the authors revel in the area's many other natural jewels, too, noting ''surprises are in store for anyone who cares to look beyond these icons in the fauna''.

They write: ''Take, for example, the royal spoonbill at Green Island and Taiaroa Head, or the South Island robin in the Silver Stream forest, South Island fernbird at the Waipori-Waihola wetlands, velvety peripatus crawling about Caversham Valley bush, clapping cicada in the Taieri Gorge, the Aoraia ghost moth navigating through forest at night, or the mountain weta confined to the harsh alpine zone of the Rock and Pillar Range, dependent on antifreeze in their blood to keep from seizing up.''

As well as the descriptive content, the book discusses the conservation status of species that are rare, threatened or endangered, and offers thoughts on what actions should be taken to conserve them and their habitats.

''I think the picture is generally positive,'' Patrick says.

''In Dunedin, we have matured as settlers and are looking after what is left. We have obviously destroyed things in the early days - that was inevitable. We had to put a city and its infrastructure somewhere. Now, we are appreciating what we have left and nurturing it.''

One such initiative is Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Opened in 2009, the predator-free setting features fauna not seen around Dunedin since the 19th century, including takahe, Haast kiwi, South Island robin, tuatara, Otago skink and jewelled gecko.

Interestingly, the authors do not provide Orokonui Ecosanctuary with its own chapter, preferring instead to present the facility in the context of a range of conservation initiatives in the Dunedin area, including the efforts of the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust and the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Trust.

''It adds to our wildlife story in many ways and while it perhaps deserved a chapter of its own, we divided the book into ecological districts, so it is part of a bigger picture,'' Peat says.

He points to a less obvious example of change, one that has fascinated him nonetheless: Green Island, off Dunedin's southern coast, has undergone a shift in hue, and inhabitants, over the past several decades.

''The colour of the island has changed,'' Peat says.

''In the 1950s, when I was a kid, it was covered in Hebe elliptica, a common shore shrub. But in the 1950s a major drought hit the hebe hard and the green of the island is now brighter, formed by a Coprosma repens.

''It's a bigger, more sturdy, tree. In fact, it's sturdy enough to hold the nests of royal spoonbills, which have come there because of that change. The coprosma was brought south to be planted as hedges, particularly around Brighton. When shore birds, such as starlings, migrated across there at dusk they carried seeds.

''That really speaks to me about how things do change over time.''

PEAT and Patrick arrived at the idea of a book celebrating Dunedin's wildlife - and wild places - as they sheltered from a storm at Dart Hut, in Mt Aspiring National Park.

''It was a horrendous day,'' Patrick recalls, ''so we stayed there and essentially planned the book, chapter by chapter. Then we went home and fleshed it out. Those same ideas have remained consistent - an even-handed approach in which we would detail everything.''

Peat says Wild Dunedin was a new concept in documenting nature.

''We set out to do something that hadn't been done before at such an intense level. There had been natural history books on New Zealand, but they tended to cover a wider area. We thought people might want more detail.''

The hunch proved correct.

Wild Dunedin became the starting point for a series of regional natural history titles covering the bulk of the southern half of the South Island. It was followed by Wild Fiordland: discovering the natural history of a world heritage area and Wild Central: exploring the natural history of Central Otago. Both were national book award finalists. The fourth title, published in 2001, was Wild Rivers: discovering the natural history of the central South Island.

''There are a lot of things that I can take personal satisfaction from,'' Patrick says of Wild Dunedin.

''There have been a lot of botanical name changes in the past 20 years, species that have been formally described.

''The book has achieved a lot on various levels: from scientific details being provided by colleagues who have fleshed out entries to give us names, to areas that have been protected.

''When we look back, there has been a lot of conservation activity. We will never know whether that would have happened regardless of the book, but the fact people have read it and it has enjoyed wide readership means it has had some 'influence' and we take pride in that.''

Patrick says he and Peat, whom he first met more than two decades ago when they both worked for the Department of Conservation, get on well.

''We complement each other. You can't have a disjointed approach; it has to have one person looking over the whole thing, making sure it flows [Peat's job]. But also, we need to ensure the scientific facts are not lost [Patrick's job].

''My job as a scientist is to make it as balanced as possible. I think that is the value of our partnership, we cover everything from the megafauna to the microfauna. There is no bias. We love it all and have written about it all, including geology and fossils.''

Says Peat: ''The revisions weren't difficult but it was painstaking ensuring the scientific details were correct. And for that I deferred to Brian.''

- Wild Dunedin, by Neville Peat and Brian Patrick (Otago University Press, pbk, $40) will be launched at Otago Museum on Thursday, World Environment Day, at 6pm. The authors will present and discuss 20 favourite images of Dunedin's wild places and inhabitants.


About the authors

Neville Peat is an award-winning New Zealand nature writer and biographer. His books also cover genres such as history, geography and the environment. The original edition of Wild Dunedin, published by Otago University Press in 1995, won the inaugural Montana New Zealand Book Awards' Natural Heritage category the following year. In 2007 he was awarded New Zealand's largest literary prize, the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers' Fellowship, for a book about the Tasman Sea. He lives on Otago Peninsula, handy to albatrosses, penguins and sea lions.

Brian Patrick is the co-author of several books on natural history and invertebrates, including Wild Central and Wild Fiordland (with Neville Peat), Butterflies of the South Pacific (with Hamish Patrick) and Butterflies and Moths of New Zealand (with Brian Parkinson). An entomologist, he has worked for the Department of Conservation, as a senior manager in museums, and now works as a scientist in an ecological consultancy in Christchurch. 




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