Make your photos count this summer - it could be the last chance you get to snap most of St Clair's wave-washed wooden poles.
The historic poles began life as a system of groynes built to manage sand flow along St Clair Beach.
Built in 1902 and fitted with horizontal wooden boards, the original groynes were successful, with reports showing the sand build-up around them left them almost completely submerged by 1906, Dunedin City Council archivist Alison Breese said.
Further groynes followed, and it was not clear exactly what year the surviving poles were built.
While the twilight of their career saw them as the feature of many St Clair photographs, their time in the limelight was almost certainly coming to an end, ODT photographs show.
Their numbers dwindled from 35 poles in January to just 22 yesterday - a 37% reduction.
If another 37% were lost next winter, just 14 poles would be left.
While June's damaging storms were the main cause of the pole depopulation, a further two had vanished since then, photographs show.
DCC roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said the poles were council property, but had served their time.
Protecting the remaining poles was not being considered and there was ''no drive to resurrect'' the fallen poles.
