Catlins

Residents are relieved the Tawanui bridge in the Catlins has finally been replaced.

The Catlins Pharmacy at Owaka will revert to depot status from August, having proven uneconomical to run three days a week as a pharmacy.

A new music festival will be launched in the Catlins over Easter weekend.

After a tough start to life, six yellow-eyed penguins will head back to the wild today.

Catlins natives have been kissing under mistletoe.

Numbers of the nationally endangered mohua in the Catlins are continuing to stabilise, more than a year on from a poisoning programme to reduce predators.

Teams of volunteers will be scouring the Catlins tomorrow looking for signs of life.

Searchers late last night found two teenage hunters missing in the Catlins and early this morning located a hunter who had been missing for a second night in the Blue Mountains.

The issue of public access to the country's beaches is again in the spotlight as the Government revisits the controversial Foreshore and Seabed legislation.

• Although the forthcoming season is to be a close one for native game, according to law, there has not been a time for some years past when wild pigeons were so plentiful in the Catlin's Bush.