Westland Petrel fledglings get disoriented and crash land because of street lights in Punakaiki. Photo: Bruce Stuart-Menteath
WelCom December 2021
The street lights are being turned off in Punakaiki from November to January to allow fledgling Westland petrel chicks to safely leave their nest burrows.
Some of the Westland chicks, embarking on an 11,000km trip across the Pacific, are dying as soon as they set off from their hillside burrows because of street lights in the busy South Island tourist town. They become disoriented by the light and crash-land onto the road, where they are often severely injured, struck by cars or eaten by predators. They can’t relaunch themselves because they need to take off from a height.
The move to douse the lights is believed to be a New Zealand first, and has been agreed to by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency in response to conservation advocates.
‘We’re talking about hundreds of birds [dying] over the years,’ says Westland Petrel Conservation Trust chairman Bruce Menteath. ‘They navigate by the sun, stars and moon, so when they see the lights they get disoriented and circle around and crash land.’