Alarm Sounds for Matuku-Hūrepo | Bitterns as Highway Threatens Their Last Wetland Refuge
- 22 hours ago
- 2 min read
Fewer than a thousand matuku-hūrepo | Australasian bittern remain in Aotearoa. Ninety percent of their wetland habitat is gone. Now, a proposed four-lane highway threatens Doctors Hill wetland in Northland, one of the last places these taonga birds can call home.
Image: In a new Forest & Bird video, Dean Baigent-Mercer calls on NZTA to take the Brynderwyn route west.
Dean Baigent-Mercer, also known as the “living Lorax” and a passionate advocate for te taiao and wetland conservation, has been speaking out about the severity of this threat. Dean and Forest & Bird are calling on the New Zealand Transport Agency to take the Brynderwyn route west, away from critical bittern habitat.
The Brynderwyn section of the Road of National Significance is up for Fast-Track consent. Doctors Hill Wetland is adjacent to its path and cuts through known flight paths of these rare birds.
For matuku-hūrepo, already pushed to the margins by introduced predators and a century of wetland loss, a four-lane motorway through their remaining habitat brings further compounding threats: noise, vehicle strike, and stormwater runoff carrying heavy metals and plastics into the wetland. This is an unnecessary threat that the species cannot absorb.
"Wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystems we have, and 90% of them have been wiped out. We have to protect what we have left, and take a lot of care in how we protect threatened native species that have to move between these last wetland habitats" says Dean.
Go West
The Endangered Species Foundation supports Dean's call. We need NZTA to go west for the bitterns.
If you’re coming to our Endangered Species National Hui, 2–3 September in Kirikiriroa Hamilton, you’ll be lucky enough to hear Dean share his passion and his kōrero on nature and all things taiao.
We will also be joined by Wendy Ambury from Love Bittern, whose work is bringing mātuku-hūrepo back from the brink by through technology and mobilising communities to act for these endangered manu (birds).
See the full hui programme here:
