CLOSING DOWN SALE

Grape harvest celebrated

The sculpture gardens and galleries at Sculptureum on Omaha Flats Road in Matakana will host a Harvest Festival on Saturday, March 18.

Sculptureum events director Imogen

McCall says March is a special time of year, when the grapes are hand-picked from the vines to make the Sculptureum chardonnay, rosé and Barrier blends.

“What better way to celebrate than with a Harvest Festival,” McCall says.

The event is aimed at the whole family with a range of harvest-themed activities planned.

This will include grape stomping and pressing by hand, kids’ arts and crafts, wine sampling, local supplier stalls, live entertainment, face painting, lawn games and gin sampling with Matakana Gin Company.

All ticketholders will have access to the galleries and gardens, home to more than 800 works of art from local and international artists. The 1.4km of flat pathways are accessible to both wheelchairs and prams.

Earlybird tickets are on sale until the end of February with prices set at $20 per child, $25 per adult, $80 per family (2 adults, 3 children) for general admission and $99 per person for the VIP Package.

Gates open at 10am and close at 4pm, with ample parking available on site. Onsite wheelchairs are available to prebook by emailing admin@sculptureum.net

Info: www.sculptureum.nz/harvest

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Stop pussyfooting around – keep cats indoors, pet owners urged

Though their owners might not realise it, pet cats are quietly decimating the population of NZ native birds – Forest & Bird estimates that the nation’s 1.4 million cats kill well over 1.1 million birds each year.

Locally, the focus is on the endangered NZ dotterel, which principally nests above the shoreline at Omaha Beach and Snells Beach each summer. Although somewhat vulnerable to other predators, storms and human disturbance, cameras placed by conservation groups have shown that it is pet cats roaming at night that do by far the most damage, severely limiting the number of chicks that hatch and survive.

At the bird sanctuary on Omaha’s northern spit, Omaha Shorebird Protection Trust (OSPT) members have found five dead adult dotterels this breeding season, and from around 25 breeding pairs, only two chicks have fledged.

OSPT member Marie Ward said that was a lamentable figure.

“It’s just appalling that we have such low productivity at such a large beach. We have a huge number of birds. They lay three eggs and they can lay up to four times in a season, but they’re struggling,” she said. “We know not all dotterel deaths are due to cats, but cats are the largest problem we face – five dead adults is probably the tip of the iceberg. It’s an ever-increasing issue as housing development creeps closer to the northern end where the birds are.”

At Snells Beach, there were just five breeding dotterel pairs this season, but pet cats attacked their nests and put paid to any chicks being hatched.

Snells Shoreline Conservation Community (SSCC) member Becky Swan said one particular cat was regularly caught on camera and ended up destroying five dotterel nests.

“It ate some of the eggs and just played with and destroyed the rest over time,” she said. “We’ve also seen it going for ducks, pukekos and godwits.”

Both Ward and Swan are frustrated that groups and individuals are powerless when it comes to stopping such feline incursions. They are not allowed to trap cats, even using humane methods, let alone anything more radical.

“Lots of people say just trap it or shoot it, but we’re not going to do that – a) we can’t do it legally, and b) we’re not just going to shoot or trap someone’s pet,” Swan said. SSCC has tried various deterrents, such as ultrasonic motion detectors that sound a high-pitched alarm and strong-smelling Skunk Shot, but the cats simply altered their route to avoid them.

This season, the OSPT has been part of an Auckland Council initiative with Landcare, with multiple cameras set up to collate new baseline data in the hope of developing some kind of effective deterrent.

Ward would like to see collars or chip implants for cats that trigger a warning stimulus when cats approach the bird sanctuary, much like the collars that deter dogs from barking or leaving their own property.

And she is keen on all conservation groups north of Auckland joining forces in a bid to get more action from Auckland Council and beyond.

That could be on the cards, thanks to moves by environmental project support group Restore Rodney East (RRE), which is funded by Rodney Local Board and works with more than 40 local conservation groups and organisations.

Chair Tim Armitage said the evidence was clear that pet cats were the main culprits and RRE would most likely soon be pushing for the introduction of national legislation.

“This would help organisations such as Council and DOC to act more consistently when it comes to implementing cat management plans and also clarify what is expected of responsible cat owners in the future,” he said. “The camera footage shows that only domestic cats are involved, not stoats, rats, wild cats, gulls or any other predator.

“Education and information to cat owners around responsible ownership is crucial to helping resolve these immediate challenges, but ultimately we will need to follow the example of Australia and other countries in implementing cat management legislation and make changes to how we allow our pets to roam.”

Being a responsible cat owner

It is possible to have a cat and keep wildlife safe. The single most important thing is to keep cats inside as much as possible, but definitely at night when they do the most damage, not only to roosting and nesting birds, but also to each other. Keeping them contained stops wildlife predation, cat fights, spread of disease such as toxoplasmosis, and pets getting run over. Pest-free NZ also offers the following advice:

Consider keeping cats indoors or confined to your own property – cat enclosures, “catios” or fence-top rollers allow cats to explore a home and outside area without escaping and impacting wildlife. Cats are happy, healthy and safer at home.

If you’re not ready to keep your cat indoors all the time, keep your cat inside as much as possible, especially at night, and one hour before dusk and an hour after dawn.

Add bells to your cat’s collar — the more, the better. Brightly coloured ‘scrunchie’ collars can also alert wildlife to

Other vital safeguards include microchipping cats, desexing them and keeping the number of cats per household