We docked in the NZ capitol city, Wellington, this morning (Friday) and once again saw a large log deck in the port, this time with an adjacent barge ship transferring the logs (Pinus radiata or Monterey Pine, transplanted from California) to the barge hold that will carry the logs to Japan and other nearby Asian ports. Pinus radiata, a non-merchantable species generally in CA, grows straight and tall, and very quickly, in New Zealand.
Today we planned to explore the Zealandia eco-preserve as well as the famed Te Papa museum. Zealandia is an interesting place, a non-profit founded to restore the preserve over the next 500 years to conditions similar to times prior to the arrival of humans 800 years ago. They have encircled the entire preserve with a very expensive fine mesh steel fence of suitable height to exclude aLl mammals, as mammals did not exist here 800 years ago. The land was a bird paradise, but humans brought pigs, sheep, cattle, goats, deer (many varieties), rats, dogs, possums, cats, and many other predators and grazers that killed native flightless birds and destroyed the habitat of many other native species. The giant Moa bird is extinct, as are hundreds of other native creatures. Zoolandia first excluded mammals, drained one of two man-made lakes that drowned habitat, and killed the enclosed mammals at the site, then began introducing native plants and animals. Already the habitat is reverting and native birds and reptiles are thriving, like the following:
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| Rare, flightless bird Takahe, exists only in captive breeding programs. |
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| Pateke or brown teal |
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| Pied shag |
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| Tuatara |
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