Recover newsletter issue 3 on Kaikōura coastal recovery

#RECOVER Issue 3 features paua tagging, whitebait surveys and seaweed recovery monitoring work from the Kaikōura coast.

Available online here https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/100101

Kaikōura earthquake recovery - loss of connectivity and the necessity of a cross‐ecosystem perspective

Article just published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Resources from our Kaikōura earthquake recovery work.

The Kaikōura earthquake in southern New Zealand: Loss of connectivity of marine communities and the necessity of a cross‐ecosystem perspective.
https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3122

Stuff article on Kaikōura whitebait

Great article by Sophie Trigger at the Marlborough Express that features our recent work investigating earthquake impacts on river mouths along the Kaikōura coast.

We were able to locate several whitebait spawning sites and made some interesting discoveries with many of them occurring on flood events. Read more about an ecological experiment to rescue eggs stranded high on the riverbank with the help of the Environment Canterbury flood management team.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/112863187/kaikura-whitebait-discovery-could-have-flowon-effects

Quantifying earthquake impacts using drones

A recent Stuff article by Alice Angeloni featured our survey work using drones to map recovery processes on the Kaikōura coast.

We have completed a variety of these high-resolution surveys to investigate diverse aspects of recovery that include habitat shifts and vegetation recovery at our study sites. The sites themselves are characterised by a a variety of environmental conditions and different degrees of uplift resulting from the earthquake event. The high degree of spatiotemporal variation makes the identification of overall impact a challenging task!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/121606479/drone-shots-show-marine-recovery-along-quakestricken-kaikoura-coast

Whitebait spawning in Lyell Creek Waikōau

Nice article in the Kaikōura Star on our surpise finding of whitebait spawning sites in downstown Kaikōura.

The spawning habitat in this area has benefitted from riparian restoration work in Lyell Creek / Waikōau since the earthquakes.

Whitebait spawning surveys in Kaikōura coastal rivers

This summer we've been working

to fill a knowledge gap about whitebait in streams and rivers along the Kaikōura coast. Knowing where they are is useful for recovery planning in the same areas post-earthquake as well as for restoration projects in local waterways.

Our survey programme started with fish trapping to find out which species were living in which rivers, after which we selected waterways that were suspected to have good īnanga populations. They included seven catchments close to Kaikōura (Oaro, Kahutara, Lyell / Waikōau, Middle, Swan, Harnetts and Blue Duck) as well as other sites in Marlborough. After four months of surveying we discovered at least one spawning event in all of these streams and rivers and were able to map the spawning locations including some large sites!

Recover newsletter issue 2 on Kaikōura coastal recovery

#RECOVER Issue 2 features paua population monitoring, hotspots for banded dotterels, and seaweed recovery experiments from the Kaikōura coast.

Available online here http://hdl.handle.net/10092/16796