The Ōpihi River flows through south

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

, in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's South Island. It has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it supports breeding colonies of the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

black-billed gull The black-billed gull (''Chroicocephalus bulleri''), Buller's gull, or tarāpuka ( Māori) is a Near Threatened species of gull in the family Laridae. This gull is found only in New Zealand, its ancestors having arrived from Australia around 25 ...

Description

The river flows south-east for , reaching the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

north of

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

. The town of Fairlie lies on the river's banks.

History

The banks of the river around the settlement of Waitohi were the site of some of the first flights by pioneer aviator

Richard Pearse Richard William Pearse (3 December 187729 July 1953) was a New Zealand farmer and inventor who performed pioneering aviation experiments. Witnesses interviewed many years afterward describe observing Pearse flying and landing a powered heavie ...

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...

(''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') were introduced from California in the 1900s and persist today. Opihi 27

In 2000,

Environment Canterbury Environment Canterbury, frequently abbreviated to ECan. is the promotional name for the Canterbury Regional Council. It is the regional council for Canterbury, the largest region in the South Island of New Zealand. It is part of New Zealand's s ...

approved the Opihi River Regional Plan for sustainable management of the resources of the river.

References

Rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand Important Bird Areas of New Zealand Rivers of New Zealand {{CanterburyNZ-river-stub