Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve is a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

reserve at the eastern edge of the

Pāuatahanui Pāuatahanui (; ) is a village in New Zealand's North Island. It is at the far eastern end of what was known as the Pāuatahanui Inlet (since renamed to Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour), an arm of the Porirua Harbour, northeast of Wellington. In loc ...

Inlet of the

Porirua Harbour Te Awarua-o-Porirua Harbour, commonly known as Porirua Harbour, is a natural inlet in the south-western coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The harbour is within the main urban area of the Wellington Region, and is surrounded by the city of ...

Porirua Porirua, ( mi, Pari-ā-Rua) a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide swee ...

, New Zealand. The reserve contains the most significant area of

saltmarsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

in the lower

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

of New Zealand. It also includes tidal mudflats, shrub lands and regenerating coastal forest. The reserve covers , of which the

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

owns 46 hectares, and

Forest & Bird Forest & Bird ( mi, Te Reo o te Taiao), also known by its formal name as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, is an environmental organisation specialising in the protection and conservation of New Zealand's indigenous f ...

owns the remaining 4 hectares under covenant to the Queen Elizabeth II Trust. The reserve is managed by a committee of Forest & Bird representatives in association with the Department of Conservation.

History

The area had previously degraded into a wasteland that included a go-cart track, playing fields, demolition spoil, farm land and a cattleyards. Work on restoration began in 1984. In 1985 the area was made into a Wildlife Management Reserve. This involved the development of ponds, walking tracks and viewing hides. The reserve was officially opened on 15 April 1989. In 2002 the area of the reserve was extended by through the purchase by the Nature Heritage Fund of land adjoining the banks of the Pauatahanui Stream.

Plants

The habitats in the reserve range from tidal mudflats to coastal forest. The main wetland species are reeds, rushes,

harakeke ''Phormium tenax'' (called flax in New Zealand English; in Māori; New Zealand flax outside New Zealand; and New Zealand hemp in historical nautical contexts) is an evergreen perennial plant native to New Zealand and Norfolk Island that is an i ...

raupō ''Typha orientalis'', commonly known as bulrush, cumbungi, or raupō, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the genus ''Typha''. It is native to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, China and the ...

glasswort The glassworts are various succulent, annual halophytic plants, that is, plants that thrive in saline environments, such as seacoasts and salt marshes. The original English glasswort plants belong to the genus ''Salicornia'', but today the glass ...

, sea primrose,

New Zealand spinach ''Tetragonia tetragonioides'', commonly called New Zealand spinach, Warrigal greens and other local names, is a flowering plant in the fig-marigold family (Aizoaceae). It is often cultivated as a leafy vegetable. It is a widespread species, nat ...

, half-star, and

wild celery Wild celery is a common name for several plants. It can refer to: * Wild growing forms of celery, ''Apium graveolens'' * ''Angelica archangelica'', cultivated as a vegetable and medicinal plant * Lovage, ''Levisticum officinale'', sometimes known a ...

. The coastal scrub includes coastal tree daisy, marsh ribbonwood, ngaio, taupata, kãnuka and

mānuka ''Leptospermum scoparium'', commonly called mānuka, () mānuka myrtle, New Zealand teatree, broom tea-tree, or just tea tree, is a species of flowering plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae, native to New Zealand (including the Chatham Islands ...

. The rare succulent

Thyridia repens ''Thyridia repens'', with common names creeping monkeyflower, Native musk, Maori musk, and native monkey flower, is a herbaceous succulent plant native to New Zealand and Australia that grows as low mats. Its flowers are light purple or white. I ...

is also found.

Birds

Many different native and exotic birds can be found at the Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve, including the

bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, an ...

royal spoonbill The royal spoonbill (''Platalea regia'') also known as the black-billed spoonbill, occurs in intertidal flats and shallows of fresh and saltwater wetlands in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. (In New Z ...

caspian tern The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ' ...

paradise duck The paradise shelduck (''Tadorna variegata''), also known as the paradise duck, or in Māori, is a species of shelduck, a group of goose-like ducks, which is endemic to New Zealand. Johann Friedrich Gmelin placed it in the genus ''Anas'' with ...

pied stilt The pied stilt (''Himantopus leucocephalus''), also known as the white-headed stilt, is a shorebird in the family Recurvirostridae. It is widely distributed with a large total population size and apparently stable population trend, occurring in ...

sacred kingfisher The sacred kingfisher (''Todiramphus sanctus'') is a medium-sized woodland kingfisher that occurs in mangroves, woodlands, forests and river valleys in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the western Pacific. Taxonomy The binomial name ''H ...

white-faced heron The white-faced heron (''Egretta novaehollandiae'') also known as the white-fronted heron, and incorrectly as the grey heron, or blue crane, is a common bird throughout most of Australasia, including New Guinea, the islands of Torres Strait, Indo ...

Australasian shoveler The Australasian shoveler (''Spatula rhynchotis'') is a species of dabbling duck in the genus ''Spatula''. It ranges from 46 to 53 cm. It lives in heavily vegetated swamps. In Australia it is protected under the National Parks and Wildl ...

pūkeko The Australasian swamphen (''Porphyrio melanotus'') is a species of swamphen (''Porphyrio'') occurring in eastern Indonesia (the Moluccas, Aru and Kai Islands), Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, it is known as the puk ...

and black shag. In the areas of regenerating bush, the birds that can be seen include

tūī The tūī (''Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae'') is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze colored with a distinctive white throat tuft. It is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand, and the only spe ...

grey warbler The grey warbler (''Gerygone igata''), also known by its Māori name or outside New Zealand as the grey gerygone, is an insectivorous bird in the family Acanthizidae endemic to New Zealand. Its natural habitat is temperate forests. It is sometim ...

s and fantails. In April 2017, twenty-two fernbirds were released into the reserve, in a translocation from Lake Rotokare Scenic Reserve in

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

. Fernbirds have been seen in the reserve in the following years.

Freshwater fish

The Pāuatahanui stream flows through the wildlife reserve at the south-eastern corner of the inlet. This stream provides habitat for native and threatened fish species including inanga, longfin eel,

giant kōkopu The giant kōkopu (''Galaxias argenteus'') is a threatened species of ray-finned fish in the genus ''Galaxias'', found only in New Zealand. It can reach up to in length and in weight, making it the largest species in the family Galaxiidae. It i ...

, and

redfin bully The redfin bully (''Gobiomorphus huttoni'') is a species of freshwater fish in the family Eleotridae endemic to New Zealand. Being amphidromous, it spends part of its life cycle at sea. Males have distinctive bright red patterns and stripes on t ...

Threats to the reserve

There are many threats to the reserve from predators and human activity. Predators that threaten the reserve include stoats and rats, but also domestic cats. Surveys of cockles in 1992 and 1995 indicated a decline to only one third of the numbers estimated in 1976. Silt and contamination from subdivisions and stormwater drains. Increased runoff of contaminated stormwater from urban expansion and increased dairy farming. Silt from construction works and runoff from the

Transmission Gully motorway The Transmission Gully Motorway () is a , four-lane motorway north of Wellington, New Zealand; it is part of the State Highway 1 route. Construction began on 8 September 2014 and completion was originally scheduled for April 2020, but contractua ...

were considered significant threats to the reserve in a 1996 study of the environmental impact of the planned motorway. Studies of the seagrass ''

Zostera muelleri ''Zostera muelleri '' is a southern hemisphere temperate species of seagrass native to the seacoasts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.Paul Friedrich August Ascherson. 1867. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu ...

'' in the Pāuatahanui inlet have shown that pollution from fine sediment is preventing seagrass re-establishing in sites where it formerly grew. The results of the study emphasise the critical importance of strategies to reduce the amount of fine sediments from catchment areas that reach estuaries. In 2011, the wildlife reserve was being polluted by sewage runoff from septic tanks in adjoining properties that were not connected to a trunk sewer. Porirua City Council was investigating connecting these properties to the sewerage system to eliminate the problem. In 2014, a man was arrested after shooting ducks in the reserve.

Awards

Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve was one of three winners of the 2001 New Zealand Wetland Conservation Award, run jointly by

Fish & Game New Zealand Fish & Game New Zealand is the collective brand name of 12 regional fish and game councils and the New Zealand Fish and Game Council which administer sports fishing and gamebird resources in New Zealand (apart from within the Taupo Fishing Distric ...

and the

. The award recognised 17 years of hard work by volunteers. In the Wellingtonian of the Year awards 2009, Wanda Tate was recognised with the Environment Award, for 17 years work on restoring the Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve. Tate also won the Annual National Golden Spade award from Forest and Bird, and a QSM for her work on conservation.

Gallery

File:Upper Reaches Of Pauatahanui Estuary.jpg, File:Pauatahanui_Wetlands_-_2015.jpg, File:Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve lagoon.jpg, File:Pauatahanui_Wildlife_Reserve_2.JPG, File:Sleeping Spoonbills.jpg, File:A Bird Hide.jpg, File:Fighting Pied Stilts.jpg, File:Royal Spoonbill feeding at Pauatahanui wildlife reserve.jpg, File:2 Kingfishers.jpg, File: Royal Australasian Spoonbill feeding at Pauatahanui.webm

References

External links

Pāuatahanui Wildlife Reserve map

Guardians of Pāuatahanui Inlet
{{Protected areas of New Zealand, state=collapsed Protected areas of the Wellington Region Wetlands of the Wellington Region Nature reserves in New Zealand Landforms of the Wellington Region