Holiday Blogging WLJ - D3 A1/2 Wild Eyes!

Day #3: Wild Eyes

You have now woken up after a long, comfortable sleep at your hotel in Dargaville. You’re ready for another day of adventuring! Today, you will drive around the North island and be introduced to amazing animals that live here in New Zealand. Some are native and some are non-native. Native animals are animals that normally live in New Zealand. Non-native animals are animals that were brought into New Zealand from another country. Examples of native New Zealand animals are the kakapo, the kiwi, the kea parrot, the yellow eyed penguin and the pekapeka bat.

http://www.kiwidaydreaming.com/p/new-zealand-maps.html

Activity 1: Curious Kiwi, a native New Zealand bird, is your tour guide for today. He is going to take you to visit the Otorohanga Kiwi House and Native Bird Park where many of his aunties and uncles currently live. The bird park is a five hour drive from Dargaville so you hit the road right after breakfast and arrive in Otorohanga at lunch time. As you walk through the birdhouse you learn about the work being done to conserve and protect the native birds of New Zealand. You decide to help out by ‘adopting’ a native animal. Visit the ‘Adopt a Critter page’ on the Otorohanga bird house website to choose one animal to adopt. On your blog, tell us the name of the animal that you chose and a little bit about them. What kind of animal are they? What do they eat? Where do they normally live? You can use Google to help you with your research.

http://www.newzealand.com/int/plan/business/otorohanga-kiwi-house-and-native-bird-park/

The Brown Kiwi:

Today I decided to adopt the Brown kiwi (Warning: This is not for real) To start off the Brown kiwi is endemic to New Zealand, so that means the Brown Kiwi was found in a certain place. The Brown Kiwi's are only found in the North Island. The Brown Kiwi eat I think most of small things from the ground. They like to eat things like cicada's, moths and also centipedes! There are a few more like spider's, crickets and weta I know right weta!

Activity 2: After your great visit to the Otorohanga bird house it is time to hop back onto the bus and head towards the Hawke’s Bay – your resting place for the evening. Hawke’s Bay is a beautiful region of New Zealand. It is known for its wineries and gorgeous scenery. When you arrive in Napier, the largest city in the region, you go for a walk through Waitangi Regional Park and notice that many of the leaves on the native trees have been damaged. Curious Kiwi tells you that they were damaged by possums, non-native predators, from Australia. People in New Zealand are working hard to trap and kill these predators. Their goal is to remove all of the possums (and other predators) by 2050. Go to the ‘Predator Free 2050 website’ to read more about their work.

http://www.outlawyarn.com/possum.html

On your blog, tell us whether you agree that New Zealand should be predator free. In your opinion, is it right to kill all of the predators (eg. possums) or should we just leave them alone? On your blog tell us what you think and give us, at least, three reasons why you think this way.

3 Reasons why we should kill all predators!!

1. The first reason and I think this is the reason everyone should know is that they affect us! Sometimes when I see a photo of a Stoat who has killed a baby duck of course I might cry. I mean Durrr!

2. I think the second reason is that it ruins our beautiful environment. E.g. If you created a beautiful plantation and all of a sudden possums and stoats run all over it after all your hard work! 

3. This is just a kind reason for all predators out there. I think that the animals should stay wherever they came from, because killing them might affect the country they came from. So I mean if we killed all mouses and they are like native from somewhere they might have less native animals!

That is all for D3 guys thanks for stopping by!