Milestone
ConservationCommunity sector Conservation Community sector
Banded seabirds return as Bring Back the Seabirds turns 10
More than 100 tītī chicks fledged from Sandfly Bay alone in 2022, and banded birds have since come back to the colonies.
Forest & Bird’s Bring Back the Seabirds project turns 10 this year, and tītī sooty shearwater chicks are now fledging at Sandfly Bay.
In 2022, the colony there had a bumper season, with more than 100 chicks fledging from Sandfly Bay alone. The project is one of six national conservation programmes run by Forest & Bird, with staff, branches and volunteers working together.
Four sites, one project
The project covers Ōrau Sandfly Bay, Lawyers Head, St Clair cliffs and the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust’s Irahuka Long Point Reserve. Each site holds remnant seabird colonies, which Forest & Bird describes as important biodiversity that has survived against the odds.
A decade ago, the Forest & Bird team visited Sandfly Bay and found a good number of burrows still in use. That told them the stretch of coast was worth protecting.
How the work began
Early funding from the Dunedin Branch let project manager Francesca Cunninghame set up networks of traps for pest mammals across the sites. The terrain was hard going, and the work was only possible because of a big volunteer effort.
The first results came in autumn 2020, in the fourth season. Tītī chicks were confirmed fledging from the Sandfly Bay colony for the first time, after predator control increased significantly in the period before the chicks fledge.
Milestones at St Clair cliffs
A seabird fence at St Clair cliffs was finished in 2014. Local branch member Graeme Loh championed and built it, backed by many volunteers.
The first tītī wainui fairy prion chick fledged there in 2025. The team then built and installed a rodent-proof nestbox table for fairy prions, which Forest & Bird calls a world first. A fertile egg was laid and hatched the next season, but the chick did not survive.
Donations have paid for trap trigger alerts and real-time trail cameras. These give the team a view of what happens in the breeding colonies by day and night, and help them target key predators more effectively.
Forest & Bird points to the return of banded birds as perhaps the most telling sign of success. The first adult from the banded Sandfly Bay chicks came back in December 2023, four seasons after banding, and returns have been recorded every year since.
In February 2026, the first banded sooty shearwater chick returned to Irahuka.