Kiwis Take Flight across Tasman to Oz

A net outflow of 33,000 Kiwis to Australia was recorded in the year ending August, a 19 year high, according to Statistics New Zealand. Kiwis are reported to be finding their wings and taking flight to the west because of higher wages and a higher standard of living in the land of Oz.

While 86 % of those leaving are under the age of 45, the majority are younger than 30.

In true ANZAC spirit, both countries are better off. As the late Sir Robert Muldoon, NZ Prime Minister in the late 1970s, quipped: "Kiwis migrating to Australia raised the average IQ in both countries".

Muldoon's government did its level best to mis-manage the economy in those years, helping to precipitate an exodus then. Kiwi voters on both sides of the Tasman gave him the toss in his equally famous mis-timed snap election of 1984.

His refusal to roll back a 40% sales tax on music sales because pop music wasn't "culture" prompted the following response below from NZ band, The Knobz:

What’s In A Name? The Godwit or Kuaka

The bar-tailed Godwit or Kuaka

The bar-tailed godwit or kuaka, its Maori name, is a migratory bird that spends the southern summers in New Zealand then migrates northwards to Alaska, via China, Japan, and South Korea, for the breeding season, returning in the southern spring. Its trans-Pacific migration includes one of the longest known non-stop migratory paths.

In preparation for its migration the godwit puts on 60%–70% of its weight. By departure 55% of its weight is fat since fat is both light and yields eight times more energy than muscle protein. While seasonal changes in day-length trigger hormonal changes to initiate migratory preparations, the godwit’s navigation over such long trans-Pacific flights is thought to be guided by a combination of cues, including the earth’s magnetic map, sun angles, star movements, flock behaviour and memory, and landmarks to correct its course as it travels.

In 2007, the inimitable “E7”, her tag reference for satellite tracking, posted a trans-Pacific journey of 18,000-mile-long (29,000 km) series of flights tracked by satellite, including the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird.

E7’s Remarkable Trans-Pacific Journey

Source: US Geological Survey Alaska Science Center

On 17 March 2007, E7 departed Miranda in the North Island of New Zealand, flying non-stop to Yalu Jiang, China, completing the 6,300-mile-long flight in about eight days. After a 5 week stopover, she departed on 1 May for the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta in western Alaska. On this five day 4,500 mile non-stop leg of her journey, she crossed the Sea of Japan, Northern Pacific, and the end of the Alaska peninsula.

The breeding grounds in Alaska are tundra, moss and swamps, rich in insects that the godwits feed on. Godwits almost always lay 4 eggs and the chicks can fly after about 29 days, with the parents leaving the chicks soon thereafter. After breeding, the godwits move to the shorelines and estuaries along the Alaskan coast to fatten up on shellfish and sea worms for the return flight to New Zealand.

The most remarkable flight of E7 was her return journey to New Zealand – some 7,200 miles non-stop in eight days from Alaska to New Zealand. It is longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird.

Since kuaka are land birds, they are unable to stop to eat or drink while flying over open-ocean. The constant flight speeds at which E7 was tracked by satellite indicate she did not stop on land.

On her arrival back in New Zealand, E7 touched down at a spot just 8 miles east of where she had been tagged before she started her pan-Pacific journey.

It’s estimated that over the course of a 20 year lifetime, a godwit’s migratory mileage could top 288,000 miles.

In addition to locations in the North Island such as Manukau and Kaipara Harbours, and the Firth of Thames, the kuaka roost in large colonies at Farewell Spit and the Avon-Heathcote Estuary in Christchurch in the South Island.

Every southern spring, a watch is kept for the harbingers of spring on the Avon-Heathcote Estuary. Upon the first arrival, the bells of the Christchurch Cathedral are rung for 30 minutes to herald their arrival.

Upon arrival, the kuaka appear bedraggled having exhausted their fat reserves during the long journey. Their roosting colony at the Estuary is on the South Shore Spit in South Brighton. The kuaka fan out to feed at lowtide, foraging over the mudflats and shoreline for molluscs, crabs, marine worms and aquatic insects, probing the mud with their long bills as the tide recedes.

The Avon-Heathcote Estuary – the godwit colony is at the southern tip of South Shore Spit

In February-March, the godwits are farewelled by residents of Christchurch as they leave on their northern journey.

Kiwis of the human kind in the far flung Kiwi diaspora around the globe might adopt the godwit or kuaka as their emblem. However far they may be from their multiple homes, they can look to this humble bird for inspiration on how to close the distance between them.

The Founding Mothers

If the first humans arrived in Aoteroa-New Zealand around 1280 – 1300 AD, how many of them were there and where did they come from?

One approach to answering this question has been to combine genetic analysis with population dynamics to work back to an origin and estimate of the numbers of women of child-bearing age to produce a Maori population estimated to number around 100,000 in the early years of European or Pakeha settlement in New Zealand in the late eighteenth century.

Whyte et al analyzed the mutational changes in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) samples, known as “the Polynesian motif”, of Maori and Polynesian individuals. The low rate of diversity between the two groups mtDNA suggests that they are close ancestrally and the time since they developed in two separate locations is relatively brief – if by brief, one means 7-8 centuries. Since the mutations studied are found generally across Polynesia, no precise island location could be pinpointed as the starting point for the migration to New Zealand.

Adopting a population growth model incorporating the sigmoid (or S curve) population growth curve, Whyte et al ran computer simulations that would result in the known estimate of a total Maori population by the time of European settlement.

From these simulations, it was estimated that approximately 190 women (within a range of 170-230) of child-bearing age were among those who were on the founding waka canoes that arrived in New Zealand around 1200 AD. These numbers may be conservative as it is likely that many of those on the first waka were related hence not potential breeding partners. Further studies are underway to adjust for these kinship factors.

Source: A Whyte, S Marshall, and G Chambers, “Human Evolution in Polynesia”, Human Biology, April 2005, vol 77 no 2, 157-177.