Removing lead in the environment to help kea

by Jose Watson

The Kea Conservation Trust is at the tail end of a massive push to remove lead from buildings in kea habitat. We talked to the Project Coordinator Peter Fraser about how he got involved with kea, the work that has been going on and why it is important.

Peter was a founding member of the Kea Conservation Trust, which was established 18 years ago with the purpose of learning about and establishing a voice for kea. Peter first became interested in kea when he was a trainee zookeeper and one of his jobs was cleaning out the bird aviaries. He says, “I was in a kea aviary, and you feel like you are interacting with a really intelligent species and that caught my attention.”

Through further work on a husbandry manual for kea he learnt that many were being kept in captivity in less-than-ideal circumstances, and that 150,000 birds had been killed in a culling programme up until 1972. “No-one could tell me how many kea were left, … and there were quite a number of kea in captivity that were being kept quite badly, and so I thought their welfare needs needed to be addressed in captivity and we needed to know more about them in the wild.” Along with a fellow trainee zookeeper, Tamsin Orr Walker, they established the Kea Conservation Trust.

Peter says he hadn’t previously been a fan of single species advocate groups, “I think when you look after the environment you look after everything, but kea was one that needed its own voice because of how political the kea was. People would still shoot them or poison them, so that needed to be turned around because we thought they were in decline.” The Trust acts as a focal point to bring various parties who are working with kea together, so there is a much better understanding of the population and the challenges they face.  It is also a focal point for PhD students, providing direction on research that would benefit kea.  It was through research undertaken by students where the problem with lead poisoning in kea became apparent. Kea are inquisitive and determined.  This gets them into trouble in modified environments because they get into things they shouldn’t, like sweet- flavoured, chewable lead flashings and nail heads used on older building’s roofs.

Lead is bad news for kea. It is a toxic heavy metal that impacts multiple body organs and is known to affect neurological development and survivorship in animals. Kea with lead poisoning often die from secondary infection, starvation, predation or misadventure. Learn more about that here

The problem with lead was identified in 2006 and was subsequently found to be an issue in places where kea populations live near humans. The Kea Conservation Trust started up a lead-free kea programme in 2016 which aimed to identify kea lead hotspots to target lead removal. as in these places.

Peter says, “There aren’t many opportunities in conservation where you identify the problem, it’s a fixable problem and then you are given the resources to fix it. You only have to fix it once, not like pest control where you have to always come back to resist incursion, this is like you fix a roof, it’s done, you move on”.

With a team of enthusiastic builders, the Trust has removed over three tonnes of lead from buildings in places like Milford, Aoraki/ Mt Cook, Arthur’s Pass, Ōkārito, Nelson Lakes and Golden Bay. All up, approximately 50,000 square metres of roofing had lead flashings and leadhead nails removed, which is the equivalent of 5 hectares, or just under the size or 5 rugby fields. Peter says they were helped along the way by Dimond Roofing, who supplied the replacement flashings and nails at a discounted rate, along with free freight, and the builders who worked for less than market rates. Because of this support, they were able to remove lead from more buildings than their original goal.

Peter says a highlight of the work for him is getting rid of lead and making places safer for kea, “Hopefully by focusing on the hotspots where kea have been showing up with lead poisoning, we have made a good dent in the problem. We have also raised the awareness of lead in buildings so as people renovate and update their buildings, removing lead is an easy thing to do as part of those renovations. Building that awareness is valuable as we go forward”.

“Lately we’ve been getting photos of a kea chewing lead nails on a motel in Franz Josef, so we plan to target that building, and then the building next door, because we won’t have the resource for the mass approach we have had once Jobs for Nature funding ends. This funding has been really great, a big boost to the project”.

The Kea Conservation Trust will continue their work removing lead from problematic buildings in kea territory, albeit at a lesser scale. If you are interested in supporting this work, or have a kea nibbling at your roof, you can find out more at Removal of lead in kea and their habitat – a community lead-free initiative! – Kea Conservation Trust or get in touch at info@keaconservation.co.nz

We are working to understand where across the South Island on public conservation land DOC structures still contain lead, and will prioritise removing lead where kea frequently visit. As the work to remove lead continues, systematic blood-lead sampling of kea will show whether the removal work is happening in the right places.