This year, we’re throwing our support behind the toroa in Forest & Bird’s Bird Of the Year competition. They’re in serious trouble and in need of our love and attention. In my work as the plastics campaigner here at Greenpeace Aotearoa, I see some of what our toroa contend with.
Through my Nanny Ngaio, I whakapapa to Ngāti Makamaka and Ngāi Tukairangi (hapū of Ngāi Te Rangi iwi) of Tauranga Moana. The ‘captain’ of Mataatua waka was called Toroa, and I have just learned this whakatauki which has been derived from words of traditional mōteatea, or chants, composed by the Ngāi Te Rangi chief Hori Tupaea:
He toroa whakakopa au nō runga i Karewa, he pōtiki manawa ū nā Ngāi Te Rangi
I am a soaring albatross high above Karewa, a stout-hearted child that belongs to Ngāi Te Rangi
How special…it makes my heart swell. Toroa are an underappreciated manu, I reckon. They really are majestic creatures, ruling the skies of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa with metre-long bodies and three metre wing spans. Incredible!
Sometimes I think their might, as the largest of our seabirds, makes them appear less vulnerable to threats than they actually are. Perhaps in another time, that was true.
The threats are many. Destructive habits of the commercial fishing industry have our toroa experiencing dwindling food supply, and they can catch on fish hooks and in fishing nets as they forage for their food. On top of all this, toroa are facing the often fatal dangers of plastic pollution.
You might remember last year that Greenpeace Aotearoa launched a campaign to ban plastic bottles following the death of a young toroa (the Royal Albatross), caused by slow starvation when he swallowed a single-use plastic water bottle whole. He was estimated to be about three or four years old and likely just returning from South America. Given the chance, he would have found a mate on his arrival here in Aotearoa. A few years later, they would have begun breeding. This toroa should have lived to about 60 years old, but plastic pollution ended that, and plastic producers like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are responsible.
A few weeks back, I met (virtually, of course) an inspiring rangatahi called Charlie Thomas during a webinar we were both panellists on. Charlie’s mahi was on Kure Island, an atoll only 500 metres by two kilometers at the western end of the Hawaiian archipelago within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Charlie stayed there for eight months, restoring the island for nesting seabirds, of which the toroa species feature prominently. They were heartbroken to find that a lot of plastic washes up on Kure, and that the toroa are eating it and feeding it to their chicks who just vomit it back up.
These are terribly sad and sobering moments to talk about, but it’s really important we face what the impacts of a plastic filled society are having on our wildlife. Every toroa carcass that Charlie found had plastic in its body.
Those close to me will tell you otherwise but I am actually a real romantic at heart, and I do fancy a tale of true and enduring love. I learned that toroa mostly mate for life, and that life is comparatively long. They have a distinct courtship that includes singing and dancing and I am here for all of it. Toroa spend most of their time at sea, coming ashore for love and babies.
Lots of reasons to love the toroa, and lots of reasons to protect the toroa. We think that our humble but mighty ruler of ocean skies deserves the coveted crown of Bird of the Year 2021, and we hope you do, too, but firstly, they deserve longevity and dignity.
In honour of the Royal Albatross that died by the destructive actions and decisions of big corporations like Coca-Cola, will you get behind our petition to Ban the Bottle? We can get rid of single-use plastic bottles for good, move away from our current take-make-throw away culture, and save future toroa and all wildlife from the same fate.
Koia tēnei: ko te toroa noho au,
e tangi ana ki tōna kāinga; e mihi ana
This is a fact: I live like an albatross, crying out to its nesting place and greeting (you in sorrow).
Call on the NZ Government to ban unnecessary single-use plastic bottles* in NZ, and to incentivise reusable and refillable alternatives.