Thread: Hurunui dead geese

Was up the hurunui between sisters stream and lake sumner on Monday. No fish around but up to 100 dead geese floating in the shallows. Didn’t appear to be shot and most were floating the right way up. Looked like either poisoning or disease to me. Anyone seen this before? Not sure if relevant to fish numbers either. Didymo was quite bad.

would have been good to take a couple to Fish and Game for autopsy - give them something to do instead of picking on mum and kids fishing lol - but seriously would be good to know - we can get vagrant birds coming in from overseas and well what might they have - we all need to be vigilant - vagrants well any bird blown over here or arrives under own steam - one I remember well was a Northern Shoveler duck in the pond at Gisborne park - native to Papua New Guinea -looked very out of place amongst the mallards

I told doc and they said to report it to mpi which I have just done. They all looked fairly fresh. I also tried to call fish and game but no answer, probably all busy bullying children.

shallows of the stream or lake? botulism often builds up and wipes out heaps like that all of the sudden,

In the stream, halfway between lake and swing bridge

Originally Posted by DylRuss

In the stream, halfway between lake and swing bridge

Guys its not really a stream
The North Branch of the Hurunui is pretty bloody big and you would struggle to walk across it even when low
So I doubt its a toxic build up because of slow moving water
She's a big river
Not an big angry river because it flows out of Lake Sumner which is like a huge buffer that flattens out floods

While the South Branch can blow out in only a few hours

im not familiar with the area but it being a stream probably means the botulism could be on the river banks in their poo

I thought botulism was a warm weather pond issue so I might be pointing in the wrong direction

re the fish&game comments -hows abouts you give it a bloody rest till youre in full possession of the facts .I happen to know the F&G guys involved and theres obviously more to the story than a "sobbing"mother" lets on. my son had the same happen to him years ago on the coast but he didn t make a big bloody scene about it. F&G also gave him back his confiscated gear too!

re the geese=ho hum whats to say a little 1080 wasnt strategically spread ?? to cull this specific mob,.just a thought .

Originally Posted by kotuku

re the fish&game comments -hows abouts you give it a bloody rest till youre in full possession of the facts .I happen to know the F&G guys involved and theres obviously more to the story than a "sobbing"mother" lets on. my son had the same happen to him years ago on the coast but he didn t make a big bloody scene about it. F&G also gave him back his confiscated gear too!

re the geese=ho hum whats to say a little 1080 wasnt strategically spread ?? to cull this specific mob,.just a thought .

facts 1080 thats about as far from facts as one could get - if you have facts from the Fand G picking on a lady and her kids fishing do share or we leave it in the 1080 to blame scenario

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

facts 1080 thats about as far from facts as one could get - if you have facts from the Fand G picking on a lady and her kids fishing do share or we leave it in the 1080 to blame scenario

im not going to share with you as you seem to know it all anyhow .ever heard of privacy -BTW born and bred and this happened on my home turf! happy with that .as stug has stated F&Ghave no control over canadas and havent for some years a fact which you seem oblivious to.

Originally Posted by kotuku

im not going to share with you as you seem to know it all anyhow .ever heard of privacy -BTW born and bred and this happened on my home turf! happy with that .as stug has stated F&Ghave no control over canadas and havent for some years a fact which you seem oblivious to.

so you really don't know

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

so you really don't know

Dont drag me down to your level with your knowall attitude .conversation over .goodbye

The amount of crap those things produce I don't think time of year matters. Watched over 100 fly past this morning on the way to another farmers saved paddock.

Been thinking on this. I surmise that it is odd that so many as a large mob are drifting down a river deaf, and right side up. I speculate that all these birds died quite suddenly . I think it possible that this large mob were killed as the result of injesting poisoned bait laid in a dry land feeding area, then flying to river to roost where the poison took effect. The resulting pollution of the river with the carcasses is likely an illegal consequence of what could have been a deliberate and cruel action. I think some carcasses should be recovered if possible for analysis and the police involved.
Just my surmise.

No point telling fish and game about Canada geese, they have had nothing to do with them since geese were removed from the schedule.