PhD Research: The Loneliest Road

I miss classroom interactions.

I miss the beginning of each semester in grad school where someone would inevitably set me off by saying things like:

"But at least the women in the Bangladesh sweatshops don't have to be prostitutes anymore!"

Or:

"Who are we to put our values on another culture that practices female circumcision?"

Or:

"NAFTA wasn't that bad in Mexico..."

And then the sparks would fly.

In order to fill this great void in my life I have taken to picking fights with random people who leave irksome comments on Gawker, Jezebel and New Zealand's Fairfax Media aggregate "Stuff.com."

When a commenter on Stuff made a daft remark about Mexicans who emigrate to the U.S. I couldn't wait to type out a nasty response.

My angry keystrokes must have given me away because Nick leaned over and said, "You're attacking someone in the comments section, aren't you?"

The PhD process requires independent (lonely), original research and the only time you can geek out about it is when you meet with your supervisors who are probably (accurately) going to point out that your theoretical framework is a bit weak and that in New Zealand the word "program" is spelled with two "m"s and ends in an "e."

In the beginning I was going to study indigenous autonomy with ethnographic studies of the Maori and Mapuche but there were some logistics and theory issues that I couldn't resolve so I changed topic.

I was quite amused though when one of the other PhD students who is from Iran asked me if I was still going to study the "Capuchins."

I immediately had images of Amy Farrah Fowler and her nicotine addiction in primates study.

Instead, I've decided to look at young urban Maori's attitudes toward farming. I plan to study schools in Auckland to see what sort of programs (programmes) and career counseling they offer in beef, sheep and dairy farming because there is a high unemployment rate for young Maoris in the city while the farming industries mentioned are hurting for employees.

Regardless of the actual opportunities, I think it's the perception that these kids have that matters most because if they see farming as standing around in cow poo all day it doesn't really matter what sort of perks the jobs actually offer.

There is also the lure of big money in Australia's mining sector which has caused a huge exodus of young Maoris to that country.

Most importantly there appears to be a pretty huge knowledge gap on the subject which will allow me to do what PhD's do; nerd up on one subject and become insufferably pedantic about it.

Anyhoo, I'm in the proposal phase now and if everything gets approval I'll have the future pleasure of working with sassy urban teenagers. Huzzah!

Why didn't I study ornithology again? I could be performing a Jane Goodall out in Arthur's Pass with Kea if only I had aimed my focus more toward ethology.

Sigh.

On Seeing Kea in the Wild

I am a huge fan of the Kea. I can spend hours sitting in the Kea enclosure at Willowbank just watching them interact with each other. (Just ask the NPR who was once forced to hang out in the cafe while I did so.)

I've been to the Willowbank enclosure so many times that I am familiar to the Kea there. I've worn different outfits and hairstyles whenever I go there but I am always recognized by the birds. 

I know this because one of the them has a little trick he does where he will grab his beak with his foot. He will always fly over to me and give me a long searching glance before grabbing his beak so I know it's him. Sometimes he make low cooing noises to me as well. 

Visiting with captive Kea at Willowbank

I had my first ever visit to Arthur's Pass to see wild Kea last week. Nick stopped at the little cafe in Arthur's Pass village so I could use the restroom and I saw my first wild bird perched on one of the outdoor tables. I could hear other Kea calling from the trees.

It's important for me to mention the following; There are signs everywhere at this cafe saying "Don't Feed the Kea."

Whether or not human beings are actively feeding the Kea, the birds have learned to exploit this location and the humans at it as a food source.

They snatch food left unattended, root through garbage cans and are hand feed by some of the cafes outdoor patrons.

To see a disturbing example of this just Google "Coffee With Keas." In it, a stupid tourists allows the birds to drink from his coffee cup while saying "hey" and "no" at them. He's at the same cafe where we stopped.

Other videos show the birds eating unhealthy fried foods at both that cafe and several ski fields in the area.

I'll come back to the reason why this is important in a bit.

After using the WC, I crossed the street to where Nick had parked and he pointed out a wild Kea perched in the tree above him.

I sat on the grass under the tree and took out a small packet of split walnuts that I had bought just for the occasion.

Soon an adult male came over to investigate and I put a walnut down in the grass near me. He grabbed it and then ran into a little clearing under some nearby bushes to eat it.

I was in heaven.

Kea are sexually dimorphic with the males usually having a longer beak and the females having one which is shorter and more curved. Juveniles have yellow around their eyes, nostrils (or cere) and lower beak.

A group of three people happened to be passing by and the woman who sounded American asked me if I was waiting for the post office to open. I told her I was observing some Kea and pointed out the one above me in the tree and the one in the little clearing to my right. They were both so well camouflaged that none of the group had seen them.

The lady and her husband were delighted as was the man with them who appeared to be a tour guide. They said this was their second visit to Arthur's Pass and they thought they were going to have to come a third time before they saw a Kea.

Wild Kea in Arthur's Pass Village

The other Kea in the tree came down too and I put a walnut in the grass on my right. This allowed me to get a close-up shot:

I was absolutely in raptures by that point and experiencing an enormous sense of Kea Zen but unfortunately, it was not to last. 

Suddenly, a woman appeared from behind Nick's car and proceeded to lecture me about feeding the Kea in a tone that people who are convinced they are morally superior often use.

She said feeding them turned them into "pests" and that there were signs everywhere saying not to do so. 

She was British, which is not a crime, but she seemed to be an employee of the cafe across the street- and this, I feel, should carry a hefty fine in the court of hypocrisy. 

Ms. High and Mighty had the huevos to get onto me about feeding the Kea when her establishment provides them with a steady source of fried, caffeinated and fatty foods.

She actually had the gumption to suggest that I was the reason why they came around and "bothered people." 

That's pretty rich. 

First of all, the Kea are natives of Arthur's Pass and if anyone is a pest it's the human beings who have come in and built up houses and businesses in their territory. 

Second, Kea are neophiles and actively seek out human beings due to an insatiable curiosity. 

The adults have learned that where there are humans, there are usually delicious treats to be acquired (by theft, cunning, or offering). 

During the winter months when food sources are scarce, they supplement their diets heavily with edible human refuse. 

I've seen videos of them drinking from a can of Red Bull and tearing into leftover french fries. 

The adults will take their young to garbage dumps (known in NZ as rubbish tips) in order to teach them how to scavenge. 

For a fascinating video of them getting into garbage bins in Arthur's Pass see the BBC Documentary "Kea: The Smartest Parrot."

After the telling off, I folded up my little bag of walnuts and walked over to Nick. 

He suggested we drive to a nearby overlook so we might see some more birds there. 

I got into the car in a humbled state but soon began to fume. All the way to the overlook I railed against the woman.

When we arrived there were no Kea but the view was lovely. I went off a little ways on my own and sat on a large rock. Nick decided to give me a few minutes to cool off before he came over.

The moment he walked up behind me I fired up again with a, "I mean, how dare she!"

"Take me back to the cafe!" I said.

"Nope." he said.

I promised that I wouldn't make a scene and even tried to act like I was over it but Nick wasn't fooled. 

We drove through the little town without stopping.

In hindsight, this was probably for the best.

Should I have fed the wild Kea? No, I shouldn't have.

Is that woman a flaming hypocrite who can kiss my bum? Yes, she is.

There is one final point I would like to make about the Kea and the Department of Conservation here in New Zealand; In an effort to control introduced pests like the opossum, rat and stoat DoC performs areal drops of a pesticide known as 1080. 

New Zealand is the only country I know that uses this poison and where ever it is dropped there is usually absolute silence afterwards because it kills everything-rats, stoats, opossums and all bird life, including Kea. 

The fur of the opossum is warm and luxurious. Pelts still command a decent price and with a little bit of funding from the government a campaign to hunt and kill them would be infinitely better than a pesticide program that has such fatal consequences for all forms of wild life exposed to it. 

Also, a small price for dead rats and stoat pelts would help keep their numbers down as well. 

Recently a news article spoke about how scientists are trying to flavor the 1080 in a way that will make it less attractive to Kea. They are not expecting to have this done by the time the next round of 1080 is dropped by DoC which means more Kea will die unnecessarily.

Interestingly, "The Book of the Kea" published by Philip Temple in 1996 says,

"The Kea's tongue has few taste pits and it appears that it selects foods by shape, size, color and texture rather than by taste and smell."

If this is accurate then it doesn't really matter what flavor the poison is given. 

New Zealand's wildlife protection agencies have used extreme eradication tactics in the past.

From 1958-1963, all the rabbits on Motunau Island were killed off and the island was overrun by invasive boxthorn (the rabbits had been keeping them pruned back by feeding on them constantly). Boxthorn impales native birds on the island.

A 1997 survey of the island conducted by G.S. Beach, K. Wilson and C.A. Bannock of Lincoln University found that:

"When rabbits were present they may have maintained a less dense vegetation which was beneficial to the small petrels. Grazing by mammals can be beneficial to burrowing birds, as ungrazed vegetation may block burrows, prevent construction of new burrows or trap birds 

(Gillham, 1957; Norman, 1970a).Fleming suggested that a shorter vegetation as maintained by sheep may benefit the breeding of White-faced Storm Petrels (Fleming, 1939 cited in Norman, 1970b). The distributional change in petrel burrows from the plateau to the slopes may reflect a response to the current vegetation's difficulty for burrowing. The petrels may have been impacted less by the presence of rabbits than they are by the grass sward and box thorn that has established in their absence."

A follow up report after a DoC poison drop on Enderby Island states that two thirds of the skua population on both Enderby and nearby Rose island were killed by the poison put out to kill the mice and rabbits. Even so, the report concludes that the loses of skua and teals were lower than expected and worth it in the long run. 

This report seems to assume that poison has no lingering effect on the land and water table.

In the late 70s, before DoC was formed, the Maritime Parks Board, Forestry Service and Minister of Lands, Ven Young all decided it would be a good idea to cull the herds of wild goats on Arapawa island, while denying the whole time that they would ever do such a thing. 

DNA tests later proved what locals had claimed the whole time -that the goats were a rare breed from England that had become extinct everywhere else in the world. 

It took the efforts of organizations like Willowbank and the NZ Rare Breeds Association to remove a small number of goats and relocate them off the island. While all this was going on, ministry members were making contradictory pronouncements about the animals. 

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think my unsalted nut offerings are really the thing other Kea lovers should be worrying about.

Anyway, I've decided to volunteer down at Willowbank which should eventually enable me to work with/around the Kea. 

In this way, I will be able to feed them through officially sanctioned channels and no self righteous passerby will ever be able to make me feel horrid about it again.