Operation Trapdoor

There's no way around this. This post will be looooong. I won't be offended if you only read part of it - but so much has happened.

 Stewart Island - Halfmoon Bay
Unlike North and South Island, Stewart Island is full of what little native wildlife is left in New Zealand. Most of it is a reserve, covered in rainforest. There is only one small village (Oban), with roads. I've been here before, but only for a few days. This time we (my new field assistant and I) are looking for a few species of Cantuaria which are only found on Stewart Island and its offshore islands.

On Stewart Island, we went for walks in the bush every day and found spiders everywhere. There are three major species here, and hopefully we have found them all. I also hung up a poster in the community notice board, and was contacted by several people who have found spiders - excellent leads. Most people who we met had seen my poster, too. Small communities can be very useful!

Stewart Island Cantuaria

Every couple of days, we took a water taxi to an island, but the rest of the time we stayed on Stewart Island. We were constantly liasing with Rakiura Charters (water taxi company) and the Department of Conservation (DOC), who took our work very seriously and were keen on health and safety. I had to name my project for their files, so I called it Operation Trapdoor. Every time we contacted DOC to tell them we were safe, we had to say we were Operation Trapdoor. My field assistant protested, but since I am the leader, I get to choose what we are called, and she doesn't, so there.

Rakiura Charters water taxi. View from Bench Island

Stewart Island - Big Glory

Big Glory is a hunter camp a short boat ride from Oban. We camped in the bush with the kakariki, tomtits, tui, bellbirds, and kereru. The only paths were game trails, and I learnt a few things about tracking deer from my field assistant (who is a hunter).

While I finished setting up camp, my friend went to use the facilities, and happened to choose an area where there were Cantuaria burrows. Lots of burrows! We dug up a few spiders before heading out to search for more, but the only ones we could find were around our camp.

The forest was dark and wild, but beautiful. I grew up on common land, with wide open meadows interspersed with trees. I could always see the horizon. The woods are always quite an exciting place to be; you can never tell what is around the corner. There is so much diversity underfoot and all around you. Lichens, mosses, plants, birds, and invertebrates were everywhere, and Entoloma hochstetteri (mushrooms) showed up as shocking blue flashes as we walked along. I kept on thinking of the few lines written by Robert Frost:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

Big Glory bush

We went a long while without seeing much of the sky, the horizon, or anything that wasn't directly in front of us. It was a wee bit claustrophobic. That night, the slight uneasiness kept us awake, which was great because we heard wild kiwi calling to each other nearby.

Whero Rock

Whero Rock's resident, Cantuaria isolata, is aptly named - Whero is a rock in the middle of the ocean, with no shelter, no beach, and only bird crap for soil.

The popular tourist destination that is Whero Rock. The bright white spot is a small fishing boat. The large patch of white is bird crap.

Landing was tricky. There is a large population of great white sharks around this area, and they like boats because of fishing and shark cage tourism. To get from the boar onto Whero, we had to leap from a rubber dinghy onto the rocks, then climb up rocks covered in slippery seaweed, bird crap and dead bodies. I got very wet and covered in the white stuff, and my field assistant wore a plastic bag on her hands so she didn't have to touch it.

Long ago, when C. isolata was last found there, Whero Rock had a hut and a tree. Neither exist any more, and I figured C. isolata may have gone extinct due to lack of soil or shelter.

I was wrong! We found a healthy population sheltering under rocks and the remains of the hut. After being on the tiny rock for four hours, my field assistant was totally over spidering and had called Rakiura Charters to pick us up. It was a good thing too - the perfect day had changed, the wind picked up, the sky darkened. No way would we stay overnight on such an exposed rock. We were glad to return to our backpackers, and to shower and wash our clothes!

Bench Island
The final island we visited was Bench. The dangers there were not sharks and rocks, but fur seals. Everywhere were seals with pups, and we had to walk and talk loudly so that they knew where we were. The key, we were told, was not to get between them and the sea.

For a while we searched fruitlessly. We stuck to the beach: the bush was filled with muttonbird burrows, which are easy to collapse. It was hard to search there anyway and fur seals were hiding in the bush. We found some burrows, but they did not look right; there was far more silk around the entrance than usual. Finally, my friend yelled out that she had found a burrow halfway up a bank. Many more burrows surrounded it, some with lids, others with partial lids, and some completely open. We dug, dug, and dug some more until we had collected our quota of five spiders.

Spiders on Bench Island

You will notice that these are much smaller than the other pictures I have posted - the southern, unlidded (or partially lidded) spiders I have found are quite a bit smaller than their northern counterparts and lidded Cantuaria.

We have had so much success on Stewart Island that we rebooked our ferry to take us back early (also because this place is very expensive). Tomorrow morning we leave. I had better go and pack.


Photos by Ashley White