The Otago peninsula outside the city of Dunedin has been widely praised for its approach to eco tourism. The crowning glory is the breeding colony of Northern Royal Albatross at its tip, Taiaroa Head.
These birds, one of the three Great Albatross, breed nowhere else on the NZ mainland. And they only started here in the twentieth century. The first nest was made in 1919, but it was not until 1938, and then by dedicated human protection, that the first fledgling survived to fly on the great migrations.
It is fascinating to learn that only human ecological destructiveness made this headland attractive to the albatross. First of all, the coastal forest was cleared by loggers and tracks were made enabling these ungainly birds to land. Then gun emplacements were made; concrete flat areas, which, as grass grew around them, made perfect nesting sites.
Now the area is surrounded by heavy fences, to keep out the many predators introduced in the last 150 years that have so damaged the ground nesting birds: stoats, possum, cats and rats. These are fences to be the envy of any one trying to keep rabbits or deer out of their gardens and paddocks. They may not go deep enough for moles, though, which fortunately do not seem to have made it to New Zealand.