Landowners genuinely working hard to reduce rabbit numbers are unlikely to face enforcement action if they do not manage to get numbers down to required limits by 2012, the Otago Regional Council says.
A chance photograph taken by the public has helped researchers show a southern right whale has travelled more than 600km from the Auckland Islands to Coastal Otago in a few weeks.
While the region might have had a very wet August, the figures could not compete with those in the North Island, Climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said.
"Plateauing" bus patronage in Dunedin means the Otago Regional Council needs to look seriously at raising the subsidy for passengers with GoCards, Cr Michael Deaker says.
Strong, gusty winds buffeted Dunedin yesterday, bringing snow flurries to the hill suburbs and rain.
If a proposal to change the Otago Regional Council's flood protection bylaw to restrict development on the lower Taieri is to be effective, it will need to be aggressive and get in at the planning stage, Cr Stephen Woodhead says.
Daffodils are blooming, blossom trees are flowering and the warmer temperatures are here to stay for the most part.
A bylaw might be used by the Otago Regional Council to prevent further development which could impede flood flows on the lower Taieri.
The onus will fall on city and district councils to control what is going into their stormwater systems, under the Otago Regional Council's proposed urban water quality strategy, ORC environmental information and science director John Threlfall says.
The Taieri River was rising last night as rainfall in the eastern ranges made its way down the catchment.
Rainfall and snow melt because of the warm weekend temperatures have led to flood alerts for some of Otago's rivers.
For nearly 40 years, John and Sue Aspinall have always been ready to lend a hand, a tractor or a phone to Otago Boys' High School pupils and staff experiencing the great outdoors in the Matukituki Valley, on the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park.
The Gray's beaked whale that washed up on a Kaka Point beach earlier this week was a lactating mother, and its calf is unlikely to survive without it.
Two dead beaked whales found washed up on the Catlins Coast recently brings to five the number of dead marine mammals found on the coast this year - an unusually high number, according to Department of Conservation ranger Cheryl Pullar.
A meeting in Dunedin between a member of the expert panel considering the future of neurosurgery in the South and those fighting to retain the service went "better than we hoped", Associate Prof Samuel Mann says.
All the parties involved in an Environment Court appeal over the building of a pole house on flood-prone land at Karitane should have to bear their own costs, the court has decided.
It was unusual in duration but otherwise the rain event which caused flooding on the Taieri in May was unremarkable, consultant hydrologist Dave Stewart says.
The Otago Regional Council does not think dam owners are capable of managing safety under a more relaxed regulatory regime.
Otago was cold, sunny and dry last month, with Dunedin, Balclutha, Cromwell and Queenstown reaching records for low temperatures or high sunshine hours, or both.
Purakaunui landowners have again called for Potato Point to remain in its natural state, opposing a proposal to build a home on the point.
