International collectors may have targeted colonies of the rare peripatus invertebrate living among the dank bush in Caversham Valley, a hearings panel was told yesterday.
Publicity about the plight of peripatus had heightened concerns about the rare invertebrate becoming a target for "unauthorised commercial harvesting", a leading ecologist and University of Otago academic warned.
Creating a "small" national park in Caversham Valley, to give the rare velvet-skinned, caterpillar-like worm conservation protection, was one option promoted at the hearing, being held to decide on a proposed Dunedin highway expansion.
Emeritus Prof Alan Mark told hearings panel commissioners Cr Colin Weatherall (chairman), Cr Kate Wilson and David Benson-Pope the peripatus was a target for "international collectors".
A draft restoration plan, prepared as a habitat management outline to protect a discovery of peripatus in Caversham Valley during the early 1990s, had been deliberately kept secret "on the basis it might promote unauthorised commercial harvesting", Prof Mark said.
There had been some losses of peripatus colonies, in relation to a "ready overseas market for this unusual and very special group of organisms", Prof Mark said.
"Do we tell the public that or do we go quiet?"
The issue of protecting peripatus, a 500-million-year-old "living fossil" often referred to as the "missing link" between worms and legged arthropods, has sidetracked a three-day hearing being held to decide whether the Dunedin City Council will amend an existing highway designation through the Caversham Valley.
NZTA wants to use a 5244sq m parcel of neighbouring land, which is understood to contain peripatus, as part of its proposal to expand State Highway 1 through the upper section of Caversham Valley.
Cr Weatherall asked whether creating a "small" national park in the area would afford better land protection rights to peripatus, compared with its council reserve status.
Conservancy solicitor Pene Williams said an Act of Parliament was the only way to create national parks in New Zealand - a "long process".
Caversham Valley peripatus were not officially listed as a recognised protected species by the Department of Conservation and would need to be reclassified as such by the Minister of Conservation.
Prof Mark said peripatus should be "unquestionably ranked in a nationally critical category of threatened organisms".
The council should move, "given Dunedin's wildlife city of New Zealand" status, to formally recognise the "rather inconspicuous organism" as an "important feature of the city environment".
Reclassifying the council-administered Caversham Valley land from "recreation reserve" to "scenic reserve" would allow for a greater protection given a priority afforded to the land's "natural" value, he said.
Cr Weatherall acknowledged the matter of peripatus was "off track" given the intended focus of the hearing, although both he and Cr Wilson, "wearing our councillor hats", had already flagged the issue to council reserve staff and the council's new chief executive.
