Kea are a Kiwi icon, known the world over for sticking their beaks into everything. But their fascination with the nails holding down roofing iron in the Arthur’s Pass region, and many other alpine locations may be leading them towards an early death.
The reason: Much of the roofing iron on pre-1990 batches, houses and railway cottages in the region is still held in place by old lead-head nails.
And the gangs of juvenile kea that flock to Arthur’s Pass village each day just love the soft lead-heads.
“You need to have heavy-duty weather proofing around here with the weather we get here,” said Habluetzel.
She said because many of the older homes in the village and surrounding areas are nearly 100 years old, lead had been used to seal the joins in the roofing iron around chimneys, eaves and where flashings were required.
The trust is working with property owners to replace the lead-head nails and change the flashings from lead-based to more modern, eco-friendly materials that are also kea-proof.
Habluetzel said juvenile kea love nibbling at the lead-head nails and anything else that’s soft on the roofs.
“When you look at the nail heads you can see where they have scratched and pecked at them.”
Habluetzel said the problem has been around for many years.
“It’s killing them or making them very ill. The toxicity of the lead is such that it causes mental impairment, which can lead to them being hit by car if they are hanging around on the roads.”
She said if found in time the young kea get treated at the South Island Wildlife Hospital in Christchurch.
“And if they’re not able to be treated, then they need to euthanise them, which is pretty awful for everyone involved,” she said.
Recent published reports by the trust summarise that over 90 per cent of male fledglings seen around Arthur’s Pass have tested positive for lead poisoning.
The trust wants people to know if they have a pre-1990 building that’s had no work done on the roof and had no replacement of lead-based materials, then they can help.
“A building as small as a dunny can be causing a lot of trouble for kea. They muck about and are more prone to behaving like that if they’ve been interacting with humans and learning not to go and look for their own food.
“That makes them much more prone to this kind of sort of semi-juvenile delinquent behaviour,” she said.
Habluetzel said volunteers helped assemble a list of people who want the lead removed off the roofs on their properties.
“We’ve got a couple of contractors working up here now. And they are doing really great work, going around assessing properties, giving quotes so that people know what it would cost to get it done if they had to pay for it themselves, because the trust is meeting the cost of the removal of the lead-based materials.”
Habluetzel said about 60 individual juvenile kea were recently banded in the area, and she implores visitors to “please stop feeding them”.
“It’s so bad, so bad for them. They need to look for their own food, and they’re more prone to be hit by cars.”
- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
