Enter our at-home Enviro competition and be in to win! Open to all our Gate Pa tamariki... Choose one of your favourite native animals (can be bird, reptile, insect, fish or mammal!) and see if you can find out the following information about them!
1. What family are they in?
2. Where are they found? (habitat & distribution)
3. What’s their favourite food?
4. What threats do they face today?
5. How can we help them?
6. What’s an interesting fact most don’t know about your animal?
If your feeling extra creative, you can also (or instead) do some artwork, write a story or poem, or even make a waiata about your favourite animal!
Share your mahi by posting it in the comments below. Alternatively, you can sending it in to me at jandersen@gatepa.school.nz or (when school restarts!) bring it in to one of our lovely office staff 🙂
Two prizes will be awarded, one for the most well-researched mahi and one for the most engaging creative piece!
To help you, you can call a knowledgeable friend or family member and look for books or magazines your whānau may have tucked away! There are also some awesome online resources which may help too, including...
I’ll start us off! One of my favourite native animals is… a kererū 🙂
1. What family are they in?
The pigeon whānau!
2. Where are they found? (habitat & distribution)
Throughout the country, although they are most abundant in
forests with low numbers of introduced animals and lots of kai!
3. What’s their favourite food?
Fruit. From my observations, it seems kererū enjoy all our native
fruits and berries. However, they also eat flowers and leaves,
particularly in times where fruits are scarce.
4. What key threats do they face today?
Predation by introduced mammals, habitat loss and habitat
degradation.
5. How can we help them?
Controlling introduced mammals such as possums, rats and
stoats to low numbers and creating habitat (i.e. planting trees
which they like to feed from!) are two key ways we can protect
these beautiful birds and help them to thrive again.
6. What’s an interesting fact most of us don’t know about your
animal?
Although we often only spot 1 or 2 kererū nowadays (if we’re
lucky!), they are actually naturally a flocking bird! In some special
places you can still see small flocks, however once upon a time
flocks were made up of many hundreds of kererū! If we look
after these taonga, perhaps one day we will get to see this
wildlife spectacle in our lifetimes too!
Tāku mahi toi o te kererū 🙂
Looking forward to seeing the contributions that come through and our awards will be announced upon school commencing back 'on campus'.
Have fun and take care whānau! ❤
Matua Jake
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