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transmitters attached to birds to determine where they go and what happens to them. Bird
banding is also practiced for the same purpose. Another very important part of the DOC mission
is to teach the public about these birds and the projects involved in the effort to protect them. The
educational aspect has no doubt been most responsible for the enormous public support that DOC
has earned for its many conservation activities. For instance, a bill to place a levy on fishing
operations would probably have been unpopular among a certain portion of New Zealanders and
legislators would have been reluctant to pass such a piece of legislation. However, when a bigger
percentage of the public voiced approval for the DOC recommendation, the lawmakers were
emboldened to enact the law. In addition, New Zealand declared that the reach of its sea territory
extends out 200 nautical miles from any coast. Such a huge ocean territory is difficult to patrol to
be sure, but law-abiding nations usually honor one another’s declared maritime claims. So only
the illegal fishing must be dealt with by DOC patrols.

Chapter 11. Enderby Island

The next port of call was an island among the Auckland Group: Enderby, comprised of 1730
acres, considerably smaller than Campbell. Enderby is also of volcanic origin but is much lower
in height. Whereas Campbell has mountains and cliffs up to 1640 feet high, Enderby attains only
147 feet of altitude. Yet whatever Enderby lacked in cliff and mountain grandeur, it more than
made up in panoramas because of the megaherbs. We had believed that those on Campbell could
not have been topped, but they were! And, Enderby also hosted the mysterious rata forest and its
magical denizens: the yellow-eyed penguins. Other endangered species inhabit this beautiful
little island as well: two types of albatross (the Gibson’s and the white-capped), the Hooker’s sea
lion, southern right whales, snipes, brown teal, and a small colony of eastern rockhopper penguins
and one species of parakeet, the red crowned! Parakeets so near the Antarctic? How
incongruous! Our visit just had to be a marvel and it truly was!

Right away however I must admit to something pretty funny in retrospect but fairly frustrating in
the moment. Kay and I decided to take the long birding walk which proved to be a trek around
the complete perimeter of the island—about 9 miles which took all of us about 8 hours to finish.
Why did it take so long to walk that distance? It certainly wasn’t the terrain that was pretty flat.
Though it was overcast and chilly, it wasn’t the weather either. And we couldn’t even blame the
very strong winds because they were pretty much confined to the headland areas and we were not
always hiking along the coast. No, it was the tall grasses and the tussocks made of shorter,
bunchier grasses that were the problem. Since so few people visit these islands during the year
that there was no real trail to speak of—we were basically just bushwhacking over most of the
island. Only at the end of our hike was there a boardwalk about ½ mile long. The long leaves of
the Poa grasses reached out from plant to plant creating “tangle traps” which ensnared boots and
pantlegs causing much falling forward onto the knees (at least for some of us). When somehow I
would escape the grasses for a few steps, then a tussock would reach out to trip me up and it was
usually successful. I don’t think I have fallen so many times on a hike in my life, maybe even on
a combination of all the hikes I have ever done! The good thing about the grasses is that they
created soft landings for sure because the clumps and tussocks were so springy. The problem lay
in righting oneself after each fall. Sometimes I would even “turtle” and have to figure out how to
get off my back and return to my feet. That was harder than just arising from a “forward” fall.
Kay said my trip (no pun intended) was probably much more tiring than anyone else’s because I
had to get up from being down so often!

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