Buller's gulls make front page of Wairarapa Times-Age

[Nikki McArthur]

Hi all,

Black-billed gulls have featured in a front-page story in the Wairarapa Times-Age today, together with a second article on page three:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-tim ... d=11336582
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-tim ... d=11336578

All credit to locals Joanna McVeagh, Colin Shore, Robin List and Tony Silbery who have been working hard in recent months to raise the profile of these gulls in the Wairarapa.

Regards,
Nikki

[SomesBirder]

Latin name aside, who has ever called them "Buller's Gulls"?
Another thing; saying that they do not seek food from humans is not entirely true. When I was last in Hawke's Bay, a mixed flock of the Chroicocephalus gulls were eating the food that I was handing out, and I am sure that I am not the only one who has seen this.

[Joanna10]

It's a pity they are not commonly called "Buller's gulls" to differentiate them from Black-backed gulls and their often negative connotations.
While it's "not entirely true" that they don't seek food from humans - the ones we have here in the Wairarapa seem far less inclined to do so than other gull species.
Far more important than those small errors was the heartening aspect that the newspaper chose to see this topic as newsworthy enough to make the front page. Also heartening is the potential for the local Councils. DoC, Forest and Bird, BirdsNZ and any other community members to work together and help improve the chances of success for one of our more threatened endemic species. The fact that this could happen in the middle of an urban area is special - all too often conservation work happens away from the public gaze, where it is difficult for many to make a real "connection" to the plight of much of our endangered wildlife.
I for one, am grateful to the newspaper for seeing this as a worthy topic. Small errors are forgiven.

[Nikki McArthur]

Jeez...talk about not seeing the wood for the trees, SomesBirder! As Joanna says, surely we can overlook some fairly incidental inaccuracies and instead praise the paper for giving these gulls such prominent & positive coverage.

For what its worth I'm also usually a bit of a stickler for using the correct common & scientific names for species, but in this case I also see a very good reason for encouraging the use of "Buller's Gull" over "black-billed gull" - I don't know how many times I've had to explain to people that they're a different species to black-backed gulls. Given that black-backed gulls are so much more common, and somewhat maligned, the more we can do to differentiate these two species in the minds' of non-birders the better.

...and just to reinforce the point, I've now changed the title of this thread!

Nikki