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During the packed day of our visit to New Zealand's Tongariro National Park we made time to visit the visitor center. We always like stop by park visitor centers to get information on conditions, seek recommendations, learn a bit about the area and its history, and see if there are any cool souvenirs to buy. Generally we try to do that first... though here at Tongariro we did it almost last in the day because the park's visitor center is buried so deep within the park. I mean, we didn't even reach it until we'd been there 6 hours. Better late than never.
The park had a banner proclaiming a desire to rid New Zealand of predators. We'd seen similar things in other parks over the previous week. A variety of predatory animals were introduced by European settlers, some because they wanted their furs, some because they thought they'd control pests. Well, possums, ermines, etc. found it easier to prey on New Zealand's native species of flightless birds than pest animals. These imported animals ate some of the native animals to the brink of extinction. Now for several years New Zealand has been working to reduce the invasive species' numbers and threat.
So far, so good. NZ is hardly the only place to have a problem like this and try to correct it. But it was amusing that their "Predator Free" banner was right next to this display:
That's a KΔrearea, a falcon that's native to New Zealand. It's... a predator. It eats birds. And it's endangered. And they're trying to save it. And the display that explains that (minus the "It eats birds" part; that was me) is right next to the banner proclaiming "Predator Free".
By the way, the karearea is the bird we bought a stuffed animal toy of the week before. Since we already had the toy— and had already named her Te'Anau— we weren't going to buy another. But I did buy this postcard of a karearea:
The visitors center had one of those almost-obligatory relief maps of the park. It didn't help us much in the moment— we'd already spent most of a day there and had figured out the lay of the land— but I'll include a pic now to help you (and me, when I look back on this in the future) get the context of the park:
Mount Ruapehu is the big mountain in the display. It's a cone volcano. As you've seen in my photos it's not quite as snow-capped during our visit. We were there in April, which is early autumn in New Zealand.
The visitors center is along the road (red line) somewhat below the Whakapapa Ski Field marked on the map. I shared photos from our drive up there in my previous journal entry. Kind of north of the visitors center is Taranaki Falls. I've posted two blogs about our hike there. Earlier that morning we visited Turoa, which is at the top of the road that approaches the flank of the mountain from the right side of the map, and hiked Mangawhero Falls from that road.
The park had a banner proclaiming a desire to rid New Zealand of predators. We'd seen similar things in other parks over the previous week. A variety of predatory animals were introduced by European settlers, some because they wanted their furs, some because they thought they'd control pests. Well, possums, ermines, etc. found it easier to prey on New Zealand's native species of flightless birds than pest animals. These imported animals ate some of the native animals to the brink of extinction. Now for several years New Zealand has been working to reduce the invasive species' numbers and threat.
So far, so good. NZ is hardly the only place to have a problem like this and try to correct it. But it was amusing that their "Predator Free" banner was right next to this display:
That's a KΔrearea, a falcon that's native to New Zealand. It's... a predator. It eats birds. And it's endangered. And they're trying to save it. And the display that explains that (minus the "It eats birds" part; that was me) is right next to the banner proclaiming "Predator Free".
By the way, the karearea is the bird we bought a stuffed animal toy of the week before. Since we already had the toy— and had already named her Te'Anau— we weren't going to buy another. But I did buy this postcard of a karearea:
The visitors center had one of those almost-obligatory relief maps of the park. It didn't help us much in the moment— we'd already spent most of a day there and had figured out the lay of the land— but I'll include a pic now to help you (and me, when I look back on this in the future) get the context of the park:
Mount Ruapehu is the big mountain in the display. It's a cone volcano. As you've seen in my photos it's not quite as snow-capped during our visit. We were there in April, which is early autumn in New Zealand.
The visitors center is along the road (red line) somewhat below the Whakapapa Ski Field marked on the map. I shared photos from our drive up there in my previous journal entry. Kind of north of the visitors center is Taranaki Falls. I've posted two blogs about our hike there. Earlier that morning we visited Turoa, which is at the top of the road that approaches the flank of the mountain from the right side of the map, and hiked Mangawhero Falls from that road.
