There’s some pretty smart observers around when it comes to wildlife, and maybe one of the smarter ones I’ve come across was an old mate who lived, by choice, considerably outside the city boundaries.
He was a tad over 80, and for at least seven decades spent much of his time studying wild animals, birds, fish and plants, was a keen and acerbic student of the stupidity of humans (especially those who herd as bureaucrats), and in his day was an eminent hunter and conservationist.
He delighted in proving pompous asses wrong – such as those who said there is no way a cat could be taught to fetch. He taught his cat to fetch 10 out of 10, and a variety of objects, to boot.
And, in the course of conversation one lazy, sunny afternoon, the topic swung round to stoats and their viciously predatory nature, and my old mate posed a question I couldn’t even begin to answer.
Around his property there was a resident stoat, and the two were on slightly stand-offish acquaintanceship, and they sort of mutually agreed to co-exist and not bother each other unnecessarily.
“So,” said Old Sharp-eye, “why is it that I have all these blackbirds and thrushes nesting in the hedges and trees round my place and the stoat never seems to touch them or their off-spring? “They nest in the most obvious places, not far off the ground, and their youngsters are noisy and clumsy and make themselves very tempting targets.
“Yet every time I’ve seen the stoat he’s caught himself a big, fat rat. He never seems to touch any of the birds.”
Who knows; and while he may have been right, I’m not all that keen to carry a flag of convenience for any member of the mustelid family. Grudgingly, I have to admire their supreme ferocity and hunting skills, and their general ability to survive in a world that is largely against them.
Weasels, stoats and ferrets have long histories in this country of slaughtering vast numbers of our birdlife, native and introduced, although in their defence they also take serious toll on pesky rats, mice and rabbits.
It’s the stoats that particularly intrigue me.
They were first introduced into New Zealand in 1885, and have since become the most common and widely-distributed mustelid in the country, ranging right throughout the land.
Originally they were brought in to assist in the rapidly building battle against rabbits, especially in the South Island. As well, of course, their fur was at that time considered of value. But because they are so sneaky we rarely see them, and most of us have almost no knowledge of just what terribly efficient killers they are.
I have one well-educated friend who isn’t sure whether stoats are birds or animals, so they’re obviously not the most in-your-face critters. Stoats live from sea-level to lower mountain regions, are happy in hedges, open paddocks, or dense bush, and they don’t mind cold or warm conditions. They’re excellent swimmers too, and have been found on islands several kilometers off-shore.
They are also very good tree-climbers, almost with the agility of squirrels, which means they can gain easy access to a wide range of birds’ nests. In the spring, eggs are a favourite part of their diet, but they’ll also happily chomp away on fledglings or adult birds if they can catch them (despite what my old mate said), and in the bush they are notorious for destroying most of the annual – and alarmingly diminishing – crop of kiwi chicks.
Young kiwi don’t have any guardians when they hatch – mother does a runner as soon as she has laid her enormous egg, and father does the hatching over the next 80-odd days.
But as soon as the youngster pips, dad decides he’s hungry and heads out of the burrow on a long-distance foraging trip. This leaves junior – about the size of a fuzzy tennis ball with two legs on one end and a beak on the other – to fend totally for itself.
It’s not much of an armory against a stoat full of stealth, speed, claws, teeth and blood-lust.
So something in excess of 90 per cent of all kiwi chicks hatched in the wild don’t make it past the first 30 days, and almost all of them succumb to the depredations of stoats.
It’s the mating habits of the stoat that are really intriguing, and one of the main reasons why they are so difficult to contain and eradicate.
Other than at mating, adults are solitary animals, and when a mother stoat is due to give birth she usually finds a disused rabbit hole or den under rocks or logs.
Five to eight kits are born, and within about three weeks the mother attracts a dog stoat so she can mate again – and while he’s there the male stoat mates with all the female kits as well, the youngest known being only 17 days when she mated.
The kits can hold a suspended pregnancy for up to about a year, by which time they have grown to adulthood and dispersed, sometimes as much as 40 to 60km from their home den.
Then the pregnancy is activated, and a whole new colony, self-perpetuating if there’s a mix of genders in the litter, is started.
Smart operating if you’re a stoat – but rather scary stuff for the nation’s smaller wildlife.