The harvest of tītī, known as muttonbirding, could be under threat as climate change begins to alter its ecosystem
make the treacherous journey from mainland New Zealand to the Tītī Islands in the Foveaux Strait – thought to be one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world – to carry out the customary harvest of tītī, also known as muttonbird or sooty shearwater.
The annual harvest is a carefully guarded custom, requiring a would-be hunter, or “muttonbirder”, to prove they descend from a signatory to the 1864 Rakiura Deed of Cession, which gave chiefs and their descendants rights to specific parcels of land on the islands. The hunters can catch birds only on their designated manu .
“I can feel the ancestors around me in the forest – it’s almost like that overlap between the spirit world and te ao mārama, the land of the living, is very thin down there.”To give a muttonbird as a gift can increase mana and is an important part of manaakitanga , Spurr adds. This year was a bumper season, meaning Spurr and McColgan can return to the mainland with buckets of the salted birds – which taste a bit like anchovy – to sell across the country.
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