The Star: July 18, 2019

The Star Thursday July 18 2019
20
OUR PEOPLE – ANDREW CROSSLAND
Life among the birds helps park ranger
Conservationist Andrew
Crossland has been
recognised by Birds New
Zealand with a Robert
Falla memorial award. The
city council park ranger
talks to Louis Day about
how birds have helped
shape his life and career
What exactly does your role
consist of?
A big part of what I do is
habitat development – I don’t
just look at birdlife. The default
is birdlife because we don’t have
lions, tigers and giraffes around
the landscape. But in New
Zealand by default a person who
is a wildlife manager, which is
what I am, goes into birdlife. My
interest is how to develop habitats
or how to recognise habitats that
are of value to wildlife and how
to enhance them and protect
them, and how to manage the
behaviour and activity of people.
So I look at Christchurch as a big
national park and it has layers. It
has got street layers, the factory,
housing, it has also got the parks
and it’s about facilitating wildlife
across the city without annoying
people and without people
annoying them.
Would you say birdlife is one
of your biggest passions in life?
Oh yes, absolutely. It’s a calling.
KEEPING WATCH: Andrew Crossland has been studying
birds since he as a teenager.
It has given me a really good
career and has taken me around
different parts of the world. I
am probably better known in
Indonesia than what I am in New
Zealand because I have done a lot
of exploration over there, and in
some cases, I was the first person
to visit since Marco Polo. Down
in Sumatra, I have identified
huge bird populations people did
not know existed anymore. That
all happened because in 1985 I
found a bird on the estuary in
Christchurch called the asian
wowitcher and, at that time, it
was one of the rarest birds in the
world and it wasn’t really known
where they wintered. They breed
in the Arctic and no one knew
where they went to. I was very
interested in this particular
species and two years later some
scientists surveyed the southern
part of Sumatra and found quite
a few thousand of these birds.
I finished university in 93 and
I found some old World War 2
military maps of the northern
part of Sumatra, about a 1000km
north of where the birds had
been found. So I went to Sumatra
in 94, 96 and 97 and many years
since, and I doubled the world
population of this bird. While I
was doing that I found thousands
of other species of bird that
migrate from northern Asia
down to Indonesia and Malaysia
and also Australia. Some made it
to New Zealand. I found that first
record for New Zealand when
I was 15, and that bird really
changed my life in terms of me
exploring that part of the world. I
speak the language and I met my
wife there and my kids are half
Kiwi and half Sumatra and we
spend a lot of time over there.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Motueka, but I
grew up in Christchurch. I went
to Linwood Avenue Primary,
Linwood Intermediate, Linwood
High and then Canterbury
University.
How long have you been
involved with birdlife?
I have done it in a few phases.
I started doing this work in 1984
when I was 14-years-old, I think,
and became a consultant for the
council and then I worked as
an ornithologist for the water
services unit from 1997 to
1999, then I went overseas and
I changed careers and was an
embassy officer.
I worked for the New Zealand
High Commission Singapore
and then I returned and I have
been a park ranger since the
end of 2002 till now. So I have
been monitoring wildlife in
Christchurch for 35 years.
What is it you love the most
about your job?
It is great to get paid to do
what I love. It is great to start
on something when you’re a
teenager and get paid to do what
you love to do – not many people
have that privilege. I cruise
around the peninsula all the time
doing wildlife stuff, that’s way
better than working in a factory.
I have worked in a factory, I have
worked in a big flash office and
worn the big expensive shoes,
and now it is great to wear a pair
of shorts and go down to the
bush and the swamp, it’s great.
Why should people care about
birds?
We should care about all of our
indigenous wildlife. They have an
inherent right to live and it is also
a major part of our culture and
birdlife is one of the most visible
parts of our native wildlife.
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