Whanganui students go mad on moths for Ahi Pepe MothNet project

Georgia Latu (left) sifts through moth images with Dr Barbara Anderson. Photo / Bevan Conley

Whanganui was a magnet for moth experts last week.

"The wealth of indigenous and scientific knowledge in this one area is really remarkable," Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research quantitative ecologist Dr Barbara Anderson said.

Scientists and kaiako (teachers) of all kinds were based here for the second "camp" in the Ahi Pepe MothNet project. It aims to get students at kura Māori engaged with moths and science, and to reconnect them with their culture's moth-related language, stories and art.

Hosted by Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Atihaunui ā Pāpārangi and Putiki Marae, students from schools elsewhere joined those from Whanganui's Māori kura to trap, watch and learn about moths.

About 100 students aged 4 to 17 were involved.

Dr Anderson said moths are important.

"Moths are really the underdog of the natural world. We don't see and notice them much but in a lot of parts of the world they are in quite a lot of trouble and in danger of extinction."

To find out more about the moths here, students put out four traps at each of six places in and outside the predator fence at Bushy Park Sanctuary on Tuesday night. There were also traps at the Riri A Te Hori wetland near Putiki, Gordon Park Scenic Reserve, the Quaker Settlement in Virginia Rd and Putiki Marae.

When they collected what they had caught the Bushy Park moths were released alive, but the rest were dead and the students kept them to sort and study.

Dead moths are easier to identify, and it is important to count and identify them in order to conserve them, Dr Anderson said.

The students enjoyed the whole process.

Putiki's Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Atihaunui ā Pāpārangi is becoming a pepe (moth) kura, tumuaki/principal Miriama Harmer said.

"They're right into it and the whole science idea around it."

The school will continue to monitor moths at least once a year, she said.

New Zealand has about 2000 species of moth, Dr Anderson said, and 90 per cent are found nowhere else. They haven't been fully studied, but are probably as endangered as the ones in Europe.

Moths mostly eat plants and their existence is threatened by climate change, vegetation changes and the increased amount of light in the modern world.

The new LED streetlights, especially the brightest and cheapest of them, attract more moths than the old orange ones. The light distracts them from eating and mating, and it makes them easy prey to birds, spiders, lizards, hedgehogs and other predators.

The first Ahi Pepe MothNet camp was held near Dunedin last year. The project has produced booklets and teaching material for children, and hopes to get funding to work with primary schools nationally.