Rakiura Maori continue a centuries old harvest of titi chicks (sooty shearwater, Puffinus griseus) which is governed primarily by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). The sustainability of titi harvesting is of high cultural, social and ecological importance. Some commentators view contemporary use of TEK as insufficient to ensure sustainability because it is no longer intact, too passive, and/or potentially inadequate to meet new ecological and technical challenges. Such assertions have been made in the absence of detailed description of TEK and associated social mechanisms. This thesis describes Rakiura Maori TEK practices and management systems that are in place and asks whether such systems are effective today, and whether they will remain effective in future. Ecological, social and cultural factors are intertwined in cultural wildlife harvests so the methodology used was a combination of quantitative ecological methods and semi-directive interviews of 20 experienced harvesting elders. The research also used ecological science to evaluate potential harvest monitoring methods and to determine what sets the limits on harvest. These ecological studies focused on harvesting by four families on Putauhinu Island in 1997-1999. Harvest is divided into two parts. In the first period (�nanao�) chicks are extracted from breeding burrows during daytime. In the second period (�rama�) chicks are captured at night when they have emerged from burrows. Nanao harvest rates only increased slightly with increasing chick densities and birders� harvest rates varied in their sensitivities to changing chick density. Although harvest rates can only provide a general index of population change a monitoring panel, with careful selection of participants, may be the only feasible way to assess population trend and thereby harvest sustainability or the resource�s response to changed management. Rakiura Maori harvesting practice constitutes common property resource management based on birthright and a system of traditional rules. Protection of island habitat and adult birds, and temporal restricitions on harvest are considered most important. Legislation and a belief system of reciprocity and connection to ancestors and environment aid enforcement of the rules. Ecological knowledge is learnt through observation, hands-on experience and storytelling. Younger Rakiura Maori now spend less time harvesting which puts pressure on the transmission of knowledge. Paradoxically, use of modern technology for harvesting aids transfer of essential skills because it is easier and faster to learn, thereby contributing to the continuance of a culturally important harvest. Limits on harvest are passive, with the numbers of chicks taken determined by the time spent harvesting and processing. Processing is more limiting during the rama period. Future innovations that decrease the time to process each chick during rama could greatly increase the total number of chicks caught. Recently introduced motorised plucking machines decrease the time required to pluck each chick. However, on Putauhinu Island, use of plucking machines did not increase the number of chicks harvested, indicating social mechanisms were also limiting. Elders identified changing values between the generations, which may reduce the future strength of social limitations on harvest pressure. Global climate change may reduce the predicability of traditional knowledge. Rakiura Maori have identified this risk and sought to examine ecological science as a tool to complement traditional knowledge for monitoring harvest sustainability. Climate change, declining tītī numbers and potential changes in technology or markets all threaten the effectiveness of current social limits to harvest. Rakiura Maori have previously shown the ability to adapt and must look to add resilience to their institutions to ensure we keep the titi forever.

Rakiura Maori continue a centuries old harvest of titi chicks (sooty shearwater, Puffinus griseus) which is governed primarily by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). The sustainability of titi harvesting is of high cultural, social and ecological importance. Some commentators view contemporary use of TEK as insufficient to ensure sustainability because it is no longer intact, too passive, and/or potentially inadequate to meet new ecological and technical challenges. Such assertions have been made in the absence of detailed description of TEK and associated social mechanisms. This thesis describes Rakiura Maori TEK practices and management systems that are in place and asks whether such systems are effective today, and whether they will remain effective in future. Ecological, social and cultural factors are intertwined in cultural wildlife harvests so the methodology used was a combination of quantitative ecological methods and semi-directive interviews of 20 experienced harvesting elders. The research also used ecological science to evaluate potential harvest monitoring methods and to determine what sets the limits on harvest. These ecological studies focused on harvesting by four families on Putauhinu Island in 1997-1999. Harvest is divided into two parts. In the first period (�nanao�) chicks are extracted from breeding burrows during daytime. In the second period (�rama�) chicks are captured at night when they have emerged from burrows. Nanao harvest rates only increased slightly with increasing chick densities and birders� harvest rates varied in their sensitivities to changing chick density. Although harvest rates can only provide a general index of population change a monitoring panel, with careful selection of participants, may be the only feasible way to assess population trend and thereby harvest sustainability or the resource�s response to changed management. Rakiura Maori harvesting practice constitutes common property resource management based on birthright and a system of traditional rules. Protection of island habitat and adult birds, and temporal restricitions on harvest are considered most important. Legislation and a belief system of reciprocity and connection to ancestors and environment aid enforcement of the rules. Ecological knowledge is learnt through observation, hands-on experience and storytelling. Younger Rakiura Maori now spend less time harvesting which puts pressure on the transmission of knowledge. Paradoxically, use of modern technology for harvesting aids transfer of essential skills because it is easier and faster to learn, thereby contributing to the continuance of a culturally important harvest. Limits on harvest are passive, with the numbers of chicks taken determined by the time spent harvesting and processing. Processing is more limiting during the rama period. Future innovations that decrease the time to process each chick during rama could greatly increase the total number of chicks caught. Recently introduced motorised plucking machines decrease the time required to pluck each chick. However, on Putauhinu Island, use of plucking machines did not increase the number of chicks harvested, indicating social mechanisms were also limiting. Elders identified changing values between the generations, which may reduce the future strength of social limitations on harvest pressure. Global climate change may reduce the predicability of traditional knowledge. Rakiura Maori have identified this risk and sought to examine ecological science as a tool to complement traditional knowledge for monitoring harvest sustainability. Climate change, declining tītī numbers and potential changes in technology or markets all threaten the effectiveness of current social limits to harvest. Rakiura Maori have previously shown the ability to adapt and must look to add resilience to their institutions to ensure we keep the titi forever.

The sooty shearwater (also known as the muttonbird, Titi, Puffinus griseus) is a long-lived super-abundant, burrow nesting petrel, harvested by Rakiura Maori from breeding colonies, located in southern New Zealand. The harvest is culturally defining and enormously important for Rakiura Maori. The work in this thesis contributes to the Kia Mau te Titi Mo Ake Tonu Atu Research Project being undertaken by Rakiura Maori and the University of Otago, towards assessing ongoing sustainability of the harvest and future threats. Analyses of eight muttonbirder harvest records spanning, 1938 to 2004, show that harvest rates demonstrate, systematic commonalities in seasonal patterns and broad-scale consistency in trends of chick abundance and quality across harvested islands. If co-ordinated and well replicated, harvest records offer Rakiura Maori a low-cost and effective monitoring tool of sooty shearwater reproductive success and long-term population abundance. Hunt tallies provide additional evidence of a dramatic reduction in sooty shearwater abundance from the late 1980s that was also detected by counts from boats off the western seaboard of the USA. A conservative estimate of overall decline in hunt success across diaries, for the period 1972 to 2004, is 1.89 % (CI₉₅ 1.14 to 2.65) per annum, a total reduction of 39.2%. The harvesting records show a sooty shearwater mortality event occurred just prior to the 1993-breeding season at the same time as a severe negative anomaly in both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Southern Oscillation Indices. The hunting diaries show a decoupling of chick size with harvest success in the early 1990s. This resulted from a decline in harvest success and an increase in its variability, while chick size remained correlated with changing chick abundance and maintained its pre-1990 average. Long- lived seabirds maintain high survival by skipping breeding and abandoning breeding attempts when oceanic conditions deteriorate, increasing variability in chick abundance is also evidence of pressure on adult survivorship. The multiple diaries confirm these were major demographic events not confined to a single island. My survival estimates for The Snares and Whenua Hou were very high 0.952 (0.896-0.979) compared to earlier estimates for this species. Transience at the colonies is high due to the presence ofjuvenile and pre-breeding birds. Both naturally high survival and the large number of transient pre-breeders indicate sooty shearwater are more resilient to harvest than earlier survival models suggested. There was no evidence for directional change in sooty shearwater breeding phenology over 49-years of harvest. Climate fluctuation/change is therefore apparently not altering egg-laying. Peak fledging occurred fairly consistently in the 2nd of May (IQR = 2.91 days). Yearly variability in emergence occurs primarily due to provisioning and localized fledging conditions. Larger chick size was strongly correlated with delayed fledging and is consistent with the traditional ecological knowledge of the birders. There was no evidence for chicks becoming smaller or that years with starving chicks were more common, so increasing mismatch of breeding with optimal forage was not indicated. The past proportion of birders over the last 20 years (1985 - 2005) has been ~2% all of Rakiura Maori. Approximately 376 birders participated in the 2006 season with an estimated of overall harvest intensity 19.4% (CI₉₅ = 13.8 - 24.2%) and a total catch of 381,000 (CI₉₅ = 262,257 - 487,186) chicks. This study found evidence that catch rates reduced with increasing birder competition partially mitigating effects on harvest pressure. The combined effects of potential climate change on bird abundance and increased harvester competition suggests that the proportion of Rakiura Maori whom choose to bird is likely to decrease as tallies reduce and cost recovery becomes more difficult. Rakiura Maori have for many years cherished and maintained their islands and implemented protective measures to safeguarded titi breeding habitat. Future harvest management will have additional issues to contend with, but Rakiura Maori are necessarily confronting these issues as the titi culture rests on the maintenance of their taonga. The information presented in this thesis shows that combining science and traditional knowledge is a powerful tool for managing harvest sustainability.