Citizen Science: Wasp Reporting

Bugs/ InvertebratesFauna: Introduced SpeciesKaitiaki/Conservation
Written By Kim Manunui

If you spot any wasps, you can become a citizen scientist!

Click HERE to see how to identify wasps. Use THIS FORM to report a sighting of any wasps that you see in New Zealand. 

Why do we need to report wasps? Wasps are predators to our native moths and butterflies, especially monarch butterflies. They are introduced predators disrupting the ecosystem in New Zealand. As the following excerpt from this article, by Skara Bohny, explains:

Although tiny the wasps have a powerful effect on native New Zealand insects, birds, and lizards. Throughout spring and summer they dominate the natural food chain, going through a sugar or carbohydrate-based diet phase in spring, followed by a protein-based diet phase in summer, disrupting the normal food-chain at many points.

During their sugar phase, wasps eat nectar and honeydew, the sugary byproduct excreted by scale insects burrowed in beech trees. Honeydew is an important addition to the diet of native birds like tui, bellbirds, waxeyes and even kākā.

Their protein diet is usually in the form of other insects, which they bring back to the nest to feed larvae. Not only is this bad news for native insects, it spells out starvation for native New Zealand birds, bats, and fish which rely on those insects for food.

Read more about wasps on the DOC website HERE.

Kim Manunui

Hi, I’m Kim and I work with a great team to help individuals, as well as small and not so small businesses get their message, product and services to the world using digital media and creating wonderful websites that don’t cost the earth.

I was born in Canada, and grew up around Vancouver and the mountains of British Columbia. My love of pristine environments led me to New Zealand and eventually to the mountains, lakes and rivers of the central North Island which is home. My family’s heritage is here, and it’s from here that Korio traverses the planet.

The digital world is never static and neither are we.

And I say ‘we’ because I work with an awesome group of talented people who I gather together as required to complete a project.  Whatever your business, not-for-profit or individual needs are we gather the best team to get the job done.

Collaboratively we are creative, share sustainable values and work hard for great outcomes because that’s the buzz of satisfaction that drives us.

If you have an audience and market to reach, we can make that happen. Creative design, words that work and smart behind the scenes stuff that cuts through the online noise. We’ll design your website and then build it. We’ll manage the content as well as all your hosting needs. We can handle your online advertising so you get noticed,
and we’ll manage your social media presence so you get the clicks, likes and engagement to grow your business. All within the budget you set, because none of this needs to cost the earth.  And the job doesn’t stop when your website goes live. We are your virtual business partner.

https://www.korio.co.nz
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