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TROUT FISHING WITH MAURICE RODWAY - Weekly Column: 19-November 1999
 Southland, New Zealand

The Flood - A New Home in the Wreckage

During the past week we have had a very large amount of rain.  A depression has dawdled over the south, from Mt Aspiring to the Catlins. It has drawn warm air filled with moisture from the far north and drenched the southern mountains and plains with more water than the land knows what to do with. All through the spring we had dry, warm weather but in the space of three or four days the rainfall deficit has vanished. Like a speculator deep in debt winning the lottery, his bank balance has swung from infra red to the darkest black.

Unfortunately the winnings have not fallen advantageously. Hundreds of people's homes and shops have been swamped. Disaster abounds.

But this is the way of nature. These are the events that set the heartbeat of the  world. To some they will be a signal that they have built their lives too close to the water's edge. In the world of wildlife only those with the right mixture of luck and wit will survive.

The silver gulls whose chicks have not yet learned to fly will now be a damp pile of feathers amongst the mud of the storm. Young oystercatchers and  plovers whose parents chose to make their nest amongst the river boulders rather than the feet of cows will not now make the journey into adulthood. Only those black fronted terns that nested early will have the privilege of joining their youths to dance in the westerlies of the summer. All along the river, from the wreckage of houses, to the tangled wire of  riparian fences, to the hopes of noisy birds, rivers have emerged from their lairs and swatted the lives of their neighbours.

While birds can survive the raging river, if their timing is good, and people who live on high ground can carry on as before, when the river recedes those slips of life that must remain in the river all the time will have suffered the most.

Tiny mayflies whose world relies on a stone on the river bed will only have survived if that stone was, by pure chance, wedged securely and resisted the swirling waters. Those that clung onto loose stones will by now be crushed or washed to the sea. This year's trout, just emerged from the gravel where they hatched, are no more than 25 to 30 millimeters long, and are no match for a roaring current. They too will have been tossed into the brown swirling foam, their life changed from a coordinated marvel to a messy smudge amongst the stones. Their bodies turned back into fungi and bacteria much sooner than they anticipated.

There will be massive losses of all sorts but here and there from a myriad of refuges, new life will emerge to find a new home in the wreckage.

Maurice Rodway
Southland, New Zealand                           E-mail: information@southlandfishgame.co.nz

Article © 1999 Maurice Rodway, All Rights Reserved.

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