Flora Feltham wrote an early version of our cover story when she was living on Wellington’s predator-free reserve Mana Island with her husband, then a DOC ranger. The couple spent two years on the island, often alone, spanning Feltham’s first pregnancy and 10 months of their baby’s life. An incredible honour, she says, but it had its challenges—weather that would strand them on-island; the need to maintain a stockpile of nappies. Mana is home to rowi, our rarest kiwi. “They would be going off at night and I’d be like, ‘Ssssh! You’re going to wake the baby!’”
There is also a colony of black-backed gulls on the island. They do not feature in her story: Feltham made the mistake of getting too close during breeding season and the birds made their displeasure extremely clear. “I never visited again,” she says.
