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Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)

OPINIONScienceJuly 19, 2020

The nation must honour Nigel the gannet, lovesick New Zealand hero

Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)

New Zealand has erected statues and carried out elaborate tributes for a ragtag collection of fools and racists. Hayden Donnell asks why we haven’t we memorialised one of our greatest residents, Nigel the gannet.

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love

– Oscar Wilde

Mana Island is ragged and windswept in winter. Tussocky outcrops slope down to rocky beaches. There are no roads. Few people. The only way to get around is on foot. 

If you walk across the island and travel down a small path to its western cliffs, you’ll find a clearing filled with lifeless stone gannets. The site seems harsh and inhospitable, devoid of life. But five years ago, it became the setting for one of New Zealand’s greatest love stories when the fake birds were joined by one live gannet.

Nobody knows where Nigel the gannet came from. Nobody knows where he went when he wasn’t on Mana Island. There are no gannet colonies nearby. No places for him to travel to or from. All we know is that he arrived sometime in 2015, drawn by the clifftop location, the white-capped waves and, most importantly, by a piece of concrete painted to look like a real gannet.

Nigel landed and built a nest with that inanimate, decoy bird. It would’ve been a remarkable, if short, romance if he had left after a season. Instead, Nigel stayed with his stone companion. For three years he dwelt alongside it, doting and dutifully carrying out his role as its mate. Whenever he left Mana, he would eventually be drawn back by the tractor beam of love.

Nigel died in 2018, his body discovered alongside his concrete partner by Mana’s former ranger Chris Bell. By then, word of his lonely vigil had spread around the world. His passing was covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC. “Nigel the lonely gannet dies as he lived, surrounded by concrete birds,” The Guardian’s headline read.

Then the cameras went away. Reporters moved on to memorialise other lonely animals, including George the snail, Trevor the duck and Sudan the white rhino. Though Nigel is remembered fondly, little has been written on him since his death, outside of a DOC blog posted on Valentine’s Day

This is what happened when the coverage cut off: Nigel’s body was packaged and transported across the channel between Mana Island and Titahi Bay. He was taken to a DOC facility in Porirua where he was placed in a freezer filled with the corpses of other birds. The lid slammed shut and Nigel remains there to this day, entombed in ice.

There were some early calls for a memorial. Nick Fisentzidis, Mana’s current ranger, says straight after his death, Mana Island’s iwi Ngāti Toa, DOC, and volunteer group Friends of Mana talked about how to honour the island’s most famous resident. The discussions faded as the bustle of regular life returned.

Nigel and his concrete pals (Photo: Chris Bell, DOC)

But Nigel’s memory still looms large for a lot of New Zealanders. NZ Geographic’s editor Rebekah White says even today, Nigel is never far from her mind. “Nigel stands for all of us who are incapable of facing reality,” she says. “In this regard, he’s somewhat of a patron saint.”

Fisentzidis feels the same. “It was just a universal story really. It was something that lots of people could connect with, that unrequited love,” he says. “If I wear my ecology hat … I think he probably wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and passing that genetic material on probably wasn’t entirely important. But that’s not all that we look at when we look at these sort of things and he did a heck of a lot more from an advocacy point of view than just any other gannet.”

Fisentzidis says he’d be keen to see talks of a memorial revived. “I think Nigel’s story obviously affected a lot of people, not just nationally but internationally,” he says. “There’s definitely some support for continuing the story but also wrapping up the story as well.”

At this point, I’d normally call for Nigel to be honoured in Te Papa. You can’t look at the parade of losers, racists, and fools New Zealand has fêted and tell me Nigel doesn’t deserve a place in our national museum. Captain John Hamilton is famous for landing in New Zealand, dumbly shouting “follow me, men”, and getting shot in the head. He has a whole city named after him. 

I even contacted the taxidermist Peter Wells, who told me he could restore Nigel to an approximation of his former self. “If the bird has been in a freezer then there’s no reason why it can’t be mounted,” he says. “Providing the bird is kept indoors and out of direct sunlight it should last for many many years.”

Te Papa is indoors. Te Papa is out of direct sunlight. Te Papa would be perfect.

But Te Papa is not where Nigel belongs. Mana Island is his whenua. His kāinga is alongside the concrete bird he loved. 

Getting him there requires the agreement of two parties: Friends of Mana and most importantly, Ngāti Toa. Friends of Mana have not returned my messages, of which there are several. However, a spokeswoman from Ngāti Toa has expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of Nigel’s return. “I have forwarded it to our board to seek their thoughts on this,” the spokeswoman says. “We have generally opposed burials on Mana Island but this situation is a bit different.”

If they do agree to return Nigel to Mana Island, Fisentzidis knows a good spot for a memorial. There are some clearings along that small path down to the island’s western cliffs. With permission, we could take Nigel down that path one last time. He could be laid to rest in the dirt, his story on a small stone above him. Fisentzidis has plenty of spare decoy birds. He would fetch Nigel’s partner from the stone colony, and move it up the path to the memorial. The two would be together again.

Nigel spent his whole life loving, never getting anything in return. Now finally in death, we should show him the affection and respect he surely craved. It’s time to get Nigel the Gannet to Mana Island.

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Lockdown in Melbourne, July 2020 (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Lockdown in Melbourne, July 2020 (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

ScienceJuly 15, 2020

Alert level more: Which parts of the world are going back into Covid lockdown?

Lockdown in Melbourne, July 2020 (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Lockdown in Melbourne, July 2020 (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

While there are increasing examples of a return to some lockdown measures, there is little evidence to demonstrate the success of a second lockdown, because it’s too early to tell, write Maximilian de Courten, Bojana Klepac Pogrmilovic and Rosemary V Calder of Victoria University, Melbourne.

The World Health Organisation reported more than 230,000 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday – the world’s largest daily increase during the pandemic. The surge has forced governments in many places across the world to order new lockdowns.

This includes Melbourne, which is back in a six-week lockdown after a second wave of new cases exceeded the city’s first peak in late March.

But Melbourne is not the only city to suffer a second wave of the pandemic. Cities including Beijing and Leicester had lifted Covid-19 restrictions, only to re-enforce them when new outbreaks occurred.

So how have other cities gone about their second lockdown, and have the measures been effective in tackling the Covid-19 resurgence? Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Lockdowns return

Though there’s no strict definition of a lockdown, it describes the controls imposed by governments to restrict the movement of people in their communities. It’s often achieved through a combination of police presence and applying public health regulations.

It can be implemented partially, progressively or fully. The latter is called “hard lockdown” when the freedom of entry to, and exit from, either an entire building or geographic area is prohibited or limited.

The Segrià region in Catalonia, Spain re-entered an indefinite partial lockdown on July 4 following a significant spike in cases and Covid-19 hospitalisations.

The city of Leicester in the United Kingdom has gone into a second lockdown after it accounted for 10% of all positive Covid-19 cases in the country at the end of June. The city has been in lockdown for the past two weeks and despite this, the latest data show an increase in the numbers of cases.

A second wave in Beijing was tackled by increasing degrees of lockdowns. The strictest measures were limited to a few high-risk neighbourhoods, accompanied by a ring of looser lockdown measures around them.

Alongside this was extensive and widespread testing, with a peak capacity of 300,000 tests per day. This approach proved successful – the city reported zero new Covid-19 cases on July 7.

While there are increasing examples of a return to some lockdown measures, there are no examples demonstrating the success of a second lockdown – other than in Beijing – because it’s too early to tell.

Clear public health messaging is key

When entering a second lockdown, it’s useful to consider the lessons learnt from the first. Initial lockdowns in both Italy and India provide cautionary tales on what happens when public messaging and enforcement is flawed.

Italian media published information about internal movement restrictions a day before the Italian prime minister officially announced it and signed the decree. At the time, only northern Italy was heavily affected by Covid-19.

After the news spread, workers and students, many of whom carried the virus, rushed back home across the country, flooding the train stations. Even though the goal was to reduce the spread of the virus, the effects were the opposite. Soon after, it was discovered that new Covid-19 cases in southern Italy were families from students who came home from the north.

Similar panic among migrant workers occurred in India when the prime minister gave the public only a few hours notice before the start of the lockdown. This is just one reason why India’s lockdown has been labelled as “a spectacular failure”.

Lockdown, relax, lockdown, relax

After a lockdown, the majority of the population remains at risk of infection without a vaccine. So as restrictions ease, cases are likely to increase again, leading to a pattern of lockdowns, relaxation and renewed lockdowns

So why can’t governments just aim to eliminate the virus? An elimination strategy requires strict, intensive lockdowns and closing external and internal borders to eradicate local transmission and prevent the virus being imported.

Elimination strategies have worked in only a few countries and regions, such as New Zealand which imposed an early and strict lockdown.

The effectiveness of lockdowns can be diminished by increasing population fatigue in response to reimposed restrictions.

Lockdowns also have many serious repercussions, including a severe impact on mental health and the economy. French prime minister Jean Castex has ruled out another total lockdown arguing that its economic and human consequences are disastrous.

Locking down a given country can cost up to 3% of GDP per month, according to UBS Global Wealth Management.

Lockdowns can work if masks are used

It’s clear that lockdowns cannot be maintained indefinitely. That’s why the rapid development of a vaccine to achieve herd immunity, without extensive infection, is critical – along with the development of drugs to relieve the symptoms of Covid-19.

So how long should Melbourne’s lockdown last? The Grattan Institute has argued it should continue until there are no more active Covid-19 cases in the community to eliminate the virus – and after that, should remain in place for another two weeks.

We argue that the duration of the lockdown could be halved if paired with mandatory universal use of face masks. Wearing masks lowers the risk of spreading and contracting the disease.

Maximilian de Courten is Health Policy Lead and Professor in Global Public Health at the Mitchell Institute, Victoria University; Bojana Klepac Pogrmilovic is Research Fellow in Health Policy at the Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy, Victoria University, and Rosemary V Calder is Professor, Health Policy, Victoria University. This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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