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Displays around Taranaki: Herb Spannagl
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Description While working for L&S and later for DOC in Taranaki I did a lot of conservation interpretation. Not just trips during the annual holidays, but also lots of evening talks to a diverse range of community groups. One year, I clocked up over 50 evening talks throughout Taranaki. I also did a lot of Conservation Week displays in shopping malls in New Plymouth. These displays were very popular with the public and consequently I never paid for display space.
This is how all the displays started...
I met the chairman of the A&P Show Committee and asked him if we could have some space at their annual show. When I told him that we did not have any money to pay for ground rental, he allotted us a very small space at the back of the hall.
At the time, a lot of kiwi were caught in leg hold traps and we were trying to advocate for a change in traps, trap setting and cyanide lure flavour. (A new banana flavoured cyanide lure has come out, which according to the Wildlife Service, killed
over 50 kiwis on one trap-line in the bush near Taumarunui.)
We put up a good display but as we were right out the back few people came to our stand. The show lasted a whole week and we needed to come up with something to pull the crowd. Luckily I knew the local Wildlife ranger who had a one legged
kiwi that had been caught in a trap. It had the smashed leg which was amputated by local vets. The ranger looked after it as it could not be released . It was a female and got quite tame and readily eat out of our hands.
Here was our answer. We arranged that the ranger would bring the kiwi every day to the show to be fed by children. I got onto a local newspaper reporter who wrote an article about kiwis caught in traps and that one of them would come to the A&P show every day to be fed. He also made an appeal for kids to collect worms for the Peg Leg Kiwi.
So every day I announced over the speaker system that the kiwi had arrived, which almost created a stampede of people rushing to our display. It brought a lot of people to the show
who only came to see the kiwi. The chairman was so impressed that the following year we got a much better location for our display. I never paid any ground rental because our displays were so good and added to the popularity of the A&P show.
This is how all the displays started...
I met the chairman of the A&P Show Committee and asked him if we could have some space at their annual show. When I told him that we did not have any money to pay for ground rental, he allotted us a very small space at the back of the hall.
At the time, a lot of kiwi were caught in leg hold traps and we were trying to advocate for a change in traps, trap setting and cyanide lure flavour. (A new banana flavoured cyanide lure has come out, which according to the Wildlife Service, killed
over 50 kiwis on one trap-line in the bush near Taumarunui.)
We put up a good display but as we were right out the back few people came to our stand. The show lasted a whole week and we needed to come up with something to pull the crowd. Luckily I knew the local Wildlife ranger who had a one legged
kiwi that had been caught in a trap. It had the smashed leg which was amputated by local vets. The ranger looked after it as it could not be released . It was a female and got quite tame and readily eat out of our hands.
Here was our answer. We arranged that the ranger would bring the kiwi every day to the show to be fed by children. I got onto a local newspaper reporter who wrote an article about kiwis caught in traps and that one of them would come to the A&P show every day to be fed. He also made an appeal for kids to collect worms for the Peg Leg Kiwi.
So every day I announced over the speaker system that the kiwi had arrived, which almost created a stampede of people rushing to our display. It brought a lot of people to the show
who only came to see the kiwi. The chairman was so impressed that the following year we got a much better location for our display. I never paid any ground rental because our displays were so good and added to the popularity of the A&P show.
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CollectionInterpretationPersonHerb SpannaglOrganisationDepartment of ConservationDepartment of Lands and SurveyLand DistrictTaranaki Land District
PersonHerb SpannaglOrganisationDepartment of ConservationDepartment of Lands and SurveyLand DistrictTaranaki Land Districtloading google map....
Displays around Taranaki: Herb Spannagl. National Parks and Reserves Rangers Archive, accessed 01/11/2026, https://parkrangersnz.recollectcms.com/nodes/view/2389