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    • Rights: Crown copyright
    Published 18 November 2020 Referencing Hub media
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    Freshwater ecologist1 Dr Ian Kusabs explains the ecological roles kōura play and their importance to iwi2 living in the central North Island.

    Questions for discussion:

    • What three things do kōura do for the local ecosystem3?
    • Why are kōura culturally important?

    Transcript

    Dr Ian Kusabs

    Kōura are really important in freshwater ecosystems4. They’re an organism5 that has an extremely high impact on an ecosystem relative to its population6. That’s why we call them a keystone species7. They’re omnivores8 so they eat plant and animal matter9 and the rotting matter on the bed of the lake or the repo. They also remove a lot of sediment10 and silt11 from rocks, so they maintain the crevices and cracks for lots of other insects and animals to live in. They’re a food for other fish species12 and shags and people.

    Kōura are considered by Māori to be a taonga species13, so a treasured species, and particularly in the central North Island, so the Rotorua and Taupō lakes, where historically they were important, in huge quantities and not only used for consumption but also for trading with iwi from outlying districts. They are one of the main food staples around these lakes, and that’s carried on to today where now they’re considered a delicacy.

    In Te Arawa when we had our Treaty settlement, we supplied kōura for those tables at Tama-te-Kapua. It’s really prestigious to have those on the table – it’s a highly valued local resource.

    Acknowledgements

    Footage, kōura on lake bottom, whakaweku and men hauling in whakaweku; and photos of cooked kōura, Dr Ian Kusabs
    Photo, kōura on rocks, aeterno, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
    Photo of little shag (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos) eating kōura, Raewyn Adams
    Historical footage, women on waka and harvesting kōura with a whakaweku, 1937, The Footage Company Australia/British Movietone

    Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Curious Minds, MBIE logos
    Rights: Crown Copyright

    The Voice of the Wetlands

    The handbook Te Reo o Te Repo – The Voice of the Wetland forms the basis of the collection of resources funded by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research and MBIE’s Unlocking Curious Minds initiative.

    1. ecologist: A scientist who studies ecology – the relationships between living things and their environment.
    2. iwi: Māori tribe or large community, often consisting of several hapū (clans) bound together by common ancestors.
    3. ecosystem: An interacting system including the biological, physical, and chemical relationships between a community of organisms and the environment they live in.
    4. ecosystem: An interacting system including the biological, physical, and chemical relationships between a community of organisms and the environment they live in.
    5. organism: A living thing.
    6. population: In biology, a population is a group of organisms of a species that live in the same place at a same time and that can interbreed.
    7. keystone species: A species that has a greater impact on the community of organisms in an ecosystem than you would expect in relation to its abundance. The removal of a keystone species often has a dramatic effect on the ecosystem.
    8. omnivore: An animal which eats both plants and meat.
    9. matter: The basic structural component of all things that have mass and volume.
    10. sediments: Material that settles to the bottom of a liquid. In geology, it describes the solid fragments of inorganic or organic material that come from the weathering of rock and are carried and deposited by wind, water or ice.
    11. silt: A granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay. Its mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in water. It may also exist at the bottom of a water body.
    12. species: (Abbreviation sp. or spp.) A division used in the Linnean system of classification or taxonomy. A group of living organisms that can interbreed to produce viable offspring.
    13. taonga species: Species or biota that are of value to Māori or hold cultural significance to Māori, which may include introduced species.

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      • Go to full glossary
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      ecologist

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      2. A scientist who studies ecology – the relationships between living things and their environment.

      organism

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      3. A living thing.

      omnivore

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      4. An animal which eats both plants and meat.

      silt

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      5. A granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay. Its mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in water. It may also exist at the bottom of a water body.

      iwi

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      6. Māori tribe or large community, often consisting of several hapū (clans) bound together by common ancestors.

      population

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      7. In biology, a population is a group of organisms of a species that live in the same place at a same time and that can interbreed.

      matter

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      8. The basic structural component of all things that have mass and volume.

      species

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      9. (Abbreviation sp. or spp.) A division used in the Linnean system of classification or taxonomy. A group of living organisms that can interbreed to produce viable offspring.

      ecosystem

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      10. An interacting system including the biological, physical, and chemical relationships between a community of organisms and the environment they live in.

      keystone species

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      11. A species that has a greater impact on the community of organisms in an ecosystem than you would expect in relation to its abundance. The removal of a keystone species often has a dramatic effect on the ecosystem.

      sediments

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      12. Material that settles to the bottom of a liquid. In geology, it describes the solid fragments of inorganic or organic material that come from the weathering of rock and are carried and deposited by wind, water or ice.

      taonga species

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      13. Species or biota that are of value to Māori or hold cultural significance to Māori, which may include introduced species.

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