Sunday 3 February 2013

Where beavers once roamed?



Did beavers once live in the South?
By Mark Price

Were the Upper Clutha lakes once home to beaver? Wanaka historian Richie Hewitt has drawn together all the known accounts of beaver and otter sightings over the last 240 years and does not discount the possibility an animal of that sort lived in the South, or still does. Mark Price reports.In 1844 Maori chief Jack Rakiraki helped surveyor John Barnicoat draw a map in his journal showing the ''great lagoons'' at the head of the Clutha River - Wakatipi, Awia and Wanuk.The map is confusing in that it shows Awia as about the shape and in the location of Lake Wanaka and Wanuk likewise for Lake Hawea.

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