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Bay Chronicle : May 17th 2012
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aight teeth in around 6 months • No metal braces - 6 Month Smiles uses only clear braces. • Flexible payment options available. • Dr Simon Leith is New Zealand's only 6 Month Smiles Dentist. FOR A FREE CONSULTATION CALL 0800 6 MONTHS Dr Simon Leith www.kerikeridentalcentre.co.nz Great Dentistry, Great Smiles before after Thursday, May 17, 2012 High-speed trips halted after huge pay out CONTINUED Page 2 By HAMISH MACLEAN A company will stop its high-speed passenger service on water after paying out $270,000 in fines and reparations. The Bay of Islands was the birthplace of high-speed passenger services on open water in New Zea- land. But high-profile court cases have seen the two companies that own Paihia-based operations pay out a total of $390,000 in fines and reparations. Intercity Group, which owns Fullers, runs the 90-minute trips to the Hole in the Rock. Intercity chief executive Mal- colm Johns says there are too many risk variables involved with the high-speed service. We ve invested in excess of $1 million trying to manage all these risk variables and mitigate them. We don t believe that with a product that length that we can realistically do that, Johns says. Maritime New Zealand spokes- woman Sophie Hazelhurst says that until two similar operations were launched -- one in Auckland Harbour and one on Lake Taupo -- these were the only two of their kind in the country. Intercity took control of Fullers in 2008 and operated Excitor II in a high-speed capacity for less than one season. The company withdrew that craft because of passenger safety concerns in high-speed situations, when Maritime New Zealand issued its 2009 report on both high speed crafts in the Bay of Islands. The report s recommendations about design issues led Intercity to research high-speed operations around New Zealand and Aust- ralia. Intercity launched Excitor III and hired an independent safety On a wing and a prayer Into the wild: India Clarke says goodbye to the butterfly she carefully helped tag. Ready for release: Ashton Thirkell has a moment with a monarch butterfly, raised from an egg. CHILDREN at the Arohanui Early Childhood Learning Centre in Kerikeri have first-hand experience of the metamorphic processes of monarch butterflies. They have nurtured caterpillars and watched them turn into chry- salises before hatching. It has been just wonderful watching children of all ages devel- oping theories about their natural environment and the creatures in it in such authentic and meaningful ways, teacher Stephanie Young says. The children enjoy going out into the garden looking for monarchs and visiting with them. Often when we are out and about in the com- munity and we see a monarch flying past the children comment that it is probably ours from Arohanui. The children and teachers are now are participating in the Mon- arch Butterfly NZ Trust s tagging project to extend their learning and interests further. The children carefully help hold butterflies during the tagging pro- cess. Teachers help measure the butterflies and record how big they are, whether it is a male or female, the tag code and number and other important information, and enter the details on to the trust s we- site. The trust has tagged more than 40,000 butterflies but only 940 have been found again. So far this year 7001 had been released and 86 recovered. It is also monitoring the progress of Australian native lesser wanderers, which are not as preva- lent as the monarch. There is also demand to help the native red admirals and forest ringlets, both dying off because of a lack of habitat and the introduction of some types of wasps. Red admirals live on stinging nettle, these days treated as a pest. Forest ringlets were found in garnia, a toetoe-like grass, in more mountainous ranges, but used to be seen in suburban areas. Ensuring their survival was a worthy cause, the trust s Jacqui Knight says. If we make more people aware we re doing this, it will be more suc- cessful. Go to monarch.org.nz or contact Jacqui Knight 09 551 3383 or 027th414 811 or email trust @monarch.org.nz.
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