The Peco Incident (8 page)

‘What’s that?’

‘That migrating birds brought it here. But they have been coming here for thousands of years. Can’t see how all of a sudden they’d start bringing diseases with them. Would have happened before. And it hasn’t. No, mark my words. That Bryce Shreeves is the one to blame.’ A quick puff. ‘Mongrel!’ he added angrily. Then he started coughing. It was a horrible, rasping sound, as if parts of his lungs were hanging loose and flapping around in the tubes.

When he was like this there was nothing you could do to help. It would take him a minute or so to recover. I waited.

‘Come on,’ he wheezed as the coughing subsided. ‘Come and see what’s happening to my birds.’

‘Can I bring Harriet?’ asked Nick.

‘Yeah, sure. She likes going outside.’

‘What about the disease?’ I asked. ‘I’m happy to stay in here with her, while you go out.’

Murph shook his head. ‘No need for that, Danny. If she’s going to get the flu, then she already has. She’s been out with me several times since I first noticed the sick birds.’

So we all went out to the aviaries, with Harriet still on Nick’s shoulder — and still ignoring me.

In the first one, we found two fluffed-up birds sitting on the ground. As we went from cage to cage, the number of sick birds increased.

‘Have many died?’ I asked.

‘Too many,’ replied Murph, softly. ‘Too many.’

My heart went out to the man. The birds and horse-racing were his whole life. He might be able to do without the horses, but the birds were his companions. Without them, his life would fall apart.

We moved into the trees to where the native-bird aviaries were hidden. In the first one we found the tui with the broken leg huddled on the ground. Murph looked at it without comment before moving to the penguin cage.

He took one look before turning his head away. ‘Oh my God!’ he said in a broken voice. ‘My God.’

Two days before, we’d seen five healthy-looking blue penguins. Now, one was dead and it looked like the others would be soon.

I looked up and saw the tears in Murph’s eyes. He didn’t say anything more, but I’m certain that he knew then that eventually he would lose all of his birds, and there was little that anyone could do to stop it.

N
ot far from where we live is a rocky hill called Taiaroa Head. Because it sticks out into the southern Pacific Ocean it gets hit with winds from all directions, particularly the freezing ones that come up from Antarctica. It’s a cold, windy, bleak, treeless place — the perfect spot for an albatross to nest.

When it comes to nesting time, albatrosses have a problem. Their bodies are designed for a life at sea, where they fly vast distances across the southern oceans in search of squid and other sea creatures. To do this they have wingspans of more than three metres across. While these wings are great for gliding over the sea, they tend to get in the way on land, where the birds find it difficult to flap them enough to get lift-off. So instead they launch into the air using strong winds and high cliffs. Taiaroa Head has plenty of both.

Each year hundreds of thousands of people visit the Royal Albatross Centre, because it’s the most accessible place in the world to see these wonderful birds. These people also come to eat, which is how our family is involved in the place. Mum relieves at the café whenever anyone needs some time off, which, in the days around Christmas, means almost every day.

Nick and I rode out there the afternoon following the visit to Murph’s. We were hoping for some free food and a cheap guided tour. The first part was easy as Mum was working the desk. The guided tour was trickier, as the tour buses were pouring in. We had to put our names on a waiting list and hope; they promised to phone Nick when there were a couple of spaces. In the meantime we went exploring.

There were birds everywhere. Thousands of them, and they all looked very healthy, even the sparrows begging food from the tourists. We saw shags nesting on the cliffs, gulls on the slopes, and blue penguins in boxes around the shore. In the air, juvenile albatrosses were clocking up some flying time in preparation for their departure in a few weeks’ time.

We also saw seals. They have breeding colonies on the rocky platforms at the bottom of the cliffs. At one place we could look down and see them lazing around in big pools between the rocks. Others were playing in the kelp that was waving slowly back and forth in the gentle swell.

We’d pretty well explored everything when the phone call came saying there was room for us on the four o’clock tour.

After being ushered into the information centre, we sat and watched a video about the albatrosses. Sitting down was not
what Nick needed, and straight away he started fidgeting. I sat beside him, hoping that the video would soon finish so we could get moving, as that might calm him down.

It did a bit. Our guide was called Jenny. She led us out of the centre into a fenced area. First stop was to look at a trap used to catch the stoats which prey on the albatross chicks. It was baited with an egg.

‘What sort of egg is that?’ asked Nick.

Jenny smiled. ‘Just an ordinary hen’s egg,’ she said. ‘Stoats love them.’

‘Hope it’s not a Peco egg,’ said Nick.

She looked anxious for a moment. ‘Oh dear, I hope so, too.’ Then she brightened. ‘No, it won’t be. We buy only free-range ones. Bryce Shreeves can’t call his eggs that.’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he did,’ said Nick with feeling. ‘He’s a killer!’

Jenny looked a little startled for a moment, before turning and leading us towards a gate into a fenced security area. After she’d let us all through, she shut and locked it again. No sooner had she done so than Nick launched himself at the gate, climbing halfway up the netting.

‘Help! Help! Let me out!’ he screamed. ‘Let me out!’

The tourists turned and looked at him in horror.

‘Stop it, Nick!’ I yelled.

He turned his head and grinned at me. ‘All right,’ he said, leaping down to the path.

Jenny was not impressed. Yet she held her tongue and led us up the sloping path towards the top of the hill. Part-way up,
the footpath split in two directions. Jenny took the left branch, expecting everyone to follow. They all did; except for Nick, who took the right one.

‘This way,’ she called to Nick, trying hard to sound friendly.

But Nick was almost running now, and he certainly wasn’t listening. It was just the same as when he had rushed into the lupins at Allans Beach. He was on another one of his missions.

‘I’ll get him,’ I said.

‘Be quick, will you,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ve got to stick to time or we’ll get mixed up with the next group.’

By the time I caught up with him, he’d reached the end of the path. He was standing staring down a tunnel that led underground.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded.

‘It’s the way into the fort.’

His face lit up. ‘There’s a fort under here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow! Can we go in?’

‘Not now. We’ve got to catch up to the others.’

But he wasn’t moving. ‘When can we do it?’

‘I’ll ask Dad. It might take some time, but we
will
go in there. Right? Now, can we go?’

That seemed to convince him. He pushed past me before sprinting back to the others. I sighed and followed.

The tour group was stacked up at another locked gate, waiting for us. Once again, after we went through, the gate was closed and locked behind us.

‘Why do you have to lock it?’ asked Nick.

Jenny turned and glared at him. ‘Because there are always idiots who do crazy things.’ She spread her arms, indicating all the fences. ‘These fences won’t keep out animal predators. They’re here to keep out the worst predators of all — stupid humans!’ She glared at Nick for a while longer, leaving us in no doubt which particular stupid human she had in mind.

Once inside the observation room Nick calmed down. He stood at the viewing window, studying an albatross sitting on her nest. The bird was in that semi-trance that takes over when they’re nesting.

‘That’s Milly,’ said Jenny with a smile. ‘She’s the oldest bird we have nesting here. When that egg hatches, it will be her seventeenth chick. But that won’t be until mid-January. She laid early in November and it takes about eleven weeks for them to hatch.’

She pointed to a photograph on the wall beside us. ‘That’s one of Milly’s chicks,’ she said. ‘That’s the actual size of them.’

There were
ooh
s and
aah
s from the group. It sure was cute: a big white bundle of fluff that looked just as cuddly as the stuffed toys they sold down in the shop.

‘How old is she?’ asked one of the tourists.

‘Fifty-three,’ replied Jenny. ‘She’s already outlived two partners. Her current partner is out at sea at the moment. He’ll return in a day or so, and then Milly will go off to feed while he sits on the egg. After the chick hatches, they’ll take turns in feeding it. Rearing an albatross chick is very much a co-operative effort. Without two parents, the chick would die. It’s also a full-time job. From the time they mate to when the
chick can look after itself takes ten months. The adults then head out to sea for a rest. They take a year off and won’t touch land again until they return here the season after next.’

All this time Nick was quietly listening while looking at the bird on the nest. He stayed there, even while Jenny led us around the room talking about the displays featuring the life of an albatross.

‘When the juveniles are about a year old, they leave Taiaroa Head. They’ll then spend the next seven or so years by themselves at sea.’ She pointed to a map showing the countries of the Southern Hemisphere centred on Antarctica. ‘Some will fly all around the globe in search of food. Then, when they’re almost fully mature, they’ll return here to find a mate. That might take a few seasons, but when they do hook up with a partner they’ll stay together for the rest of their lives.’

As Jenny told the stories, I studied the tourists. While some, no doubt, had problems understanding the language, none missed her message: that the royal albatross was a remarkable bird, and that this sanctuary on Taiaroa Head was indeed a very special place.

On the way back home we met up with Brio and Roost again. They were parked at Pilots Beach, which is just below the Royal Albatross Centre. Roost was reading a comic while Brio stalked birds on the beach with a camera. I wanted to ignore them, but Nick thought otherwise.

‘I saw you on TV,’ he said, walking down to Brio on the shore.

Brio looked up and gave a smile. ‘Saw you, too,’ she replied nodding. ‘I’m pleased you shopped that Shreeves pillock.’

‘You should have seen what it was like in there,’ said Nick. ‘There were dead chooks everywhere.’

I stood absolutely still, hoping that I’d misheard what he’d said.

The smile disappeared from Brio’s face. ‘Did you go in there?’

‘Um … ah … no!’ stuttered Nick. ‘We saw them hauling chooks out and burying them. There were thousands of them.’

Before Brio had a chance to question further, Roost walked over. ‘So here’s the boy who thinks viruses come from outer space,’ he said, chuckling.

Nick lowered his head. ‘Yeah. It was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?’

Roost shrugged. ‘Maybe not. There was a scientist back home who claimed the same thing.’

Brio gave a disbelieving snort. ‘And he was wrong,’ she said. ‘The only way those viruses got into Shreeves’s sheds was by him bringing eggs from Asia or someplace else.’ A pause. ‘Probably, genetically engineered so that he could pack more birds into a cage. People like him should be put up against a wall and shot.’ She looked at me accusingly. ‘I’m amazed that you New Zealanders allow farming like that.’

I shrugged. What could I do to stop it?

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘we’re leaving. Getting out, before
that flu starts killing people. We’re going across to Australia where it’s safer.’

‘When?’ I asked.

‘As soon as we get a flight. We’re on standby, so it could be any day.’

‘Good riddance!’ I whispered, but not so they could hear.

‘So, we won’t see you again,’ said Nick. He sounded disappointed.

‘Probably not!’ said Brio. ‘I for one will be pleased to get away from this disease-infested place. It’s going to spread, you know.’ She indicated the gulls at the shore. ‘They’re all going to die.’ Then she turned her head towards Taiaroa Head. ‘Those albatrosses are also going to die. And all because some greedy pillock wants to make more money.’ For a moment, her jaw pumped up and down on a wad of gum. ‘At least one good thing will come out of it,’ she continued. ‘By the time this thing’s finished, no country anywhere will allow battery-hen farming ever again. And so far as I’m concerned, the sooner that happens, the better.’

T
he Peco Incident was again big news on television that night. They confirmed that the disease was bird flu.

The type of flu was given as H6N3 where the H6 and the N3 referred to molecules on the surface of the virus. Apparently it is these molecules which control what sort of animals the virus can attack. The newsreaders kept repeating that there was no record of H6N3 attacking humans. However, they stressed that if any people living near the Peco farm developed flu-like symptoms, they should immediately contact the Ministry of Health’s infectious disease hotline.