Hiwi the Kiwi

Have you ever heard of Hiwi the Kiwi? Hiwi the Kiwi is a road show of two people. Mr and Mrs Minstrel. They go around New Zealand to schools and teach them about three things, how to keep the fish for the future, how to save our seabirds and Minstrel taught us about Water safety. In this story I  shall be explaining what Hiwi the Kiwi (Mr and Mrs Minstrel) taught us in the Pt England School hall.

The first lesson Mr and Mrs Minstrel told us about was keeping fish for the future. It means fishing the right size of fish. Especially when you are fishing on a boat. The size of the fish varies when the fish type changes. One tool that is very useful is a fish ruler. It helps to measure the fish and tells you the legal and illegal size of fish you’re allowed. But what was also interesting was Mr Minstrel also told us not to take the really big fish because they could maybe have some baby eggs inside of them. Then Mr Minstrel told us a story about a little girl who’s dad caught a prize snapper and she told her dad to put the snapper back in the water.

The second lesson was about Saving our Seabirds. Mr minstrel talked about when you go fishing you look for birds flying over the water. Because normally under the birds are lots and lots of fish. But, the problem Mr & Mrs Minstrel told us about was when we through out our lines we can sometimes catch a bird instead of a fish. What happens is the birds dive into the water then see the bait at the end of the hook, but they don’t know that there is a hook that holds the bait. So the bird bites the bait and gets it’s beak stuck on the hook. Then we think that it’s a fish and pull up the line. Even if we get the hook out from the bird's beak the bird might not be able to eat and then they get hungry and die. The other issue is when us humans drop rubbish, especially plastic things. For example a plastic lid was floating above the water and a bird was passing by. The bird might have thought it was a fish and gobbled it up. But that bird did not know that what he thought was a fish was actually plastic. The plastic inside the bird’s body did not digest. It stayed where it was and other food that tried to go down was stuck inside the bird’s body. So the bird got hungrier and hungrier then slowly died of hunger. So to stop this when we go fishing we should bring a water gun/blaster and shot the birds if they get too close to the fishing lines. The water will not kill them but scare them away from the lines.

And the last lesson was about water safety. About wearing a life jacket and making sure it fits. Mr Minstrel talked to Pt England about some people especially adults who would through their life jackets at the front of the boat and say, “I’ll leave that their and when I need it I will grab it.” but by that point in time you could have fallen off the boat. A story that Mr and Mrs Minstrel told us was about three men in their 20’s. They decided to go for a boat ride. They left their life jackets at the front of the boat and went zooming across the water. But what they didn’t know was that there was a broken log that sat just underneath the water so the three men couldn’t see it. When the three men drove over it they fell off. But by that time they couldn’t get their life jackets it was on a boat. The boat kept driving away with nothing on it except for the three life jackets that were left their. So the men had to swim a long way to get to shore. But it was to far away and they didn’t have life jackets to keep them afloat so the boys sadly ended up dieing!

So the overall lessons and messages that Mr and Mrs Minstrel were trying to tell us about were the following. First, looking after our kaimoana or in other words keeping fish for the future. Second, saving our seabirds which was about making sure our seabirds are safe and not endangered. And last but not least the third lesson was about water safety and always wearing a life jacket no matter what. The lessons that Mr and Mrs Minstrel told us were good and you people that are reading this should listen to what Mr and Mrs Minstrel said about our fish, seabirds and our lives. So now that you’ve read this nonfiction story you can put it into practice, good luck!