Meet Our Team

Meet the team behind the Bittern Conservation Trust — a passionate group of conservationists, and community members working together to protect and restore habitat for the endangered Matuku-Hūrepo.

Julian Fitter

Chair

Born in the UK, educated around the world. After 15 years in the Galapagos Islands and spending time in the Falkland Islands, I moved to New Zealand in 2005.

Initially to Maketu and then in 2025 to Katikati. I have an Advanced Diploma in Environmental Management from Oxford (UK) and have written four books on NZ wildlife, one on Auckland walks and one on Galapagos Wildlife.

I was Chair (2009-23) of the Maketu Ongatoro Wetland Society (MOWS) which works to restore coastal ecosystems in The Bay of Plenty. In 2016 I founded, with the help of others, Bay Conservation Alliance (BCA), of which I am currently Chair. In 2023 I helped establish the Bittern Conservation Trust and currently serve as its Chair.

The Bay of Plenty is a key area for bittern, with breeding sites in the east, central and western coastal areas. Bay Conservation and MOWS are both involved in bittern work, I am personally focusing on the northern end of Tauranga Harbour where we have a quite a lot of booming sites and one failed nest in 2024. We would like to increase the pest control around the nesting site.

John Sumich

Secretary

A retired General Medical Practitioner, I have a life-long interest in what used to be called “nature studies”.

I initiated The Ark in the Park project in 1999 where we have since released robins, whiteheads, and most successfully, kokako into the Waitakere Ranges. We now have 2,500 predator-controlled hectares.

Habitat te Henga I set up in the Waitakere River valley to be able to translocate pateke which we did in 2015 & 2016. Founding trustee of Matuku Link, a wetland conservation & education project in the valley.

In 2021 I set up “OK Boomer” as an attempt to gather nation-wide data on bittern booms and thereby an idea of male numbers. Contacts made through this project lead me to bring together other interested people to form the Bittern Conservation Trust. At te Henga I organise predator control around the wetland and annual bittern and spotless crake surveys.

Bernie Kelly

Trustee

I Have been a member BirdsNZ since 2006 and am the current Regional Representative for Hawke’s Bay.

I became interested in Bittern while helping Emma Williams with her PHD study on the seasonal movements and methods of locating booming males using triangulation at Lake Whatuma in Central Hawke’s Bay.

I went on to help monitor Bittern and Crake in wetlands in the Waikato.

In 2018, I joined the Department of Conservation, employed as a Biodiversity Ranger, where I undertook tasks such as predator control and species monitoring, being the lead ranger at Boundary Stream Reserve.

I retired from DOC late 2024, but continue working in conservation as a volunteer.

Peter Langlands

Trustee

I have been a passionate birdwatcher since joining the Ornithological Society at ten years of age in 1980.

In 1985 on a week long field study course I saw my first bittern fly out of a raupo stand at Lake Alexandrina. I initially mistook the bird for a harrier but was corrected by the late Margaret Child and with a moment’s excitement seeing such an elusive bird captured my imagination. Latter that year I enjoyed spending time kayaking around Harts Creek Wildlife Reserve where flocks of up to six bitterns where regularly seen erupting from the raupo.

I enjoyed exploring the wetland wilderness. I keep all my records and they were recorded in Notornis (the journal of the Ornithological Society of NZ – Now birds NZ). Little was I to know that 25 years latter I would be trawling through past records of bitterns throughout NZ literature and notebooks as I assisted Dr Colin O’Donnell with putting together a national database on bittern sightings and their numbers, distribution, and summarized observations on the bitterns breeding and feeding biology.

I spent three years working on the database with Colin and by 2016 the information in the database showed in detail the decline in bittern numbers over a 100 year period, at such a rate that the bitterns was declared to be in the Nationally Critical Conservation category. At this point I set up the Bittern Conservation-NZ Facebook page to generate awareness and interest in bitterns and now several thousand people follow the page. I also worked with the media to increase awareness of bitterns and helped Nicola Toki when she profiled bittern on critter of the week on RNZ and termed the phrase that “the bittern is the kakapo of the wetlands”- a symbol of wilderness spaces. Nic described the bittern as erupting from raupo like a “jack in the box”.

Over the next five years I assisted both DOC and Environment Canterbury with researching the small population of less than 50 birds remaining in the Canterbury Region and also assisted with radio tracking and surveys of booming birds. For me the more I work on bitterns the more fascinated I am by the birds and I know that my interest in this species and advocating for their conservation with be a life long journey and I feel privileged to join like minded people on the Bittern Conservation Trust to move forward.

The bittern like me is a keen fisherman and we both enjoy quiet wilderness spaces. Ultimately the bittern is a symbol of healthy, functioning wetland ecosystems. To capture my passion I have decided to write a book about the Australasian bittern to document what this bird means to me and others in the modern world. I feel that from being a little known and secretive species that bittern will become a symbol for our journey to restore freshwater ecosystems.

Jim O'Malley

Trustee

I have a lifelong passion for the natural world, with a BSc in Zoology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Ecological Restoration from Victoria University.

My conservation work has focused mainly on birds and insects, with active involvement in Birds NZ, RANZ, the NZ Entomological Society, and local groups. I’ve conducted bird counts for DOC on Kapiti and Mana Islands and co-founded a private ecological restoration project in 2012, where I now serve as the ornithologist, supporting a North Island Rifleman translocation.

Based in Wairarapa, I’ve also done wetland bird surveys and acoustic monitoring. I currently manage the lower North Island for BCT, with very positive results so far.