2019
Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery
Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery (CETWR) is a unique experience, giving New Zealanders and international visitors a rare opportunity to engage with the stewardship of our native taonga. There’s nothing else quite like it in Aotearoa. Located at Palmerston North’s Victoria Esplanade, CETWR comprises breeding and inflight walkthrough aviaries and nine rehabilitation aviaries, surrounding the PowerCo Education Centre. Wildbase Hospital veterinary wildlife specialists are onsite to rehabilitate ill or injured birds before they’re released back into the wild. Visitors can watch the vets in action and learn the story of each bird – its injuries, treatment, and recovery. The Keep an eye on my bird tangible game introduces visitors to the process of using telemetry trackers to locate threatened New Zealand species Many New Zealand birds live in wild remote locations, but need to be located quickly by the Department of Conservation to monitor their location. Telemetry is used throughout New Zealand for tracking threatened wildlife such as kākāpō ,takahē or wētā, and for studying the impacts of invasive species such as goats and pigs. The Keep an eye on my bird tangible game enables visitors to track four species – Kākāpō, Takahē, Whio and Kea which are located throughout the education centre. The player selects a bird icon on the telemetry handle and starts by turning in a circle. The tracker starts to beep and the LED lights flash brighter if the player is facing the right direction.
Walking in that direction causes the LED’s to flash brighter and the telemetry tracker to start to beep, until they have found their bird. One of the key objectives within the brief was to enable this entire game to be digitally fabricated, and incorporate an off the shelf bluetooth tracker so that the client could easily replace damaged components and duplicate units. The telemetry handle needed to be safe for children to run around with, and also remain authentic to the standard telemetry tracker used by the Department of Conservation. The telemetry tracker is located at the “Vets and DOC rangers work together” activity table. All instructional information for the game is represented in both english and Te Reo Māori.
The telemetry tracker is a very popular game within the education centre. In 6 months 42,000 visitors have passed through their Central Energy Trust WildBase Recovery (CETWR) – roughly 250 people per day. 45 school groups have booked a visit – equating to 2,119 young people learning vital conversation knowledge about our taonga and unique natural world, and the roles of the Vets who care for them.
Design Team
Design Director : Tanya Marriott
Design Team : Tanya Marriott, Chaz McManus
Project Managers : Adrienne Potts, Jennah Rasmussen
Contributors: Nina Mercer, Michael Kelly, Connah Hazelwood
