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After a court battle and a controversial 1080 drop last year, Kōkako’s haunting calls are returning to Hunua Ranges
Normally the fight to keep Hunua's kōkako alive is waged in native bush. Last year its fate was fought for in an Auckland courtroom.
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The rat population in a piece of pristine bush has exploded thanks to a plethora of beech tree seeds, forcing the Department of Conservation to make a 1080 drop.
But the glut of food means it can be difficult to get rats to eat the poison. The Department of Conservation is concerned after a higher percentage of rats than expected have survived the first 1080 drops intended to battle this years "mega mast".
This year's build-up of the rat population in New Zealand forests can be attributed to unusually high seed production, called a mast, experts have said. Whio, kereru, kiwi and New Zealand native bats will benefit from an aerial 1080 operation needed to eradicate bovine TB in the Ruapehu District.
The operation, over about 35,000ha, will take place at a time around late July when fine weather is predicted, OSPRI operations extension officer Phillip Dawson said. Birds and bats could be threatened with local extinction if the Department of Conservation (DOC) cannot make more aerial 1080 drops this mega-mast season.
Forest and Bird warns a plague of rats sweeping unchecked across parts of the country will be followed by an invasion of stoats by spring. Official maps released today have revealed the vast swathe of New Zealand wilderness under threat from a plague-fuelling "mega mast" - but officials say response plans can't be scaled up.
Forest & Bird is warning a nationwide rat plague is only about to get worse, and has pleaded with the Government and councils to increase their 1080 rat control programmes, before a stoat plague comes next. Twenty-one years of intensive pest control in the Landsborough Valley is paying off. David Williams reports.
Colin O’Donnell ambles towards the edge of silver beech forest near the Landsborough River, drawn by the high-pitched, repetitive call of a mohua. It’s a call the Department of Conservation ecologist has been following for more than 30 years. Conservation managers are bracing for the biggest seeding event in New Zealand's forests for more than 40 years. Forest seeding, or masting, provides a bonanza of food for native species but also fuels rodent and stoat plagues. The Department of Conservation (DoC) is now planning its biggest ever predator control programme, at a cost of $38 million. It will target rats, stoats and possums over about one million hectares or 12 per cent of conservation land. Priority sites include Kahurangi, Abel Tasman, Arthur's Pass, Westland, Mt Aspiring and Fiordland national parks, the Catlins and Whirinaki. More than 66,000ha will be covered with trapping – and the rest with aerial 1080 poison drops. Science reporter Jamie Morton spoke to DoC principal science advisor Dr Graeme Elliott about the challenge.
A widespread ‘mega-mast’ mass seeding event is likely to lead to a large plague of rats and stoats in New Zealand southern beech forests.
In response, the Department of Conservation (DOC) is aiming to control predators over an unprecedented one million hectares of conservation land, to protect vulnerable native species such as kaka, whio, mohua and orange-fronted parakeets. Three hundred tahr are to be culled and fed to kea in an attempt to keep the endangered native parrots away from an aerial 1080 poison drop in the hills behind Whataroa.
Zero Invasive Predators (Zip) was last month granted permission from the Department of Conservation for intensive predator control in an attempt to eradicate possums and, potentially, rats, from about 12,000ha of rugged backcountry at the Perth River. |
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