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Kaipara volunteers win Forest & Bird Pestbuster award
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Conservation organisation Forest & Bird has awarded its 2010 national Pestbuster award to volunteers working at Atuanui Scenic Reserve north-west of Auckland.
Members of Atuanui Restoration Project put in more than 400 hours in the year to May 31 working to control introduced pests that have been killing native birds and native plants in the reserve.
The Pestbusters have been rewarded by seeing greater numbers of native birds at the 630-hectare reserve, Kaipara Forest & Bird chairperson Suzi Phillips says.
“There are now good numbers of kereru, plus tui, tomtits, grey warblers, fantails and silvereyes. We’ve even had kaka visiting Atuanui, and we’re hoping kaka will begin breeding in the reserve,” she says.
“One volunteer this year saw a green gecko in the reserve. Before we started pest control, the Department of Conservation found very low numbers of skinks and geckos at Atuanui. We hope the number of reptiles and invertebrates is increasing.”
With fewer possums eating the leaves and buds of red-flowering rata trees in the reserve, the trees have blossomed. “We’ve seen a really good flowering of rata this autumn – a lot more than has been seen previously,” Ms Phillips says.
About 30 regular Forest & Bird volunteers regularly check bait stations and traps in the reserve near Glorit. They top up 632 rodent bait stations throughout the reserve. Along the reserve boundary are 55 traps, which are checked. In the past two years, the trap tally has been more than 20 stoats, five weasels, 50 rats and the occasional ferret and hedgehog. All these introduced pests kill native birds, chicks or eggs.
Most volunteers working at Atuanui Scenic Reserve live in the Kaipara region. They range in age from 17 years to their mid-60s, and include school students, farmers, scientists and retired people. They have to be fit to negotiate the steep terrain to check bait stations and traps. “It is steep, dense, native rainforest and so steep you can hardly stand up in parts,” Ms Phillips says.
The reserve is the largest area of native forest between the Waipoua Forest and the Waitakere Ranges. “A lot of these people have a strong attachment to Atuanui and want to preserve it,” Ms Phillips says.
Pest control is critical to the protection of most native birds and other wildlife, and rebuilding their depleted numbers. Possums, rats, hedgehogs, stoats and weasels eat eggs and chicks. Possums also eat the plants and trees birds feed on.
Independent conservation organisation Forest & Bird has 50 branches around New Zealand, and most have pest control projects in reserves and private land using traps and pesticides.