Bright Wings

Pukaha Mt Bruce turns its back on Wairarapa

The $60 ticket price for the Pukaha Mount Bruce Garden Tour is too steep for many in the Wairarapa, where gardening is a passion, but incomes are often very low.

The tour is clearly pitched at the Wellington market, where $120 for a couple would not be seen as extravagant, but unaffordable for local people on small or fixed incomes.

Many Wairarapa people, especially the retired, have devoted hours to volunteer work at the Centre, but garden tour ticket prices will be beyond them. A ticket price of $25 is the upper limit for local support.

I used to be a member, but was outraged at the huge increase in subscription prices and now very rarely visit the centre. With their eyes firmly fixed on lucrative coach parties of tourists and Wellington visitors, I don't think Mount Bruce care.

More kiwi deaths: review needed for Pukaha Mt Bruce

Five more kiwi deaths at Pukaha Mount Bruce have been reported today, which brings to 12 the number of kiwi killed by ferrets, out of the 30 kiwi transferred to Mount Bruce from Little Barrier Island on 7 May 2010.

No matter what spin Pukaha Mount Bruce puts on this, no matter how assiduous their subsequent trapping has been, this is an appalling waste of an endangered, iconic, species and reflects badly on the centre and the Department of Conservation.

Those who support Mount Bruce, who thought the kiwi were being released into a safe environment, are furious.

 

Trapping inadequate
Questions are being asked about the management of the trapping programme at Mount Bruce, with reports of professional trappers being replaced by inadequately supervised, unskilled labour.

Mount Bruce is surrounded by farmland. There are, apparently -

130 km of traplines, 540 traps targetting ferrets, stoats and weasels, and more than 1000 bait stations aimed at rats and possums.

I cannot claim to have any expertise in predator control, but if the number of traps, etc, are correct, maintaining them would seem to be hugely labour-intensive.

Yes, the cost of installing predator-proof fencing is very high but is small in comparison to the cost of preservation of our most iconic bird.

The Maungatautiri Ecological Island Trust has built a 47 km Xcluder fence for just that reason.  And it's much bigger than Pukaha Mount Bruce - a 3363 hectare mountain reserve compared with Mt Bruce at 940 hectares.

The Pukaha Mount Bruce Trust Board - and the Department of Conservation - need to take a long, hard look at the appropriateness of releasing kiwi. The current situation is akin to siting a children's playground next to a busy highway, with no barrier to stop the children running onto the road.

The released kiwi - which have transmitters attached to them - need to be rounded up and put in a safe enclosure until their safety can be assured.

Predator-proof fence needed to protect kiwis

When 30 kiwi were introduced in April to Pukaha Mount Bruce from Little Barrier Island, with a great deal of media attention, I - along with many other people - assumed they'd be going into a safe environment.  Wrong.

The kiwi were released into the Mount Bruce forest, itself a remnant of the 70 mile bush that once spread from Norsewood in the north, to Masterton in the south.

When news of the deaths of the first four kiwi was released the realisation dawned on those interested in the longterm success of kiwi as a species that they had been released into unprotected forest.

While Pukaha Mount Bruce have noted their assiduous efforts to trap predators, news of yet another five kiwi deaths is not a good look and has led organisations such as Forest and Bird to question the effectiveness of DOC's trapping programmes.

Given that ferrets and other predators are prevalent on the east coast of the North Island, was it ever realistic to release precious kiwi with no predator-proof fencing?

It would be a big exercise to predator-fence the 940 hectare Mount Bruce forest and involve many kilometres of fencing. Would the end - a secure environment where kiwi and other endangered wildlife could flourish - justify the means?

The success of Zealandia - the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary - as both a sanctuary for precious wildlife and a tourist attraction suggests exploration of predator-proof fencing of the Mount Bruce forest should be high on the Pukaha Mount Bruce Trust Board's agenda.

Five more kiwi fall victim to predators at Mt Bruce

Pukaha Mt Bruce have just released the following sad news:

A further five kiwi have fallen victim to a predator attack.  All signs indicate another ferret, quite possibly the female partner of the large male caught recently, who was responsible for the previous attack.

Comments Pukaha Mount Bruce Board chair, Bob Francis, “Despite our year-round intensive pest control programme and additional trapping activity since the first attack, we are facing a real challenge to put a stop to this”.

He continues, “Immediately following the first wave of attacks, the DOC team pulled in extra staff and resources including specialised staff and expert advisors, trained dog teams and extra traps to assist in tracking the killer.  We want to assure our supporters and the public in general, we are throwing absolutely everything we can into the effort to catch what is likely to be the female partner of the ferret caught earlier.”

Pest Management – best practice in situ
The density of trapping at Pukaha is twice the national standard.  We permanently have over 130 kms of trap lines, 540 traps targeting ferrets, stoats and weasels, and more than 1,000 bait stations aimed at rats and possums.

Area Manager for Wairarapa, Chris Lester is moved to comment on Pukaha’s pest control practice, “Prior to the loss of these kiwi, as part of our commitment to best practice, we commissioned the first of an ongoing series of independent expert reviews to ensure our pest management programme remains of the highest possible standard”.

The kiwi deaths starkly highlight the challenges of returning kiwi to the mainland.  Studies show nine out of 10 kiwi born in the wild will die within their first year, without supporting pest control.
Pukaha is an unfenced sanctuary.  We accept this is an ambitious but necessary programme to ensure long-term self-sustaining populations of kiwi on the mainland. While the losses are significantly lower than happen in the wild, we want to protect these birds and are determined to catch the killer.

Pukaha Mount Bruce

Pukaha Mount Bruce has always been a Wairarapa treasure, and a recent building programme and new facilities have improved it even further.

We visited Pukaha Mount Bruce on New Year's Day,