1May 24, 2016
In Northland, many great native forests and their wildlife are collapsing. When the sun goes down, thousands of possums relentlessly consume the forest canopy, slowly killing ancient forest giants like tōtara, pūriri, pōhutukawa and northern rātā. Rats come out to consume our native birds, insects and lizards. Dean Baigent-Mercer takes us on a tour of Northland’s forgotten […]
2May 9, 2016
Good news that DOC will be funded an extra $20.7 million this year to battle the predator boom that is expected this Autumn in response to a massive forest seeding. DOC will now be able to control predators over 800,000 ha, just over 10% of public conservation land. Wildlife over 90% of public conservation […]
3Nov 28, 2013
Crawling out of my tent at dusk, I noticed the erratic flight of a long-tailed bat high above the kahikatea trees surrounding the Pelorus Bridge Campground. That sighting led not only to five years of surveys for these elusive creatures across the top of the South Island, but also the instigation of a pest control […]
4Jul 4, 2013
In New Zealand annually, between 10 -30 of transfers take place each year in an effort to re-colonise our mainland islands with threatened birds – however some birds, just prefer home and will go to great lengths to return to their forest, island or wetland base. There’s the story of the weka who legged it […]
5May 16, 2013
New Zealand leads the world in clearing pests, however until now DOC has talked gingerly about the obvious next hurdle: clearing pests from inhabited islands. Until now…. For fifteen years people have talked about getting pests off Stewart island (popn = 380), and five years ago a feasibility study was done to determine whether this is […]