Rangers Report - September 2014

monthly pest counts

Pest count comparison: Sep 2014

Another very busy month at Bream Head! As you can see I have decided it would be good to add the table of predator control results and any monitoring results for each month and the year to date (YTD) into the monthly rangers report. These tables will be a regular feature from now on so you can keep a track on progress/changes too. Trap catches still remain low, we caught one stoat just above Ocean Beach and when I looked at the records it was the first since December of last year!! In fact all pest sign has dropped off noticeably throughout the entire reserve when compared to a few months ago and the usual autumn spike. Of positive note is the decrease in Possum and Stoat catches in September and in the YTD comparison to 2013. Perhaps as a result of less pressure from pests is the sudden reappearance of many Weta in and around traps and stations.

The ranger team has really been enjoying ‘breaking in’ new bait and trap lines on the steep faces of the eastern section of Area 4, the final frontier! So far we have been able to find suitable terrain between the bluffs and cliffs with relative ease, however a line needs to be scouted halfway up the face and that might prove more difficult.

Local Whangarei Heads Primary School teacher Julianne Newbold recently joined Rolf Fuchs (DOC) and myself to search for and check on Freida, one of our three monitored kiwi at Bream Head Scenic Resereve. Julianne is on study leave for 6 months and is completing research into community environment/conservation projects such as ours. Julianne is keen to spend time joining us in the reserve to better understand why the community desired to create a trust to achieve strategic biodiversity restoration objectives, how the five year restoration plan was developed and what operational projects we are implementing to achieve the desired outcomes.

Read the September 2014 Rangers Report (519kB pdf) for more details on this and other stories.