Rangers Report November 2015

Kauri Dieback Cleaning Box

Kauri Dieback Boot Cleaning Box

During November the Bream Head Conservation Trust team have attended the Spring festival event at Whangarei Heads school, hosted and guided a WWF communications staff member, starting trialing the spatial mapping smartphone app, installed some awesome new PTA (Kauri Dieback diesease) boxes kindly built by Mark Pearson, assisted with another Placostylus Snail (Flax Snail) survey, sprayed and cut tracks, eliminated a loose sheep, inducted some very keen new trapping volunteers, installed venting to our head quarters facility…and I thoroughly enjoyed some time up north handling Kiwi for a Kiwi handlers certificate.

Some unfortunate news is that our Grey Faced Petrels found for the first time breeding naturally at Bream Head were unable to successfully see their eggs through to hatchlings. After consulting with a local DOC bird expert, I can confirm that three GFP eggs were destroyed in their burrows through predation. We had only just started to install our last traps and bait stations into this area as the parents were breeding and nesting and therefore a high level of predation risk existed for the vunerable eggs. On the positive side, if the parents return next breeding season the site will have been under intense control for almost a year, which should increase the survival rate. We will also endeavour to use acoustic calling devices which will hopefully entice more birds to breed at the reserve, why would’t you…the views are amazing!

Read the November 2015 Rangers Report (1MB pdf) for more details on this and other stories.