Pilgrims make progress

Peter Ledingham tracks regional efforts to save the western North Island brown kiwi.

Taranaki Daily News

At sunset on fine evenings, small groups of people drive to the road-ends on Mount Taranaki, walk deep into the bush to the same spots night after night, then stand or sit in silence for exactly two hours. That done, they return home.

You'd think it was a pilgrimage. But they're not on the maunga just to pay their respects. They're listening for kiwi calls. From a range of groups and organisations, these are pilgrims united in an urgent mission: to ensure the survival and recovery of Taranaki's dwindling population of western North Island brown kiwi, not only on the mountain but across the region.

The mission's urgent because our national bird is in a slide that could all too easily become irreversible. Suffering heavily from loss of habitat and the predation of stoats and other introduced species, Taranaki's kiwi population is halving in number every 24 years. Without intervention, they will disappear.

The good news is that Taranaki is well placed to reverse the decline. Besides good natural advantages - including habitats and kiwi strongholds - it has a range of dedicated people who are awake to the threat and taking action to counter it. In the words of East Taranaki Environment Trust's Karen Schumacher, progress is doable.

Her trust is part of an informal coalition of organisations dedicated to the mission. Others include the Taranaki Kiwi Trust, the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust, Forest and Bird, the Department of Conservation and the Taranaki Regional Council.

The mountain pilgrimages, which took place in April and May, are an example of their unity of purpose. People from all these organisations took part in a series of kiwi call surveys to see if kiwi protection efforts on the mountain are making a difference and also to contribute to a national DOC monitoring programme. Exact locations and exact timing are important, as this is a long-term exercise aimed at producing scientifically robust data.

Standing still and silent in the cold mountain air for a couple of hours might sound like an unappealing night out. But it's a chore done willingly by those whose work also includes setting and monitoring thousands of traps in the bush, erecting kilometres of fences, convincing scores of landowners and dog owners to do their bit to protect the kiwi and knocking on doors to seek funds.

Some of the groups work across the region; others focus on specific sites.

The East Taranaki Environment Trust, for example, came into being after Mrs Schumacher and husband Bob bought a run-off in Purangi in 2001 and discovered it was home to at least 10 kiwi. Further investigation revealed a total population of around 100 in the area.

The trust was formed with advice and financial support from a number of organisations. The Schumachers and around 30 surrounding landowners combined to carry out pest control on 13,000 hectares that has included aerial 1080 drops.

The predator-control operation is expanding into more private land plus two large blocks of adjoining Conservation land, Pouiatoa and Taramoukou.

New tracks have been cut and new trap boxes have arrived. Mrs Schumacher says a notable feature of all this work is the strong involvement of locals, from farmers to schoolchildren. Among the trap-checkers is "the A team" - a family whose children's names all begin with the letter A.

The trust's vision is a 16,000ha sanctuary where 1000 pair of kiwi thrive, filling the night air with their raucous calls.

"The first five-year aim is to have 500 pair under predator control within five years," she says. "This is doable - it's not pie in the sky. There's already a good population of kiwi in the area and the project builds on an existing stronghold for the species."

Back on the mountain, the Taranaki Kiwi Trust is busy with DOC in a trapping operation - 1200 traps spread over 7500 ha. Each trap is checked 18 times a year. The aim is to control the stoats that are a major threat to kiwi chicks. The trapping also benefits whio (bluck duck) and other native species.

With financial support from the BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust and the New Plymouth District Council, the Taranaki Kiwi Trust also runs Operation Nest Egg, in which kiwi eggs are taken from nests in areas where predators aren't controlled. The eggs are hatched in captivity and the chicks raised until they weigh 1kg, when they can fight off stoats. They're then released on the mountain - 38 so far. The trust aims to release at least 10 a year, half of them back at the source site in Ngati Maru's rohe (land) at Aotuhia.

Across the region, the Taranaki Kiwi Trust also works with the owners of private land where kiwi are living. The trust's input includes kiwi surveys, predator traps and project support.

"This partnership enables landowners to set up kiwi protection on their properties for a relatively low cost," says Jenny Steven, who chairs the trust.

The organisation also has an education programme for schools and advocates the kiwi cause to many community groups. And it runs kiwi- aversion dog training courses.

"We're dealing with a wide range of people, from school groups to farmers," Ms Steven says. "We get a lot of comments like, I used to hear kiwi and see them on the road, but not for a long time. Our field officer, Kris Grabow, works in the community to turn concern into action.

"A high point for me is watching people light up as they watch and gently stroke a kiwi for the first time. Kiwi releases on Mount Taranaki never fail to inspire me and our visitors on the day. There are big challenges in the work, though: the expense, the sheer scale of what has to be done. A large area has to be protected if you want to be effective."

With an interest in region- wide ecosystem protection, she can see far-reaching benefits in the work of her trust and its allies in Taranaki.

"If a habitat is safe for kiwi, then it is generally safe for many other things as well."

That holistic view is shared by Forest and Bird, whose South Taranaki members control predators to protect kiwi and other native flora and fauna on two privately owned bush blocks near Eltham, the 400ha "Totaras" block owned by the Hardwick-Smith family and a 233ha block that the Collier family has protected with a QEII covenant.

Their trapping success has been so phenomenal that it earned the two men behind the project, Bob Walkington and Rex Hartley, a Pestbuster Award from their national organisation.

But a more important reward is an increasing number of kiwi calls.

Both men have also seen and heard increasing numbers of other native birds, including toutouwai (North Island robins).

"Possum and rat numbers are nothing like they were in the blocks 15 to 20 years ago," Mr Walkington says. "Native orchids have really come away and the young native trees are doing well with fewer possums."

Down the road, the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust is well on the way to achieving its vision of a restored and protected ecosystem that is a safe haven for the release of endangered species including the kiwi.

It's been a big effort for a small trust - encircling Lake Rotokare and its 230ha bush-clad catchment with 8.2km of high- tech predator-proof fence, then eradicating predators with traps and baits.

Project manager Kara Prankerd says it has yet to be decided whether the reserve will be a creche for kiwi chicks before they're released into the wild or a permanent home for nesting adults.

Whatever its eventual role, Rotokare is set to be an important piece of the jigsaw in Taranaki, not only as a haven for the birds but as a place for the regional community to be educated and inspired.

And wide community involvement is vital if the kiwi is to have a long-term future in Taranaki. That's readily acknowledged by the official agencies: DOC, which is doing its bit on the conservation, and TRC, which has a facilitation role.

"Taranaki is fortunate to have a range of people and organisations going into bat on behalf of our kiwi," says the TRC spokesman Rob Phillips. "The protection and recovery of our kiwi population requires action on many fronts: kiwi -aversion courses, Operation Nest Egg, predator work, specific site conservation, habitat protection, predator- proof areas for creches, education, stoat control and so on. It's great that the different groups in the region are tackling the issue from all these different aspects.

"In true Taranaki fashion, there's also an increasing focus on communication, cooperation and coordination. We've now got a regional kiwi forum - one of the first in the country, I think - which brings all these groups together for regular discussions and planning sessions. It's proving most useful."

The range of activity offers scope for more people to get involved - by donating funds to the various groups, or volunteering to check stoat traps, or getting dogs kiwi- aversion trained, or just by keeping informed via websites and newsletters.

Nineteen kiwi calls were logged over 28 listening hours in the latest survey on Mount Taranaki. That's a marginal increase over the previous two years. The work is paying off.

* Peter Ledingham is an information officer with the Taranaki Regional Council.

Web links:

www.taranakikiwi.org.nz

www.etet.org.nz

www.rotokare.org.nz

www.forestandbird.org.nz

www.savethekiwi.org.nz

www.doc.govt.nz

www.trc.govt.nz