Te Whakarauora whio – Friends of Rotoiti Project. June 2023 Volunteer Week. Butch Goodwin

Firstly, thank you to all the many volunteers who have made yourselves available since Friends of Rotoiti took on the Te Whakarauora whio – FOR project back in June 2021.

This project has been funded through the Rata Foundation with the primary focus on pest eradication to the Travers and Sabine valleys to allow the reintroduction of the whio or blue duck proposed for summer 2024.

This has involved purchasing materials and building five hundred double DOC 200 predator traps which after two years has been completed at the local DOC workshop by our volunteers and deployed at approximately one hundred metre spacings up both valleys for a total of fifty odd kilometres.

Volunteer hours to just build the traps totalled fifteen hundred and to date building, deploying and checking traps monthly are in excess of four thousand hours.

Monthly June checks have been completed with 124 Rats, 2 Stoats and 1 weasel.

Deployment was completed and operational in February 23. We have been using terracotta with a meat base lure which has been very successful.

Total catch numbers Feb – June 568 Rats, 21 Stoats, 3 cats, 2 weasels and 46 mice.

All in all what Friends of Rotoiti volunteers are contributing is making a big difference in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

Thank you to everyone involved and remember we are always looking for volunteers.