Bringing back the birdlife |
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 HAPPY TRAMPERS: Steve McClunie (left) and Ken Allen (right) show Southern Trust representative Keith Paine one of the bait stations in the Mangakaraa project on Mt Pirongia. 096061AD By Grant Johnston A $25,000 grant from the Southern Trust will help restore native bird populations to Mt Pirongia. The grant is being used by Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society to install a grid of bait stations in a 250ha section of Pirongia Forest Park for ongoing pest control. The Mangakaraa Project will involve 400 bait stations spaced 75 metres apart on grid lines that are 150 metres apart - close to Pirongia Forest Park Lodge off the Grey Road access. Trust members Ken Allen and (project sub committee chairman) Steve McClunie are currently clearing the grid lines, hacking their way through undergrowth and supplejack, and placing the bait stations at the base of trees. The bait stations were donated by DOC. The planned poisoning operation is aimed mainly at the large number of rats in the bush, that prey on native bird eggs and offspring, and possums which destroy habitat. It will begin in September, during the nesting season, and be repeated twice after the initial baiting. Mr Allen and Mr McClunie both grew up on Pirongia Mountain and farm on its slopes. They joined the preservation society because they believed in the need to do something to return native species populations to the mountain. They are looking forward to birds like kokako - present on the mountain when they were children - being reintroduced. That will require larger than the 250ha pilot project area and is one of the society’s long term aims - but in the interim robins and other birds with smaller flight areas will be able to be reintroduced following the current pest control programmmes. It is estimated that without pest control 70%-80% of native bird nestings fail. Keith Paine, regional representative for the Southern Trust, visited the project on Tuesday. The Trust distributes grants from funds raised from gaming machines in 120 pubs around the country (including Joy’s Place in Te Awamutu). Mr Paine was impressed with the use to which the Pirongia restoration society is putting its grant. A management plan for the project has been drawn up by Gerry Kessels. It and other information on the society is available on the website: |