CHRIS RANCE

Forest and Bird, Issue 300, 1 May 2001, Page 42

CHRIS RANCE

, Eastern Bay of

Plenty Forest and Bird.

— Meg Collin:

T he Eastern Bay of Plenty branch of Forest and Bird has been awarded $18,750 from the environmental enhancement fund of Environment Bay of Plenty. More than $350,000 from this fund was distributed to conservation projects, throughout the Bay of Plenty, early in the New Year. The Forest and Bird branch is using the money to enlarge the

trapping area for stoats in the Otamatuna ‘mainland island’ area, in Te Urewera National Park (see Forest & Bird February 2001). Trapping will be carried out from September 2001 till April 2002 and is planned to coincide with the kiwi nesting period. Opotiki staff of the Department of Conservation will be providing oversight and design of the stoat trapping programme, and

monitoring information. The objective is to promote the health of fauna inhabiting the area of Te Waiiti stream by enlarging the existing area of stoat control, thereby creating a more sustainable habitat range for kiwi, other forest birds, insect, reptiles and aquatic species. Arthur Sandom, a Forest and Bird member, will be project manager involved in carrying out the stoat control work.

‘T shall be employing a local person to help us with this programme, and hope he will in turn pass on knowledge and information to whanau [Maori family groups], says Arthur. "We hope to use freeze-dried rats as a lure in the stoat tunnels as the success rate for trapping stoats is 70 percent higher than with plastic eggs.’