Russell Peninsula Predator Fence

Forest and Bird, Issue 302, 1 November 2001, Page 16

Russell Peninsula Predator Fence

The Russell Peninsula kiwi zone in the Bay of Islands was initiated in March 2001. Laurence Gordon, a long-time, predator-control specialist, runs the technical side of the programme. Administration and funding is organised by Enterprise Russell — a charitable trust. Russell still had a remnant kiwi population, with a kiwi even being found on the Russell bowling green recently. Kakariki also breed in the area. Organisers hope the predator control programme will mean that kiwi and kakariki continue to survive in the area, as well as making it possible to re-introduce other threatened species in the future. Laurence Gordon himself is paid to lay out the bait stations and trap lines, and show people how to trap and build a ‘predator fence’; but he maintains the key to the project's success so far has been community support. Over |100 landowners have allowed predator traps and bait stations on their land, and a local farmer has gone out of

his way to help set up a 1.5-kilometre predator fence across a farm. Predator control will still need to take place on the 2500 hectares of land the fence protects. However, the hot-wire fence should reduce the number of ferrets, stoats, feral cats, possums and species that manage to re-invade the peninsula. The project has cost around $100,000 to set up in its first year, but Laurence Gordon is sure that support from various agencies, the 800 permanent residents and |,600 holiday residents, will ensure it continues. He is also expecting the cost to drop to under $40,000 per year, now that the bait stations and traps have been purchased and the fence has been erected.