Sanctuary keen to wipe out wasps

The Brook Waimarama Sanctuary always welcomes volunteers, but this year they’re putting out the call for a concentrated wasp wipeout effort.

Sanctuary general manager Hudson Dodd said, starting in the second week of January, there would be 1000 bait stations to put up.

Dodd was calling for extra help putting the traps out, as their regular volunteers already had a lot of conservation work on their plates.

The sanctuary will be using Vespex for the first time, putting bait stations around the fenceline and along five concentric lines working inwards.

The traps will be set throughout the 700 hectare sanctuary.

Andrew Eastwood, a trainee ranger working at the sanctuary, estimated that it would take one person ‘‘over a week of full-time work’’ to set all the traps.

Eastwood and Dodd said the work would be a good opportunity for people to get out into nature, and no experience with conservation work was necessary.

Eastwood said ‘‘anyone who’s never been [into the sanctuary] before will be coming back’’ after they volunteered.

‘‘It’s pristine forest, there are beech trees in there that are hundreds of years old.

‘‘A lot of people in New Zealand will never have seen forest like that.’’

Since the fence was built around the sanctuary last year, a lot of work had been done to make the area predator-free, but there was still more to be done.

‘‘People think, in terms of pests, it’s all possums, stoats, and rabbits. People don’t necessarily think about wasps,’’ Eastwood said.

Dodd said the predator-proof fence was a major milestone for the sanctuary, but not a cure-all situation.

‘‘While it’s great that we can be a leader in creating a mammalpest free sanctuary, we really need people to get behind the wasp programme ... unfortunately a fence doesn’t stop them.’’

High wasp numbers had previously forced work in the sanctuary to be cut short.

Dodd hopes, with help from volunteers, wasp numbers can be kept low enough to carry on conservation work throughout the summer.

He said anyone over the age of 16 was welcome to volunteer, with children 15-and-under welcome with their parents or caregivers.