DoC’s efforts deserve serious funding

We should thank the Department of Conservation and the amazing, dedicated people who have worked for them.

In the last 60 years only two mainland birds have become extinct. This is in the face of severe underfunding and a department that’s been biffed about like a political football.

It’s extremely sad to lose the tutukiwi (the South Island snipe) and the bush wren, a tiny forest bird, from an ancient line of birds found nowhere else on earth. But what has been saved, in the face of an army of pests is phenomenal — birds that would have become extinct this century if not for the heroic conservation efforts of DoC.

Birds such as the Rekohu/Chatham Islands’ robin, a population once as low as one female and four males, is now at 290 birds.

The world’s largest parrot, the ka¯ ka¯ po¯ , was also saved. It’s population was reduced to only 51 birds. I volunteered for two weeks in the mud on Codfish Island to help DoC. I saw the hard work they put in.

I stumbled across another volunteer in the hills who had put her pack down in a puddle, standing knee deep, crying from exhaustion. With blood, sweat, tears and sheer determination, there are now 148 of these precious birds.

The South Island t¯ıeke only had one population of 36 birds left in 1964 when the entire population was relocated to avoid the consequences of a rat invasion. Now the population is over 700 of these beautiful ancient birds with their bright red wattles.

The North Island saddlebacks have gone from 500 birds on one island, to over 7000 birds on many different Islands, a great feat for a bird that often roosts on the ground.

Patiki, the little forest duck that used to be running all over our forest floors, has gone from just 700 birds to number now over 2500.

The hihi population on Hauturu o Toi was unknown, and still largely is, but now it’s been distributed and has good populations at 10 different pest free sites.

North Island ko¯ kako nearly went the way of the moa. They are extremely sensitive to rats. They got to a point where there were only 350 pairs in 11 remnant populations. Now there’s over 1600 pairs distributed in 23 populations around the North Island. The North Island brown kiwi and rowi (a South Island kiwi) are now both off the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s endangered list.

The sexy and cheeky little tuturuatu was thought to be extinct, until it was found on an island out from the Rekohu/ Chatham Islands. It was once found all over New Zealand until ship rats arrived, which decimated the population to just 150 birds. Now it’s at 250 birds.

To understand just how susceptible some of our native species are to introduced predators, it was just one rat that invaded Mana Island and exterminated the entire tuturuatu population.

There’s so much more, like the little spotted kiwi and takahe, and it’s not only birds. Things like tusked we¯ta¯, native galaxies fish, bats and lizards, and countless plants, all have the same story.

We are lucky to have DoC. Many countries don’t even have a government conservation department. It was hard fought for by our tupuna — our ancestors before us. But there is much work to be done, and a stitch in time saves nine. A third of our birds are in danger of becoming extinct. This includes the kea, the only alpine parrot in the world.

I think no matter who is in government, or how rich or poor our nation is, we should have a policy that we always give at least 1 per cent of GDP to DoC to carry out this important work. A few rats or a bad Government could undo decades of hard slog.

Brad Windust is a bee keeper in Northland and the founder of a charitable trust that does pest control in the Opua State Forest.

. . . it was just one rat that invaded Mana Island and exterminated the entire tuturuatu population.