Trapping ban hits kiwi hard
Staff at the national wildlife centre in Wairarapa are ‘‘absolutely devastated’’ by the discovery of five dead kiwi in the past week.
A halt in predator trapping during level 4 lockdown was blamed for the sudden spike of kiwi deaths.
With just one kiwi death attributed to predators in the year prior to lockdown, staff believe the hiatus on predator control over the last six weeks has led to the incursion of predators into the unfenced reserve south of Eketa¯ huna.
Pu¯ kaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre general manager Emily Court said this summer the reserve has had an increase in the number of stoats, ferrets, weasels and cats.
‘‘Pu¯ kaha was hopeful that the worst of the mustelid season had passed when we went into lockdown.
‘‘Unfortunately, our worst fears were realised this week when staff and volunteers went into the reserve to check on a number of kiwi that have tracking devices on them, only to find some dead due to ferret attacks.’’
Court said, like other Department of Conservation reserves, Pu¯ kaha was required to cease trapping during alert level 4.
Court said the discoveries over the last week had hit staff at the centre hard.
‘‘It’s devastating. There’s tears all round, they’ve worked so hard to protect them.
‘‘These birds that we have found dead are our monitored birds, so they are birds that we have hatched in our hatchery and raised.’’
The first postmortem conducted by Massey University’s Veterinary Hospital has concluded that the death was due to head trauma, most likely by a ferret.
The centre will not know how many kiwi remain in the wild at the reserve until they do call monitoring in the coming weeks.
‘‘Once we feel we have got this predation event capped and sorted we are going to do our kiwi call count,’’ Court said.
These recent fatalities take the total number of kiwi lost at Pu¯ kaha over the last 16 years to around 56.
The centre suffered significant spikes in deaths in 2008, 2010 and 2015.
Court said predator numbers have been a higher than normal this year.
‘‘The long dry spring and summer has been ideal for bumper breeding of prey species such as rodents and rabbits and this has a flow on effect of contributing to high mustelid and cat numbers.’’