Faulty cameras cause delay to pest eradication scheme
A $15.7 million project to eradicate pests from Mount Te Kinga at Lake Brunner is off to a slow start, after hundreds of pest-detecting cameras imported from the United States were found to be faulty.
Former Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage launched the project in May. She said it would be led by the West Coast Regional Council and directly create 12 new jobs, enabling conservation trainees from Tai Poutini Polytechnic to work alongside predator control contractors, farmers and community volunteers.
‘‘Given the impacts of Covid19 on our economy, this is a project that will deliver new nature-based employment for our community.’’
However, more than five months later, the scheme is still not up and running and the new jobs are at least a year away.
Regional council operations manager Randall Beal said the key to the project was the setting up of a network of cameras to detect pest movements.
But the batch of cameras imported were defective and would not correctly record times and dates.
‘‘They’ve all had to be sent back. The suppliers are replacing them, but it’s set us back months,’’ Beal said.
The cameras had to be in place before other work such as fencing and trap locations could be decided.
‘‘In some ways, it works out better because initially it’ll be community volunteers doing the work on surrounding farmland, and the farmers won’t be so busy in summer. But it is frustrating.’’
The regional council would be putting its pest control field team on the job initially, to help make up for lost time. The promised new jobs would be created in years two and three of the five-year project.
‘‘First, we need to work on the farmland around Te Kinga and we need that data from the cameras to decide where to position predator fences ... the fencing and track-cutting will be happening after that in the second and third years.’’
The replacement cameras should arrive before Christmas and the council would hold a workshop in early December to map out the next steps in the project, Beal said.
Eradicating possums, stoats and rats from the 38,000-hectare of forest and wetland around Lake Brunner is intended to save the area’s threatened birds, including the roroa/great spotted kiwi, kea, kaka, whio, bittern, black billed gull, kakariki/ parakeet, rifleman and brown creeper.
The project will build on the work done in recent years by local farmers and the Lake Brunner Community Catchment Care Group to protect water quality.
‘‘Given the impacts of Covid-19 on our economy, this is a project that will deliver new naturebased employment for our community.’’ Former Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage, below