Cyanide drop on spreading pest

Wallaby control is ramping up in the Mackenzie District with a cyanide poison operation getting under way as a strategy to eliminate the pest is being developed.

The hand-drop operation covers a conservation area known as the Gammack Range, a 2575-hectare area which includes land adjacent to Mt Cook Station, Coxs Downs, and the Jollie River south to Landslip Creek.

R & R Pest Control will be applying the cyanide over the next few weeks, with the assistance of Environment Canterbury and local farmers.

ECan wallaby programme leader Brent Glentworth said control using Feratox cyanide has been completed over the area during the winters of 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019, resulting in 188 adult wallaby kills, with 52 in-pouch joeys.

Glentworth said the 2019 operation was very successful and resulted in wallaby numbers being severely reduced.

‘‘Ideally, control of this nature is only undertaken every few years.

‘‘This year we are seeing signs of wallabies in the area again, although in less numbers than previously,’’ he said.

‘‘The control this year is over a larger area, but less bait is being used to target the few wallabies that are present.

‘‘This is to keep levels as low as possible to avoid further spread towards the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park boundary.’’

Glentworth said wallaby numbers outside the containment area have increased.

The Tekapo River forms the western boarder of the wallaby containment area.

‘‘We are working hard to destroy all wallaby west of this line,’’ Glentworth said.

Wallabies have become an increasing problem in Canterbury and other parts of the country.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has launched a National Wallaby Eradication Programme (NWEP), which will have dual goals of containment of wallaby within the containment zones, which in South Canterbury alone covers about 900,000ha, and possibly ultimate eradication after this.

‘‘Wallaby numbers have increased within the containment area since the disestablishment of the Wallaby Board in 1992 to a user-pays system, an over-reliance on ground shooting and recreational hunting, and uncoordinated control between neighbouring properties,’’ Glentworth said.

MPI’s Biosecurity New Zealand’s pest management programmes manager John Sanson said the NWEP would build on existing work undertaken by regional councils and landowners.

‘‘Over the next couple of years, the operational work will scale up with a goal of eliminating all wallabies outside containment and to reduce the spread from the containment areas,’’ Sanson said.