Working on Maungatautari Mountain

Here is some information about the mountain which is being protected. My mum helps out once a month to set traps to keep pests out. Below is part of her blog entry about her work last week and some photos.

http://www.maungatrust.org/

Yesterday my friend and I did our monthly trip to Maungatautari Mountain, where we replace cards in monitoring tunnels, around a section of the 47 km pest proof fence, which encloses the exterior of the 3,400 hectare mountain. These tunnels are placed 50 metres apart, right round the interior of the fence. Every second tunnel is just inside the bush, with the others right up against the fence. The section we do involves 40 tunnels. These tunnels have a white card in them, with about 8 inches of sticky black ink in the centre. In the middle of the ink section we place peanut butter. This attracks any mice, rats or other vermon, and once they have walked over the sticky black ink, to get to the peanut butter, they then walk out leaving their foot prints on the white section of the card. Once these prints are detected, traps are set close by to try and catch the offenders. Last month 44 mice were caught.

Bait trap.

Our native Kiwi were the first to be brought back to the mountain, and to date about 22 chicks have hatched. Kaka, a very squawky parrot-like bird, are also breeding well, even though the first six released from the aviary all flew away, but they are gradually returning to the mountain, as their leg tags have shown.

$18 million has been raised to actively save New Zealand's threatened wildlife from extinction on this mountain, and to date the results are proving positive. A large number of volunteers work tirelessly, along with a few paid staff, to make sure this valuable project is a success, not only for us, but for generations to follow, and the future of our country.

http://www.maungatrust.org/