Long-awaited bush classroom opens at East Taranaki s Rotokare sanctuary stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Native bird sanctuaries Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust and East Taranaki Environment Trust have also benefited, with $62,000 and $15,000 respectively. Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust chairman Mike Weren said the TET had awarded grants to the trust on a regular basis for the past 10 years to fund educational programmes attended by the majority of schools in the region. The 230ha reserve, east of Eltham, is a predator-protected rare native bird sanctuary and wetland area. Native birds, such as kiwi and toutouwai, are also translocated to Te Papakura ō Taranaki/Egmont National Park from the sanctuary. The East Taranaki Environment Trust, east of Inglewood, managed the Experience Purangi predator protected kiwi and kokāko sanctuary now numbering more than 4000 birds.
Three of the kiwi being brought onto Pukeiti on the Kaitake range.
Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
The release is a milestone in a battle against predators on Kaitake being waged - for the most part - by a small army of volunteers.
Kaitake, at 680 metres, is the oldest of the three volcanic cones in Te Papakura o Taranaki.
It forms the north-western boundary of the national park and its sun-loving semi-coastal forest reaches to the outskirts of the seaside settlement of Oakura.
Ngā Mahanga a Tairi hapū member Tane Manu said kiwi once came into the village.
Ngā Mahanga a Tairi hapū member Tane Manu, right, greets Towards Predator-Free project manager Toby Shanley.