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Hundreds more hands funded to work for nature
“The work we are funding includes everything from pest control and restoration planting to plant propagation, skill building and education initiatives across Aotearoa New Zealand,” Kiri Allan said.
Examples are a predator control project to create a biodiversity corridor between Lake Rotokare and Omoana in Taranaki, a marae-led project that aims to increase whio and kiwi numbers on the East Coast and a nationwide education and training programme to help hunters contribute to conservation outcomes.
“These things show that our conservation effort is much broader than just getting rid of pests and protecting threatened species.”
“East of the alps, our work will focus on places which are difficult for ground hunters to access, but where there are high numbers of tahr. “The plan recognises the need to continue managing the Himalayan tahr population to balance the need for nature to thrive with the interests of hunters. “This year’s operational plan has been designed to manage tahr in areas throughout the feral range where they remain at high densities – targeting the right tahr in the right place.” Holborow said the new plan differs from previous years in that there are some management units where no official control work will take place this year.
“Hunters and other recreationists can expect to see helicopters flying at low levels for 20 to 30 minutes at a time monitoring all tahr observed within 2km by 2km grids. This work is weather dependent and will likely be carried out in the early morning and late evening. Tahr, valued by hunters as a trophy animal, are also known to cause major damage on conservation land to native flora and fauna and between 2016 and Autumn 2019, DOC estimated their population to be about 34,500 on public conservation land alone. DOC’s Himalayan Tahr Control Plan stipulates there should be a limit of 10,000 tahr across the 706,000ha of private land, Crown pastoral leases and public conservation land known as the “feral range”, while the plan also says there should be “zero density” of tahr within national park units.