Whio Awheo Wainui River Project

It all began with a man called Barry Pethybridge (locally renowned conservationist), who we met last year, it turned out that he was operating a pest control project Tim Road side of the Wainui River and when he found out that we were wanting to do the same thing on Work Road, he jumped on the opportunity to help us out! On the 5th September 2020 our first bait station and trap line was laid out on our property with the help of Barry and just like that our project had started, since then we have spread our control area to the boundary of our 4 ½ Ha property.

Our bait stations that have been out and operational for the past 8 months where we have been refilling with bait (1 st generation toxicity) once a week continuously, with the data we have been recording we can now see a decline in bait taken which in theory means it is working! To give you some numbers.. in 8 months we have trapped 44 possums, 15 rats and 2 stoats. Our goal is to improve wildlife diversity and the environment, with direct benefits to our local community. One of Barry's goals, which quickly became ours too, is to re-introduce the Whio (Blue Duck) back into these waterways where they once would've called home, to do this will require a tone of dedication and patience. Endemic to NZ the Whio can't live in any old waterway – they need fast-flowing high quality water, plants along the bank and lots of underwater insects, which right now makes them one of the rarest birds in NZ. One of the first steps towards this goal being achieved is to get the pest numbers under strict control and widening our control area towards the river.

We are now in the process of spreading our control area with neighboring properties that have the river on thier land.