Peat lakes near Ōhaupō in need of additional predator control

Friday, 25 January 2019

Predator control programmes around the Waikato's peat lakes will be at the centre of a meeting held to coincide with World Wetlands Day.

The conference, on January 31, will take place at the Ōhaupō Rugby Sports Club, and is intended to bring trappers together from around the region.

It gives invaluable volunteers the opportunity to come together to share information, knowledge and experience.

The ancient lakes are given the support of various organisations, including councils and trusts, and the conference will be used to promote predator control.

The quiet, shy, well camouflaged birds in the wetlands of the Waikato tend to go unnoticed.

But Nardene Berry from the New Zealand Landcare Trust wants to change that.

She helps organise a large group of volunteers who work around the Waikato region's peat lakes, including Rotopiko and Rotomanuka, which she calls 'the kidneys of the landscape'.

Berry said the Waikato used to be 'one big bog', before European settlers arrived and drained much of the basin for agricultural purposes.

Now the region is peppered with dozens of smaller lakes and wetlands, which are crucial to maintaining local ecosystems.

'But World Wetlands Day is one of the events they do to celebrate wetlands and raise awareness around the importance of wetlands and why we need to look after them,' Berry said.

'In the Waikato region, a lot of our wetlands are around the margins of peat lakes, and some of those areas are now quite narrow.

'But the National Wetlands Trust has chosen Rotopiko as the site where they're going to build a national wetlands centre, so it's quite a special thing going on.'

The New Zealand Landcare Trust works with the National Wetland Trust and are supporting them in getting a group going to develop predator control around the lakes.

Berry said the Department of Conservation is one of the organisations involved in work around the lakes.

DoC has found that when it plays recorded sounds of wetland birds such as the spotless crake near the lakes, weasels and stoats will sometimes visibly emerge from the vegetation, showing that even adult birds are very vulnerable to predation.

'For the World Wetlands Day event, we just want to bring everybody together, talk about trapping around the lakes, what the different groups are doing, how people are getting on, and just kind of a check-in really on what's going on.'

Those who are interested can learn more about the event and RSVP via wetlandtrust.org.nz