D'Urville Island aims to become predator free

Thursday, 16 April 2020

D'Urville Island, in the remote Marlborough Sounds, will become stoat free following a $3.1m funding commitment.

D'Urville Island is aiming to become stoat free, following the signing of a $3.1m funding commitment.

The remote Marlborough Sounds island is free of ship rats, Norway rats, possums and weasels, but stoats have caused the local extinction of little spotted kiwi, yellow-crowned kākāriki and South Island kākā.

The removal of stoats would also increase protection for significant nearby nature reserves, such as Stephens Island, which was home to 50,000 tuatara.

D'Urville Island Stoat Eradication Charitable Trust (DISECT) Co-Chair Oliver Sutherland said the funding commitment took 16 years of preparation and planning by the group.

The project will provide an important boost to the national 'Predator Free 2050' effort.

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'Thanks to Predator Free 2050 Limited, Rātā Foundation, Marlborough District Council, the NZ Lotteries Grant Board and landowners we have the opportunity to reverse the history of wildlife loss on d'Urville Island,' Sutherland said.

The project would use a variety of methods, which included boxed snap-traps, self-setting and live-capture traps, as well as lures and smart detection techniques such as cameras and DNA analysis.

Kiwi on d'Urville Island were removed by the wildlife service because of the threat of stoats, but only four old males were found. (file photo)

Special attention would also given to trapping on the mainland within five kilometres of d'Urville and a surveillance network would be established to 'quickly detect any incursions across the narrow channel from French Pass'.

The island has about 45 permanent residents, 80 private land owners and public conservation land, which includes d'Urville Island Scenic Reserve.

DISECT co-chair and island resident Pip Aplin said he remembered hearing kiwi above his home in Manuwhakapakapa Bay in the early 1980s.

Kiwis on d'Urville Island were removed by the wildlife service years ago because of the threat of stoats, but only four old males were found, Aplin said.

Predator Free 2050 Limited chief executive Ed Chignell said the project would provide an important boost to the national 'Predator Free 2050' effort.

'This is a challenging and ambitious project with a lot at stake for wildlife and important opportunities for innovation and learning,' Chignell said.

Marlborough mayor John Leggett said the council was delighted to work with the island community, Ngāti Koata and the Department of Conservation 'to enable the restoration of wildlife and open up new nature-based jobs and opportunities for the island'.

Field-work was expected to start towards the end of 2020.