Marlborough Sounds island stoat project in 'hibernation' after funds pulled

Wednesday, 22 December 2021

A project to eradicate stoats from d'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds has been put on ice after Predator Free 2050 Ltd withdrew $900,000 in funding when access could not be secured to all private land on the island.

Run by the D'Urville Island Stoat Eradication Charitable Trust, the Rangitoto Birdsong project aimed to rid the 16,782-hectare Marlborough Sounds island of stoats in a $3.1 million project over six years.

Trust chairman Rupert Wilson said the project, for which funding had been fully committed, was “up and away”, with contactors engaged, trap lines established and tracks starting to be cut. Then the team lost access to two or three of the larger blocks of land.

Wilson said he did not believe anyone had any concerns with the objectives of the project; it was the access to land itself that was the issue.

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“It's quite complex,” Wilson said, of the land access. “I do hope to find accommodation with the owners concerned. I still remain hopeful.”

Predator Free 2050 acting chief executive Brett Butland said one of the challenges of eradication projects was that they typically covered private and public land.

D'Urville Island has about 80 private landowners and large areas of public conservation land, including the 5869-hectare d’Urville Island Scenic Reserve.

“Eradicating stoats on d’Urville Island is an important objective, but without guaranteed access to the entire target area on the island, eradication isn’t possible – there would always be large pockets of land for stoats to reside in,” Butland said.

“We’re disappointed for the trust as we know how much effort has gone into planning this project to date. Though it's important to note, this is not a closed door.”

Predator Free 2050 hoped the land access issues would be resolved in time “and we can look to support eradication projects on the island in the future”.

“But until that happens, we need to redirect this money to other eradication projects that can get off the ground in the next year,” Butland said.

Wilson said the trustees had decided that without the leadership and support of Crown-owned Predator Free 2050, the trust had no option but to “hibernate” the Rangitoto Birdsong project and return money to funders.

“It’s incredibly disappointing,” he said. “It’s such a fantastic project to eradicate stoats from the island.”

D’Urville Island was already free of ship rats, Norway rats, possums, weasels and rabbits, but stoats had caused the local extinction of little spotted kiwi, yellow-crowned kākāriki and South Island kākā. They also threatened a population of South Island long-tailed bats/pekapeka.

Stoats had also been known to kill little penguins, Wilson said.

It was quiet in terms of birdsong on island but if the stoats were eradicated, the birds could be returned.

“Our hope is that a project aimed at eradicating the island’s stoats will be launched sometime in the future when access to the whole of the island is available,” Wilson said.

Meanwhile, individual landowners would continue to trap stoats in the hope of suppressing the population of the predators.

Wilson is one of the founding members of the trust, which was established in 2004 and had worked with Ngāti Koata on the Rangitoto Birdsong project.

Other project partners along with Predator Free 2050 included Rātā Foundation, Department of Conservation and Marlborough District Council.